You can check Sprint’s cell coverage online:

http://coverage.sprintpcs.com

It looks like they have at least some coverage on the coast (I checked Cannon Beach and Seaside as examples), so you’d have to check for your location.

If you’re in an area where they don’t have fast 3G EVDO coverage, you should still be able to get the slower (about 150Kbps) 1xRTT coverage. I can’t guarantee that it will work on your Kindle, but if the map says you’ll have coverage, that’s a good sign.

Also, if you’re ever somewhere you have internet access on a computer, but no Whispernet coverage, you can buy books from the Kindle store, download them from Amazon’s “Your Media Library”, then drop them on your Kindle via USB. And don’t forgot all of the amazing free sources of books for the Kindle - manybooks.net, feedbooks.com, Creative Commons, Project Gutenberg, Archive.org, etc.

Good luck and have fun!

When you buy ebooks and download them to Kindle, can you decide later to use another manufacturer’s device?

No (well, not yet - there’s the Digital Text platform that Amazon is trying to build, that could include interoperable DRM in the future, but nothing solid yet. It’s similar to how iTunes DRM locks you in to using iTunes/iPods.) But you don’t have to get books from only Amazon. I’d say 75% of the dozens of books I have on mine right now come from DRM-free sources, like Creative Commons, etc.

Also, if you drop you Kindle in the pool this summer, is there a way to recover the ebooks you bought? (I’m assuming this is yes).

Yes! Books you buy from Amazon, along with your place in them, any notes or annotations you’ve made, get synced over the air to Amazon, and if you lose/break your device, you can sync them back pretty painlessly. You can also delete books off of the Kindle to make room, and re-download them from Amazon later, from “Your Media Library” they create for you.

Finally, if your Kindle does fall in the pool and you decide to replace it with another mfg’s product, can you recover your ebooks to another mfg’s reader?

No, see above for potential interoperablity, though.

The question is, are you buying ebooks really or are you buying content which is locked into Amazon’s reader?

You’re buying ebooks locked to Amazon’s reader, the same way you buy music locked to iTunes/iPods from Apple. Yes, DRM sucks. Yes, we’d be better off without it. But we have to start somewhere, and it’s not as bad as it could be. I did wrote a couple of posts a while ago on my thoughts on the Kindle’s DRM (http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com/2007/12/rebuttal-to-amazon-kindle-critics/ and http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com/2008/04/why-ebooks-are-a-better-entertainment-value-than-almost-anything-else/). I’m not defending it, because DRM is evil and needs to die, but for me, it’s at least tolerable.

First of all, think of the convenience the Kindle provides you. Now, you can read all of your favorite newspapers, blogs, books, magazines etc. anywhere and everywhere. You do not have to worry about the weight and size of your reading material and about how you will transport it on the move.

Second, you can do and learn more with what would have been wasted down time while you wait for this or that. You can just pull it out whenever you have a few minutes here and there.

Third, think of the environmental cost savings. If we, as a collected whole, begin to do more and more of our reading from “paper-like” digital devices, we will be cutting down less trees, maintaining and even increasing oxygen levels and perhaps even fighting global warming.

Fourth, you begin reading content that you may have otherwise missed and will become more and more educated/cultured as you seek out new and different reading materials.

All in all, while $359 for this device plus the cost of the books etc. seems high, you are getting a great deal of value out of it, be it value from convenience, value from supplementary education, value from environmental protection or other value.

I still would recommend this to anyone! Please visit http://www.prokindle.com!

The truth is, for “newsy” stuff, I tend to rely more on my blog/site subscriptions in Google Reader. I find the Kindle better suited to longer form reading (books, mostly), and quick reference lookups on Wikipedia, etc.

I DID try out the blog subscription feature, with Ars Technica (one of my favorite sites/communities, and about the only one left that doesn’t provide a full text RSS feed), just to get a feel for how the mechanism works. It’s pretty slick - once you subscribe, the new stuff just automatically appears on your Kindle. You can page through the stories, jump to a particular one, or search through them (like you can with all text on your Kindle).

Ultimately, I canceled before the 14 day trial period was over, because again, I just didn’t find myself using the Kindle for “newsy” type stuff, and I just got more and more behind on the subscription, so by the time I DID get around to reading it, it had tons of items to catch up on, and lots of them were old.

The idea is great, and I had nothing against the way it’s implemented. It just doesn’t fit my reading model, so I don’t subscribe, for the same reason I don’t subscribe to the dead tree edition of my local newspaper - it just piles up, unread, until I get around to throwing it away.