Should I get my mum a Kindle?

[Edmund von der Burg]

On 20 September 2011 14:02, David Cantrell <david at cantrell.org.uk> wrote:
> My mother is a technophobe, and furthermore, she's not allowed to have a
> computer anyway, because then she'd ask me for help with it.

Quite right!

> However, she does like iPlayer.  Specifically, she likes to phone me and
> ask me to "acquire" radio programmes for her that she missed.  Until
> now, I've done this either by putting them on my iPad so she can listen
> to them when I visit, or putting them on a CD.  But now I've run out of
> blank CDs.
>
> As I am a geek, I would like to solve the problem by throwing a
> ridiculous amount of technology at it.  After all, what's the point of
> living in The Future if I can't solve her problem by deploying more
> computing power than existed on the entire planet when she was born?
>
> So ... a Kindle.  If I buy her a Kindle with 3G (it has to be 3G, cos
> there's no wifi network available) can I "push" audio content to it?  Or
> if not, could I configure the web browser on the Kindle to have
> something that I control as its default page, and she can download audio
> from that?

Err - yes you can but it will be painful.

You can email stuff to a kindle, and if it comes from a whitelisted
email address it'll download straight away. But there is a data cost
to doing that over 3G. Not much, but for audio it'll be biggish.

The kindle is awesome for reading and the sound it pretty good. But
the navigation on it is a pain as the screen is slow to update. No
problem for page turns, but real issue for anything that is meant to
be interactive.

If left with the wireless on and when playing audio the battery is not
superb - again not the usage it is designed for.

Perhaps an iPod Touch with some cloud syncing so you can put music
onto it? No idea about the details though but if my toddler can work
an iPad your Mum should be able to too :)

Cheers,
  Edmund.


> --
> David Cantrell | Bourgeois reactionary pig
>
> THIS IS THE LANGUAGE POLICE
> PUT DOWN YOUR THESAURUS
> STEP AWAY FROM THE CLICHE
>