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As an avid reader I recently came across something that highly interested me. It's the Amazon Kindle. Basically, it's a high tech gadget that you can download any book to via a wireless connection. Along with books you can download newspapers, magazines, etc.. etc..
It seems like a fantastic thing to have especially if you travel. It's lightweight and compact (the size of a dvd case - all three dimensions) and seems like an ideal thing to have for many readers.
Has anyone used it, and if so, what are your opinions? I'm thinking about getting one but I'd like to hear what some have to say first.
As an avid reader I recently came across something that highly interested me. It's the Amazon Kindle. Basically, it's a high tech gadget that you can download any book to via a wireless connection. Along with books you can download newspapers, magazines, etc.. etc..
It seems like a fantastic thing to have especially if you travel. It's lightweight and compact (the size of a dvd case - all three dimensions) and seems like an ideal thing to have for many readers.
Has anyone used it, and if so, what are your opinions? I'm thinking about getting one but I'd like to hear what some have to say first.
I don't have one of these, but have heard good things about it. Have you checked out the reviews of it on Amazon? I always read their reviews before I buy there. It sounds like it would be most convenient for traveling, but I have to say, I still like to hold a book in my hands and feel the paper and smell that lovely book smell . If you decide to buy one, please let us know how you like it!
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The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau
I just bought one for my husband for his birthday and he absolutely LOVES IT! He's an avid reader, about 2 books/week. He thinks it's the greatest invention ever! It's light (amazingly so) and simple to navigate. The screen is also very easy on the eyes, something I was worried about. We travel alot so it's the perfect thing ... no more dragging heavy books w/us. It's fast too when downloading books. A whole novel takes a minute or less.
I just ordered one. I love to read and don't live too close to a book store. It will be perfect for traveling as well. I'll let you know what I think of it when I try it.
I see they say with wireless turned off, you can "read books for a week" between recharging. Can you tell me about how many hours of actual use you're getting between needing to charge it?
Hi, all, coming over from a discussion in the Rural forum where I mentioned my Kindle...
I've had my Kindle for about 6 months now, and I read, on average 4-10 books a week. About 1/3 to 1/2 of those I buy through Amazon, a smaller percentage through the other fee-based download services and the rest are through the many "free" services (for out-of-copyright books). I do still buy regular paper books, but much fewer and only for things I consider "all time keepers" or reference books. Ordinarily I have more books than I have bookshelves (hence boxes of books next to bookshelves), and had to do a "recycling" run (resell or donate) on books every couple months. The Kindle has cut that down considerably.
I'm not sure how many actual hours I get off a charge, but, if I have the wireless turned off (and I generally only turn the wireless on every couple days to pick up a couple of the magazines I subscribe to and download anything new I've ordered) it needs to be charged every 5 days or so.
I live in a rural area without a lot of access to a book store, and one of the great features of Amazon's book store is that you can download a free sample of almost all the books they carry. The sample could be a couple pages to an entire chapter. Books ordered directly from Amazon are downloaded via the Whispernet EVDO (a type of cell phone service - you can check on service areas on Amazon's Kindle page), and there are a couple of other services that allow you to download directly also. Otherwise you download the books to a computer and then to the Kindle. You can also manage your book library on the computer (the Kindle has a very poor internal book management system, and it's easier to do on the computer). I currently have something like 150 books resident on the Kindle and probably another 200 on the computer.
On the Kindle you can search on entire book, clip quotes, make notes, and bookmark pages. The clippings and the notes can be downloaded to a computer. You can change the font size through 6 sizes, from around 6pts to about 20 pts (larger than a large-font book). Obviously, the larger the font size, the fewer words on a line or page. The Kindle doesn't use regular page numbers, it uses "locations" (because changing the font size changes the number of pages).
In the 6 months of daily use, I've had to do a soft reset twice (the on-off switch) and a hard reset (the little paperclip hole in the back) once. About 3 months ago I bought my DH one and we can share books (but not magazines or newspapers) between the two. You can have up to 6 Kindles on one account. Other than Kindles on the same account, you can't share Amazon-purchased books with other Kindles, nor can you sell them. Most books on Amazon (even new "hardbacks") are $9.99 or less, with the majority in the $5-$6 range, but, as said earlier, there are a lot of free books available - and these are legal downloads of material that is no longer in copyright (Austen, Dickens, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway, Shakespeare, Conrad, Cather, etc etc). The book selection on Amazon is hit-and-miss. There are some authors (J.K. Rowling is one) who don't like ebooks and don't allow their work to be formatted for ANY ebook, not just the Kindle. The selection of books which have been formatted tends toward much newer stuff. If you are looking for a 10 yr old book, odds are it's not been formatted for ebook yet. On the other hand, Amazon and the other companies are adding content at a pretty good rate so it's possible what you are looking for will be available. Most ebooks from Amazon do have Digital Rights Management (DRM) built in so that books can't be copied. This is not true of the free stuff.
The formats used are good for reading fiction and non-fiction, with the exception of graphic-heavy books. The e-ink displays do NOT handle images all that well, and if you want to read an equation-heavy textbook it can be difficult. Some of this is because the texts aren't formatted well and some of it is because the Kindle doesn't display special font characters - or foreign language characters. (Other ebook readers allow multiple fonts, but not the Kindle. Not yet, anyway). The Kindle does not display PDFs very well, either, and they have to be converted to a format it can read (either you do it yourself or send it through Amazon's converter). The results can be less than wonderful, especially if you have any kind of images in them.
Ebook readers use an e-ink display, which is a lot like paper. It's not an LCD screen, like a computer or an iPhone or a PDA, so it doesn't glow or emit light (meaning it's not back-lit, either, and you have to use a clip-on reading light in the dark or low light). You can read them outside easily, just like a paper book (and unlike any kind of LCD screen). The screen on a Kindle is a rectangle about 6" diagonally, or about the size of a regular paperback book.
One of the polarizing issues on the Kindle (other than being an ebook reader in the first place rather than paper) is the device design. It has two enormous buttons on the sides (and two smaller ones), making it very easy to flip forward or backward. It IS easy to change pages, which means it's also easy to inadvertently change pages. When I first got it, I found it frustrating, but now it's not a problem. The little "thumbboard" keyboard is somewhat funky, but at least when you are in reading mode it's automatically disabled, so pressing any one key does nothing. Menu functions are performed via a funny little click wheel, something like a scroll wheel on a mouse. The menu is a little klunky and takes a bit of getting used to (although nothing like getting used to the first introduction of Microsoft Windows, for example).
It has some "experimental" features, like a web browser, that I don't really use - the Kindle is a good ebook reader, but it's a lousy web browser, sort of a brain-dead mobile browser. This is not what you buy it for.
There are other ebook readers - Sony, the Irex Iliad, the Cybook Bookeen and more coming. I thought about the Sony, but I had a huge hassle with their customer service over a rather expensive - but junk - laptop I bought, and I wasn't feeling so inclined. The Kindle is expensive, priced (IMO) just out of "toy" range, but for me, living in a rural area, it's not really a toy. I made a choice to buy the Kindle(s) and forgo satellite TV service and haven't been sorry at all. It is a quirky little device, but it does the single, simple thing it was designed for - reading books - well.
I'm probably one of the most wired people I know with a desktop computer at home, as well as a laptop, iPhone and digital camera I take almost everywhere. I'm also an avid book reader.
I've played with my mother's Amazon Kindle, and I've played around with the Sony reader at the Border's store. Both are indeed pretty cool devices. I would definitely like to have one to carry dozens of business books and other large textbooks (textbooks not possible yet, but maybe forthcoming?). That would be an amazing reference.
For pure pleasure reading, though, I don't think I could give up the actual book. There is just something I find very relaxing about putting all technology away and picking up a physical book and flipping the pages.
Coincidentally, my husband and I were just discussing the Kindle after I read this article. Apparently, you can get free internet service with the Kindle. Unfortunately, it's out of stock until February. It would be convenient to read during a trip or just taking the train to work.
Clip:
It is difficult to quantify the success of the Kindle, since Amazon will not disclose how many it has sold and analysts’ estimates vary widely. Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, a book market research company, said he believed Amazon had sold as many as 260,000 units through the beginning of October, before Ms. Winfrey’s endorsement. Others say the number could be as high as a million.
Many Kindle buyers appear to be outside the usual gadget-hound demographic. Almost as many women as men are buying it, Mr. Hildick-Smith said, and the device is most popular among 55- to 64-year-olds.
So far, publishers like HarperCollins, Random House and Simon & Schuster say that sales of e-books for any device — including simple laptop downloads — constitute less than 1 percent of total book sales. But there are signs of momentum. The publishers say sales of e-books have tripled or quadrupled in the last year.
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. If you decide to buy one, please let us know how you like it!
B-day gift!
