I was thrilled to receive my Kindle Paperwhite in the mail yesterday. I took it out, synced it with GoodReads.com, and started trying to figure it out. I can say right off the bat that I love it’s sleek new design and touch screen. I’m also in love with the cover that I picked out for it, even though I’m not usually a fan of pastels.
When I bought the Paperwhite, it was supposed to be intuitive. For the most part that’s been true, except 
for a few features that were harder to figure out than I had hoped (or expected). I consider myself a capable technology user, as I work as a computer professional. However, there were a few instances I went online for answers to questions I couldn’t figure out. I as also dismayed that there wasn’t really a catch-all webpage or help link that answered everything. I searched by several criteria, just to make sure that the problem with the search results wasn’t me. (This also surprised Tkout, because normally I prefer to ask him for technology help, rather than head into the vastness of the Internet.) As you can see from the picture on the left, it’s a very hot item in this house! Both Zelda and Chloe want to get their paws on my Kindle Paperwhite!
Below are some of the features I struggled with, and how to overcome them. If you haven’t purchased the Kindle Paperwhite yet, I highly recommend it. It’s a great investment, even if it takes you a little bit to get used to it.
- Collections. Managing my collections had my absolutely shouting obscenities, but I’m going to own up to it and say that it’s totally my fault. There are a couple of ways to manage your collections, but so far, I’ve only dealt with books I’ve purchased via Amazon. (There are ways to include books purchased elsewhere, but I haven’t tinkered with that yet.)
- The Hard Way: You can manually add books to collections by holding your finger down on the title and waiting for the dialog box. However, this can add to mistakes such as opening the book, removing it from the device, and other missteps.
- The Easy Way: Let Amazon.com do the work for you! Follow these steps:
- Open amazon.com (or smile.amazon.com, if you’re donating to a charity)
- On the right, hover over Accounts & Lists, which will open up another menu
- Under Your Account, go to Manage Your Content and Devices
In this menu, you’ll see all of the books that you’ve purchased, or are shared with you if you share an Amazon account within a household. From there, you can add books to collections in batches of 10, you can delete books, or send them to other registered devices. You can also register and deregister devices on the account. That’s where I deregistered my old Kindle, registered my new Kindle, and changed the device’s name. If you have your kindle open while you’re making the changes, you can see it happen with only a few second delay. (However, to show the new device name, I had to reboot my Kindle. Not a big deal, but just mentioning it.)
- Backing out of a book. I was able to open books to read them, but I didn’t know how to get back to the home screen. Since I was a dedicated Apple user for years, I automatically looked for the home button. As it turns out, when you’re reading, the menu containing the home button and other options is hidden. If you lightly tap the top of the screen, the menu drops down. You can go to the store, bookmark your place, go home, back out of the book and go to the collection, etc. Neither hard, nor an inconvenience. Once you know what you’re doing. If you decide you don’t want to do anything in the menu, gently tap once anywhere on the book and the menu will close.
I realize that struggling with two features isn’t the end of the world, but they are, in my humble opinion, two of the most important features of the Kindle. Most people like to organize their books, and certainly it’s important to be able to get out of a book and go back to the home screen.
While trying to overcome my obstacles, I stumbled on some features that I really enjoy. Such as the ability to change the font of the book. At first, I thought that was just kitschy and neat. I didn’t realize how much easier it would make the books to read. You can also choose whether or not your progress will be measured in page numbers or as a %. You can also choose to have your GoodReads.com lists display on your home screen.
I can’t say enough about how much I love my Kindle Paperwhite. I can’t believe that it took me so long to catch on to the electronic book craze, but here I am. What format do you prefer? Do you have a Kindle or other e-reader? Let me know in the comments!
