 I like the pictures on WSJ Kindle |
| Review Date: December 5, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Robert D. Glover Jr., Linden, NJ USA |
I especially like the WSJ pictures on the Kindle because each is like an artist's hand drawn sketch. I know a picture is coming because the article it's embedded in stops before the end of the page (because there is not enough room for the picture). Then when I press the "next" button the picture appears with a continuation of the article text after it. That breaks up the reading flow in a pleasant, natural way.
I read both New York Times and WSJ on my Kindle. The Kindle has the same organizational menu system regardless of the newspaper-- the section menu shows all the sections of the paper on one screen and the number of articles in each section. Clicking on a section shows the title of each article in that section. It's efficient and simple to quickly pick the best articles of the day in the WSJ and read them thoroughly. When I'm interrupted, for example when switching from a train to a subway, I put the Kindle in screen saver mode. When I can read again, I simply turn off the screen saver and the Kindle shows the same WSJ page I was reading before-- this makes it easy to read articles all the way from beginning to end. I prefer reading WSJ on the Kindle than reading the paper version. |
Very close to the actual paper
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| Review Date: November 27, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Bob Walter, Seattle WA USA |
As a longtime reader of the print edition, I know just where to look every day for the articles I enjoy. I always love the light article in the fourth column on the first page, love the stuff on B1, etc. So, after getting my Kindle, I had some reservations about an electronic edition.
The good news is that while distinctly different from the print edition, the Kindle edition is ortganized logically the same way as my old paper friend. I read a review complaining about the lack of pictures. Since when was the WSJ full of photos?
The WSJ really works in the Kindle format. Navigation is easy. The articles are the same as in the print edition. And like the print edition I can easily ignore the editorials.
The reporting is the best in the newspaper world. Today's Journal article is tomorrow's featured story on the network news.
Best of all, the Journal is available on my Kindle as soon as I wake up. I can read the WSJ with my morning coffee. What luxury! |
The WSJ the way it should be....
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| Review Date: December 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Christopher, Sacramento, CA |
There have been lots of recent complaints about the price of the Kindle WSJ subscription. Unfortunately few of these do justice to the actual publication, which stands out as being remarkable among journalism.
A few things about the Kindle edition which people seem to forget. There is no paper, nothing to throw away, and conversely there aren't 30 pages of advertisements to offset their costs (of which they have tons beyond printing and delivery). On top of that, browsing the Kindle is vastly faster, once you get used to the UI, and it is easier to absorb almost twice the news content in the same time alloted. The Kindle version is a lot like the HBO of news papers, you get great content, but you're going to compensate them for the fact you aren't using basic cable with adverts every 8 minutes... I also think the photos are all there, but I haven't really done a page-by-page comparison to figure that out. No color, but the Kindle can't do color, then again the WSJ didn't have color until 2005 or so (last of the major hold-out papers to avoid the switch).
Another thing important to note about the WSJ is Dow Jones themselves. They have a *huge* news organization, which in the face of universal cutbacks elsewhere is becoming even more noted for their solid reporting. When you get a Dow product, you're buying original news right from the source.
Local papers are a dime a dozen, and they all source the Associated Press. It doesn't matter which local you select (pick a random city, go for the cheapest), and on any given day that paper will match, word for word, 75% of whatever happens to be in your local (most sports except high-school is even AP sourced). Even our local media outlets share reporters between radio, TV, and print. Dow doesn't do this, and they don't wire their stories out for broad inclusion in other papers. I'm sure it's partly corporate ego, but they have a justifiable reputation, so more power to them.
Am I saying I enjoy paying $15/mo for a paper? No, I wish it were free. But at the same time I recognize that the WSJ has always been one of the most expensive papers in the country. Even in a down economy their "new subscriber offers" are at least double what you can negotiate out of a local. They've also been one of the only papers in the world to be growing their subscription base. Another problem... Kindle owners are also early-adopters. They know this. You wouldn't own one if you could only afford used books. It might sound, well capitalist, but I'm pretty certain they realized that $180/yr was something they could collect from a bunch of rabid-reading-fanatics who love a $300 reader (we sort of collectively set ourselves up for that one I think). I do however feel sorry for college students (since e-book readers are eventually going to replace everything I'd guess), since a low-priced student subscription would have been a kind gesture.
A couple other things. I have been a print WSJ subscriber for years, and got rid of it... My day became too busy. It was hard to carve at least 60 minutes with traditional news print when I'm trying to fit everything else in. The Kindle really took care of that. Not only can I find what I need, faster, but I can grab the Kindle from the night stand, read the top stories, before my coffee pot goes off. Plus I don't know how much time I actually wasted looking at the front-page, and then figuring our which sub-sections I needed to jump to for the apparent article... All not a problem on Kindle.
Mind you, I'll admit that I think the Internet is killing journalism. People have started to expect free... And when you remove all profit from a paper, the quality is going to suffer. For whatever reason, people don't make this connection. They run to Google news, and then comment incessantly in forums that the quality of the product is poor, but at the same time no one is helping offset costs. And then you end up with a situation where you always hear the same thing... If you leave yourself only the AP for news, you'll have whatever bias they bring to the table, and it will be inescapable without other voices (especially since I've heard cable news read AP copy verbatim that I read off the Internet only hours before).
Now for the bad things. They don't include comprehensive ticker numbers on the prior day. It makes sense, if you have a Kindle I'm guessing everyone who subscribes also uses a finance site for real-time data, but I tend to be a long-term investor. I check my mutuals infrequently, and being able to save a portfolio on the device would be really helpful. Not sure if that's really Amazon's software problem, or the WSJ subscription.
They have two annoying indexes. They include the typical "What's News", front page index... Which is easily one of the best features of the print publication for saving time. However it's redundant on the Kindle. The Kindle already gives me a very concise, nice, topical, section index. But now I've got "What's News" polluting the virtual cover with links in addition to the standard functionality which is already quick and clean. I really wish I could shut-off the double-view. However, this is a big personal choice. Originally the Kindle version didn't have "What's News" and long-time readers were fuming... You can see their responses in the older comments. "What's news isn't there, I can't find anything!" (etc). The problem being is that you can, but you couldn't treat the print and Kindle version in the same idiom, you had to use the Kindle navigation. They made a lot of people happy by putting it back.
Also, I think you need to make sure your personal information with Amazon is correct. It seems that I get a lot of articles that come out of local Dow Jones offices. As a result, the Kindle WSJ seems to have a healthy amount of Nor Cal stories (but then again SF is an economic hub so those local stories might actually be national). I suspect if I bought a true "national" edition, some of those stories would be missing from the print copy. Or likewise if my Amazon billing address were off, I wonder if I'd be getting useless regional news from the wrong geographic area. If you subscribe, and have odd relevance problems, I'd check there (maybe you need to correct your auto-pay address data, cancel the sub, and resubscribe, I don't know but some people have mentioned content issues which I don't seem to have. Maybe they use an out-of-state business credit card or something).
You also don't get the full WSJ-online feel. If you're so wired into the markets you *need* hour-by-hour updates, then you'll be left behind. Perhaps they do mid-day updates, but I've never noticed because my recent daily routine has been to block out "news time" and then give it a rest until the next day. Although I admit that's just my style, and trying to keep productive in ever smaller amounts of time.
And finally, a big plus. No celebrity news. Seriously. I don't care what young actress had what problems, or what sports star might have been cheating on whom. Unless it has legitimate news exposure (like broken endorsements costing major firms billions of revenue), I don't care. Dow has always been good for figuring out "what's news" and just leaving it at that. Even if I don't like one of their stories, I at least respect the fact it's probably meaningful for someone in a totally different line of work.
Oh, and for those of you that like the op-eds, they seem to be all there. Generally I'm a centrist, so I like the hard articles best, but there are very few outlets for intelligent conservative commentary these days. Most bloggers just throw fireballs and insult people, but the WSJ and NYT have managed to keep above that. I'm glad to see that tradition continues on the Kindle. It's nice to read it first, and then later hear about the "controversial op-ed" on the Sunday talk shows.
Bottom line: Is it expensive compared to other Kindle news offerings? Yes. Is it also better than the other papers? Yes. Can you get the WSJ cheaper if you go on-line or new-subscribe print option? Yes (however their renewals are rarely kind, unless you wait them out to start begging, which is inevitable. You'll need to go without any paper for about 90 days before they typically offer the same deal -- first renewal offer was about $199 last it hit me while still a print subscriber). Is the Kindle version worth .25 cents more per day than the cheapest rate? Yes, considering I can read twice as much news in the same amount of time. |
Bad reviews are dated
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| Review Date: April 24, 2010 |
| Reviewer: R. Clark, |
Just to dispell old reviews which are no longer relevant:
-There are pictures
-There is a What's News section
As far as price, the kindle version is comparable to the actual paper, not the online site since it is delivered directly to you, portable, and available offline. If the online version were sufficient, why would you want this version in the first place? Secondly, even better than the online or paper version, there are no ads. I wish Amazon had ad-supported content, but they don't. In the mean time, at least you don't get any ads for paying a premium. Lastly, as MANY reviewers have mentioned, the rates you see on [...] for the paper delivered are INTRODUCTORY. Sign up and come back in a year and then see what you think of these prices.
Overall, this is a great edition, much more accessible than either the online or print copies. |
don't be fooled by print promotional pricing!
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| Review Date: September 5, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Red Angel, New York, NY |
I am a long time WSJ print subscriber and just cancelled my print.
the reviews talking about pricing of print/online vs kindle are missing the fine print - "new subscribers only".
The kindle price is cheaper than the print price. More than enough to make up for paying for online access separately (which you have to pay additional for when you have a print subscription)
If you like the WSJ and you are a Kindle user, this is the way to go. |
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