183 of 185 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gave it time to grow on me, August 1, 2009
This review is from: USA TODAY (Kindle Edition)
I am an enthusiastic Kindle 2 user...love the product for reading fiction books. I also like USA Today, and have read it at lunch nearly every work day for years. It is an entertaining smattering of news on a variety of subjects. However, putting the USA Today into the Kindle 2 seemed doubtful to me. Although the Kindle 2 is a great cover to cover reader, it is not yet a great random access device, so I wondered if it would work ok for me. I acquired the trial subscription.
After a day, I was ready to give it up, and resolved not to try another newspaper. I tried to dive into the middle of the paper and navigate to each article I wanted to read. I was trying to read the USA Today like I would navigate a web site, and I found it difficult to keep track of where I was. Score 0 for random access on the Kindle 2. It would help if the main table of contents would list all the articles. In fairness, there are a lot of articles to list, and you can get a multipage list of articles in each section with the first few words. But that is a lot to wade through. Still better access than the paper version, but the Kindle 2 could do better than that.
But a few days later, my local morning paper never arrived, and I decided to read USA Today from Kindle 2. This time, I read it like a book, starting at the front page. I found I could easily navigate to the beginning of each article using the 5-way controller, and stopped at the articles I wanted to read. This method really sold the subscription to me. This approach is exactly how I read the paper version, starting at the front and continuing to the back, and the Kindle 2 was outstanding.
I thought about this a little more. I can get the USA Today for free on the web site. Why bother with the Kindle edition. But a web site doesn't present each article in front of you, for you to decide to read. You have to navigate to each one. You can't easily tell whether you have seen or read all of the articles for the day. I guess that is what makes the Kindle edition better than the web site.
I have to add something about delivery. I subscribed to the paper version of USA Today for a short time. Because we have no home delivery here, most days it arrived in my afternoon mail, sometimes the next day. Not reliable. So I went back to purchasing it off the newsstand each day at full price. With the Kindle 2 subscription, the paper is ALWAYS there in the morning a few seconds after turning on the device. I don't have to find a newsstand, and the price is less.
Needs sports scores, but the Kindle edition of USA Today is a good buy!
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203 of 217 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great paper!, January 13, 2009
This review is from: USA TODAY (Kindle Edition)
The USA Today via the Kindle is well done. We normally subscribe to the USA Today and the Washington Post. Yes you lose the color graphics but that is not a detriment if you want to read the news while traveling without having to find the paper on sale. Navigation around among the sections and the articles is very easy and intuitive. My husband had never used my Kindle and I gave it to him to read the paper and he had no problem with it. Don't compare the USA Today with other newspapers, for the USA Today gives you just the facts and you provide your own opinion as it should be. Reading a story in the USA Today is about ½ the size of the exact same story in the Post but the Post provides a lot of opinion which I don't need. I form my own opinion after reading the paper. The Editorial page along with the Letters to the Editor are on the Kindle along with the sports, life, and all the world news. Great paper!!
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89 of 96 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some of what USA Today readers like, much missing..., December 26, 2008
This review is from: USA TODAY (Kindle Edition)
Hard to evaluate based on one edition, particularly as this one (Dec 26) has a fair amount of its content focused on "year in review" sort of articles. I will try this again when traveling, pairing it with the WSJ. It probably will fall into the guilty pleasure bucket for me and I suspect that the NY Times will edge it out most days.
The Good:
1. NY Times-like layout, using the easy to navigate "sections, articles" format.
2. Word length indication at the beginning of each article
3. Use of sub-headings within many articles
4. National scope of coverage for sports
The Not-So-Good
1. Very few pictures and no graphics
2. No sports standings (they could have really made this a "killer ap")
3. Quite a few of the shorter stories left me wanting a bit more (I know, this is USA Today!)
Net, worth a try at the price, but will probably be trumped by the Times, Post, etc. whose readers want that sort of depth, and will leave readers who like the paper version of USA Today buying their hard copy.
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