The latest on smartphones (and other gadgets)

So my Kindle’s screen stopped working the other day. Well not the whole screen, but a section of it sort of froze with bits of images on it. I tried all the self-help stuff, like pressing the power switch for 30 seconds, then pressing the Home screen, and so on. Nothing worked. Eventually I phoned Amazon’s customer service number. Within 5 minutes of quizzing me and getting me to perform diagnostics on the device, the guy on the phone said Amazon will ship me a new Kindle! All the way to Cape Town! At no cost!  If that is not mind-blowingly impressive then I don’t know. Especially for a South African. Will it be too much to hope that they send it via courier and not via the postal service?

The Amazon Kindle is the best thing since the smartphone. There is nothing more convenient than deciding 11pm on a Saturday night that you must have a certain book, and 5 minutes later you are actually reading it on your Kindle.

f you don’t have a Kindle yet, buy one. If you have one, then you will be interested to hear that Amazon has released a software update for your ebook reader. It will be sent over-the-air to your Kindle if you are in the US or if you own one of the new international versions, otherwise you can download it from Amazon to your pc and zap to the Kindle via usb. The update comes with two important improvements:

1. Improved battery life. A improvement of 85% was mentioned somewhere. I am already getting about 2 weeks on one battery charge (I’m not using the wireless connection), so am expecting 3-4 weeks with the update.
2. PDF support. I have been getting all my books from Amazon, but with the new update will be able to get books from anywhere and load them on my Kindle, as long as I can get them in PDF. Nice very nice.

Yes I know this blog is called Get Smart(phone), but the Kindle is very smart and I have one, so I had to mention this story. The Kindle and its current and future rivals such as B&N’s Nook, are game changers. They are going to do for/to books what ipods and digital music downloading have done to cds.

If you live in South Africa like I do, you can now buy an international version Kindle directly from Amazon for around $300 + shipping or from a local on-line shop such as Wantitall for ZAR3000. The new PDF ability means that you will be able to get lots of books, especially the classics, completely free from many websites, but if you want to buy the latest bestseller from Amazon you will pay in the region of $10/ZAR75. Assuming an average price of ZAR200 for books printed on paper, by the time you have read 24 $10 ebooks you will have made back the money spent on buying the Kindle. Starting to look like a no-brainer to me.