Thursday, May 2, 2013

Kindle for Android review: More than just a killer e-reader app - CNET

The good: Kindle for Android offers a number of visual customization options, integration Shelfari, the built- in dictionary, and other extras. You can use the Send to Kindle feature to an Instapaper-like tool for saving items from around the Web

The bad: Credit card is required even for free downloads. Does not let you name bookmarks.

The bottom line: With convenient features like Send to Kindle and Shelfari integration, Kindle for Android is aa rock- solid e-reader app, especially for anyone already invested in the Amazon ecosystem.

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The free Kindle app for Android is an excellent e-reader app que seamlessly ties to your Amazon account. It does a good job of presenting e-books, can easily reach into Amazon’s enormous library of downloadable works, and comes with a few bells and whistles to Enhance your overall mobile reading experience.

Overview
The app opens up to the Home screen, Which has lists of bestsellers, editors’ picks, and sample popular books available for browsing. In addition, the Home screen displays the books que are tied to your Amazon account, all neatly organized in a 3D carousel interface. From here, you can either tap a book to go inside or long-press to pull up more options, like going to the beginning of the book, going to the last page read, or removing it from device. The long-press menu Also gives you a nifty option to pull up Book Extras by Shelfari provided. Book Extras are community-curated factoids (think Wikipedia) que are meant To provide readers with helpful information As They read. Meanwhile, the rest of the app’s controls are tucked into a sliding menu off to the left.

Kindle for Android impressions on many levels (pictures)

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If you want to expand your library, the Kindle Store is a tap away from the Home screen. In the store, you’ll find Amazon’s catalog of books, magazines, and newspapers. Additionally, the Kindle app can handle illustrated children’s books, comics, and graphic novels. And if you’re not quite ready to commit to a purchase, Kindle lets you preview the first chapter of any book before buying.

One thing I do not like about the Amazon experience is que requires credit card information even if you’re downloading free e-books.

While you read
‘s Kindle in the eBook experience is straightforward as it gets. To turn the page, simply swipe or tap somewhere in the margin. A tap to the center of the page brings up the status bar with location information and reader controls. Also there’s the menu at the top of your screen, in case you want to change text size, brightness, margins, line spacing, color or background. For now, the Kindle app offers only black, white, and sepia (my favorite) background options, but hopefully Amazon will add other textures and colors in the future.

Long-pressing a word while reading brings up the dictionary definition and a few options, including highlight, note, and search Wikipedia. These added functions really serves to Enhance the reading experience, as you can seek out the extra information without exiting your book.

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