Hands-On With The Kindle 365
Amazon's Kindle e-book may have sold out in record time, but there's still a lot of discussion about the device's merits. Neil Gaiman likes it well enough, but it's sent Robert Scoble into a fit of apoplectic rage. For a real, meaty, hands-on look at the way the device operates in everyday life, Gamers With Jobs writer Julian Murdoch has a slice of life with the Kindle. He takes us through his Thanksgiving holiday weekend with the device, noting the quirks (good and bad) that cropped up with Amazon's new toy. "Short of reading in the tub, the Kindle is easier to read in more places, positions, and situations than a physical book ... But it's far from perfect. It is expensive. The cover, which I find completely necessary, is in desperate need of more secure attachment (Velcro works great). The book selection is less-than-perfect, although I imagine this will improve with every passing day. And Amazon needs marketing help. The Kindle's launch reeked of 'get it out fast.' The big-picture marketing efforts (like video demonstrations and blurbs from authors) were great, but simple things like communicating how freakin' easy it is to get non-Amazon content on to the device, for free, remain horribly misunderstood."
Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand why people would buy this at ~$400. May as well just go and get a low end tablet pc, which you could use for a multitude of other uses.
I'm not the NYT's typical top-ten reader, so I'm not sure something like this would immediately appeal. The last few books I've read were printed from 10 to 50 years ago, which would place them well beyond this device. Pros and Cons just don't weigh enough in favour and like I said, what does this do that a tablet couldn't do? Maybe when they drop it to ~$50 and I can sync it like my iPod to my favourite content feeds each morning it would hold some promise.
Also, books don't require batteries. I've got several devices around now, which all have some form of rechargeable (and expensive to replace) cells. I worry a bit about the availability of replacement cells several years down the road.
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Interesting)
+ Reader has to be under $100.
+ Books have to be half the price of print books or lower.
+ No bullshit DRM. I better be able to back the content up, copy it to my ipod, save it on my hard drive. Whatever.
+ I better be able to resell it, just like I can resell a used book. Otherwise, all of this is just a run-around way for the publishing industry to attacked the used book trade, which they hate more than almost anything else on earth (including their loathing of public libraries).
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You're out of luck. It's one of its features.
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Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Informative)
"Hypothetical" competitor to the kindle? There already are such devices which predate Amazon's own release as well. This one [bookeen.com] looks good. Again, a highish price but it looks better than Amazon's own (Linux support being one of, though not the top, reason for that). Sadly, like the Kindle, it has also sold out completely, but I'm seriously thinking of putting one on order.
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:4, Interesting)
Well if you see the DRM on the Kindle as a selling point, then that does narrow the field (though the device I linked to does support MobiPocket which is one of the most popular DRM book formats, I'm told). However, DRM is a minus point to me. The frustration it can cause me can actually push a purchase into negative value to my life. There are alternatives to DRM. For example, I have purchased numerous PDF books with watermarks. And given that production and distribution costs fall to close to zero for the publisher, you can even dispense with security altogether and still make a healthy profit as BAEN books seem to do.
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I don't, but I'm sure it had a lot to do with convincing the content-types to come on board. No mainstream content, no mainstream device.
"... still make a healthy profit as BAEN books seem to do."
That topic is open for debate. Baen releases a lot of books for free in electronic form in order to generate print sales. This works because, currently, there isn't really a good solution for reading ebooks and as such most people will pay for the printed
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Insightful)
-They are
-Explain to me how you do this with paper books?
-Good point, something that must be addressed by congress. So get involved.
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Insightful)
Electronic digital data is very fragile in comparison to it's analog counterpart. The benefits of that fragility however is the ability to cheaply make exact duplicate copies of the data.
When you have digital data with DRM, you have the worst of both worlds essentially.
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think it can happen? It already has. http://www.google.ca/search?q=mlb+drm [google.ca]
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-They are
I'm not sure about that. For me the perfect use of this thing would be to buy copies of the dozens of coding reference books I've bought in dead-tree form over the years. Toss it in my briefcase and I'm ready for the office, a trip, or home. Unfortunately, the technical books listed (I didn't look at all of them) are only a couple of dollars cheaper than their dead-tree alternative. The Kindle edition of _Core Java 2, Volume I_ is $31 while the dead-tree, paperback version is $34. Are you telling me t
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Interesting)
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I don't need lots of books cluttering up my life, so I'd be just fine with digital only, given cheap prices and great freedom to backup/use/etc how I see fit. If I have to re-buy it in ten years when media formats change or they stop supporting some special format, then I'm screwed. A physical book c
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Informative)
How about free [mobipocket.com]? Provided, of course, that you provide your own Blackberry, Palm, Smarter-Than-Thou-Phone, PC or other geek-faux-wang. If you don't already have one you can probably find something acceptable at or near your $100 price point. It won't have the big e-Paper screen that the Kindle does, but I have no troubles using a smaller display.
e-Book pricing is all over the place right now, with titles ranging anywhere from free [baen.com], free [manybooks.net], or free [gutenberg.org], all the way to about the same as printed books [mobipocket.com]. As the market grows expect to see more pressure on prices which should force things down a bit, but don't hold your breath.
Some books ship with bullshit included while others come pas-des-merde-des-vasche. With a good reader you can feed it anything from flat ASCII text, HTML or PDF files through to insanely encrypted tracts of bull and have something readable come out the other end. The choice is yours.
Yes, you can absolutely resell the hardware that you read books on just like you resell a used book. Reselling _data_ is a trickier problem, as it is nothing like a used book. Besides, the only way for second hand ebooks to have any value would be if they included "Bullshit DRM". Which do you want, resale or steerpoopage?
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If you have a choice between the new hardcover for $15 or the ebook for $10, and you can later sell the hardcover for $5, then in both cases you can't recover $10 of the original purchase price. In the end, the ebook saves you a trip to the used bookstore, and a tree.
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- Book price: I agree fully; also I noted that while Amazon has a decent price for bestsellers (9.99), many technical books are just as absurdly expensive as they are now ($50-70 and up). I think I'll just stick to the library...
- Backups: Amazon backs up all your purchases automatically (unlike Apple iTunes, I might add).
- Resell; probably won't happen, but rental/checkout might. If this gets popular the universities will demand bulk subscriptions (e.g. I h
Sprint EV-DO might be part of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Take a look at the specs [amazon.com].
This thing doesn't sync, nor use WiFi. Instead, it downloads content through Sprint's wireless 3G network (the same one that their phones use). There is no subscription fee for this (the data service). It will also download newspaper and magazine subscriptions daily (no syncing or need to find a WiFi hotspot).
Perhaps their pricing model is built around including some type of specially negotiated data plan with Sprint that is amortized over the projected lifetime of the device. (Just speculation).
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True books don't require batteries. OTOH, books don't have built in dictionaries, thesauruses and access to wikipedia.
You also can't adjust the font size.
It's almost like they're different things.
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You also can't instantly search for any word or phrase inside a paper book.
You also can't carry 100 paper books in the space of one paper book.
You also can't instantly buy a new paper book while riding a train or bus.
The list goes on and on...
So I agree, they ARE different things, and that's the whole point which lots of people seem to be missing!
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For $400 you can get an Asus EEE and read DRM-free PDF files.
Or you can get the Kindle and read DRM-free PDF files. You can also browse blogs and websites, as well as do lookups on wikipedia with the kindle. Plus, unlike the Asus EEE, the Kindle is designed to be easy to hold and operate one handed. Oh, and because it uses the 3G network (no fee, presumably included in cost of the device) you don't need a wireless hotspot, you can read slashdot on the go anywhere you have a cell signal.
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As for reading books on a device... You obviously aren't the target audience if you read that seldom. I -do- read often enough that this is in the right price range. In fact, I bought my n800 to read eBooks on... And the Palm TX before it, and a few pocket PCs before that, and Palms before that... I admit that I've spent more on the de
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PDAs: $150. Why get a Kindle? (Score:4, Informative)
I've been using one for over 2 years as my eBook reader of choice, and almost never open a regular book now. Toss PalmFiction on it, and you have a top notch e-book reader that can read HTML, MS Word, RTF, Text, PalmDoc and a number of other DRM-unencumbered formats.
Want a more integrated experience? There are over 10 other e-book readers for the PalmOS, some which have their own DRM-encumbered formats, some where you can purchase directly from the eBook app, etc.
Project Gutenberg encodes their documents in Plucker format, which has a native PalmOS reader.
The T|X has WiFi and Bluetooth support, and can connect to the internet via cellphone BT link, WiFi router, USB uplink with a computer, or even IrDA.
It has a 320x480 (2.5" x 3.5") screen, which might seem small, but works really well for reading text. Text can be displayed at any size and be linked to dictionary lookup/wikipedia/etc. Plus, the device fits in my pocket, so I'm actually likely to have it when I want to read a book.
Apart from the eBook features, the device can link to common calendaring and address book apps, browse the web, etc., act as a VoIP phone if you install a microphone, be used to watch movies, listen to music, CREATE content and take advantage of the thousands of software applications written for the PalmOS platform.
Oh, and it can run Linux too
Re:Pricing is the big hurdle (Score:5, Informative)
- Cheaper
- Lighter
- Smaller
- Doesn't overheat. (Sadly, TabletPCs aren't that friendly in that regard.)
- More battery friendly
- Easier on the eyes
- EV-DO syncing. (Wikipedia in places your Tablet PC would find challenging.)
It's a specialized device. It's not necessarily for you. I wouldn't say it's a total waste, either. If not for the early adopter price, I'd have one right now.
Misunderstood, no: intentional (Score:3, Insightful)
And it is in Amazon's interest to show people who might otherwise buy material how to avoid buying material... how?
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I really don't see how they could have made it much clear, and the fact that people still don't understand it reflects more on them, I think, than Amazon.
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Re:Misunderstood, no: intentional (Score:4, Interesting)
Free as in Beer? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm not tied to a single source for my books then I may consider it, but I still enjoy they actual book feelings though. Weight, smell, etc... Some parts of reading a book have nothing to do with what is written... At least for me.
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There is still nothing like curling up with a good book. Maybe someday people will do all their reading from a computer screen, a la TNG, but I doubt it.
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Re:Free as in Beer? (Score:4, Funny)
That's like saying you won't drive a car because you like the smell of a horse's ass.
Kindle (Score:4, Funny)
Shock! (Score:2)
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Perhaps that falls under "stuff you upload"?
I wanted to see the "fit of apoplectic rage" (Score:4, Funny)
Oh my.
Re:I wanted to see the "fit of apoplectic rage" (Score:5, Funny)
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But it's a 14 minute video! Linked from the front page of Slashdot!! Oh my.
I wouldn't know. All I saw of the idiot's page was a message telling me I needed to have Javascript installed to see his page.
No thanks. If you need Javascript to make a point, I'm pretty sure I'm not interested.
An analogy (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:An analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
As for non-fiction/newspapers/magazines, these are the kind of things I read on the train. Turning a page is quite tricky when you're jammed in like sardines or you only have one hand free. I think ebooks certainly have the potential to make reading more convenient in various ways.
Extra, Extra! Read All About It! (Score:2, Funny)
Please don't link to video. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please. Just pass them by.
Re:Please don't link to video. (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agree with your point, I don't know if I'd go quite that far. A lot of content, especially in the realm of creative works, is more fully enjoyable in multimedia format. I'd rather hear a band play a song than read the sheet music; I'd rather watch actors perform Shakespeare than read the script.
But for a non-creative work like a gadget review? Put the digicam down. Text will carry the essential value of the content just fine.
Re:Please don't link to video. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Please don't link to video. (Score:5, Insightful)
For us guys your statement holds. However the huge 'romance' novel industry argues that for most women text porn is preferred over visual. Whatever. Wonder if Bezos has made sure to have lots of that sort of stuff ready to sell on the Kindle.
(And no, with eight gray levels and 800x600 resolution forget jpeg/gif.)
not so much pricing of the unit, as the content (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:not so much pricing of the unit, as the content (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that the price of ebooks will likely come down as the demand for them increases, but I doubt they will get to be as cheap as you want them.
Re:not so much pricing of the unit, as the content (Score:5, Informative)
A 50,000 word novel with an average word length of 5 characters (plus 1 for spaces or punctuation), is only 300k. Let's even up it to 150k word novel that's a bit wordy, maybe 9 characters a word (plus 1 for spaces or punctuation). That's still just 1.5mb, half the size of a song. As long as we're talking just plain text, it's pretty cheap. You could even compress it, and text compresses very well.
I can understand having to pay the people who write and maintain the software, the editors, authors, marketing people, possibly artists for cover art.. but bandwidth for the actual transport of the written text is so small that it really shouldn't have that much of an effect on the final price. I can't imagine that the bandwidth costs to transfer 1.5mb of text is greater than several hundred pages of paper, glue, ink, and physical transport to a store (and the store clerks, and all other costs associated with physical retail).
Re:not so much pricing of the unit, as the content (Score:5, Insightful)
bandwidth cost is much lower than the same costs for physical books which include not only printing but also shipping and handling, which alone is probably more than the bandwidth on a per book basis. The grandparent might be a bit off on the $1 number but he is right that nobody is going to pay the same price for a text file that they would pay for a paperback.
Books arent like music, they dont have as much replay vaule, your not sitting on a train thinking, "man, if only I had that book I finished last week I would read it again right now." Most people read one book at a time, or a few books at a time in some cases and there is much less value in carrying your entire library with you. So given all that, why would you buy a device to do that just to pay the same price for the book as you would for a nice bound copy?
Doesn't handle PDFs? (Score:3, Informative)
If it doesn't, why would anyone buy it?
Re:Doesn't handle PDFs? (Score:5, Informative)
I'll wait and see (Score:2)
in Firefox on my Mac) I have to say that this thing looks pretty tempting. I too was skeptical, but the authors have me thinking twice.
I'm not forming opinions 'til I can get my hands on one.
Oh gosh - that last sentence
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Eee PC (Score:3)
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Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, I think I have a theory on why people get so upset about the idea of digital book readers. It's not the DRM, it's not the batteries, it's not whether you can loan your book...
The biggest problem is ego.
People who read a lot of books LIKE having huge bookshelves to impress people on how many books they have. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO read more than thou, hence, I am more intelligent. Bow down and kiss my ring!"
How many of these people keep around books they know they will NEVER read again? Why not donate them to the library, and clear up space on the ol' bookshelf? Because they like having the scorecard on the wall. Having an e-book spoils all the fun.
I think this is actually a generational thing. I'm noticing that younger people have no problem downloading scanned books, reading them, and moving on. I think the ego stroke of the big library will eventually be extinct, like we're seeing with big walls of record collections.
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There's a sort of connection some of us have with books. We just like books. Some people collect stamps, or old comput
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Here we own a lot of books. We also have quite a few bookshelves around the house. We also have a splendid collection of vintage computers. We don't have them to impress people, although we love to invite our friends for dinner. What I like about having books around is the feeling it gives me when I pass by a shelf and grab some book I liked and re-read a couple pages on the couch. What I like about them is the fact I can pass by the shelf and pick one up at random and, when I am gone, my children an
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Or maybe they don't like buying the same books over and over and over again. Once I've read a book, I usually don't want to read it again for another few years but after 3 or 4 years it is almost like it is a new book to me again and I get a tremendous hunger to read it again.
I then have to re-buy the books that I've given away or donated. Often they are no longer in print so I have to get a crapp
1984 (Score:4, Funny)
Different Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
What - that's a load of crap I pulled out of my ass? Congrats. You're right.
Here's what I do know though - you're full of crap about why people like having books, why people read, and ultimately, why people like large libraries. It's for the same reason that people collect records, plates, coins, stamps, insects, door knobs and other things: they like the objects, and they like collecting them. Books t
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As a person who will probably never give up the tangible book with pages (and I am 30, I don't know where that puts me in your 'younger generation'), I have to disagree.
There is more to the book culture than my shelf is bigger than yours.
I look over the shoulder of someone that I am sitting behind on the bus to check out what book they are reading.
I lend out books.
I write in mine.
I like the smell of books.
I borrow books.
I sell books to the used bookstore.
I utilize libraries.
I am
Why the hate? (Score:2)
Publishers, DRM, etc (Score:2, Interesting)
Firstly, even though this article points out explicitly that you can put your own content on the Kindle, lots of people still seem to refuse to believe it. You can! And you can use USB to backup the files, as well.
Secondly, DRM isn't really Amazon's fault. All publishers are really, really aware of electronic rights. There are major disputes between the Author's Guild and publishers because of this. Recently, in
Content first; price second. (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a hardware problem; it's never been a hardware problem. My year-2000 Rocket eBook is more than good enough to read books for pleasure. Seven years of progress is seven years; all they needed to do was not screw up, and it sounds as if they didn't.
The biggest problem by far with previous efforts was title availability. Sure, they would have an eBookstore with "thousands" of titles, and if you asked the question "is there anything there I want to read?" the answer would be "sure."
But ask the question the other way around, as someone who buys books rather than someone who is sold books. The question then becomes "is book XYZ, that I know I want to read, evenavailable?" The reviewer makes it clear that this is an important question for him, too, and that he thinks Amazon falls a little short. But only by comparison with the ideal. Comparison with earlier eBook efforts is like night and day.
Just before the "eBooks are dead" meme hit, i.e. at about the peak of the craze, I took a look at the book list for Oprah's book club. I thought that was a very fair test. They were scattered across publishers, they were not so old as to be out of print and mostly old enough to allow time for format conversion, and all of them were good books that some disinterested party thought were worth reading. I compared eBook formats and audiobook format, audiobook being an example of a non-print medium for which the conversion costs and distribution costs were far higher than for an eBook.
As I recall, of about forty-four books, something like thirty-eight of them were available as audiobooks, i.e. most of them. And a grand total of six were available in any eBook format at all. And of the three dominant eBook formats at the time--Microsoft
Now, the very first precondition of eBook success is that, darn it, the books you want need to be available. That's not sufficient, but it's necessary. The holes in title availability were huge. For example, to pick one of my favorites at random, there was nothing by Barbara Kingsolver available in any of the three formats.
On a very informal test recently in which I just listed ten books I had bought or was considering buying, I found that eight out of ten were available in Kindle format. Including nine books by Barbara Kingsolver, two of which I haven't read yet.
The second thing is price. By the way, Amazon is honest in saying most books are under $9.99. Many of them are priced a little lower, in fact. These days mass market paperbacks are costing $6.99, $7.99, $8.99 and trade paperbacks are mostly above $10. So it's fair to say Amazon is charging paperback prices, even for books that aren't out in paper. Do I think that's a good price? No, I think it's way too high. But it is much much much better than before. In the old eBook days, the uniform policy was that if the book wasn't out in paper yet, the eBook price matched the hardbound price.
I must have had a dozen conversations with strangers watching me read my Rocket eBook, and they all went the same way. Increasing interest. Not deterred by the $300 price of the device. But when they asked what the books cost and I said "Hardbound prices if the book isn't in paper," the conversation would stop dead right there and I could see their interest level plummet to zero. Maybe they didn't actually roll their eyes but it felt like it.
DRM is sucky. Half the fun of books is being able to lend them. Can you imagine not being able to lend a book to your wife even if you each had your own device? And I am stuck with DRMed Gemstar-format content that will die when my Rocket eBook dies (and its battery life, once 20 hours, is now down to about 2). Locked to a hardware serial number in a proprietary format, and the company is bust and their servers are shut down and no customer-service people to help. So d
Where do I begin? (Score:4, Insightful)
Preface,
Dude you really really need to talk to people outside the early adopter, gadget/freak crowd. In anything remotely resembling the device's current form, this device is doomed.
First give it buying appeal:
*) Drop the price
*) Make it a _lot_ less ugly...
*) I shouldn't have to pay Amazon everytime I blink
Make it a little less geeky
*) Make it so the keyboard can be slid out of the way
*) Make it a _lot_ less ugly...
Make the content have a life longer than the device
At some point your content will outlive the device:
1) It fails (and stockholders will make them pull the plug)
2) It succeeds (and to survive the imitators, it becomes non-backward compatible)
3) You just want the latest version and want to take your content with you
4) The darn thing breaks/gets stolen/etc
Since everything has to go through Amazon for a fee, if you want to keep all that stuff you paid for, you're going to pay how many times per device switch times how many devices in your life?
Give me the ability to do all those book things
*) Support more document formats (text, pdf and html should be a bare minimum)
*) Have content longevity (see previous section)
*) Don't give me anything in a proprietary format
*) Let me push stuff from my computer to my kindle directly
*) Let me do annotations/notes/highlighting on pdfs and ship the modified doc back to my computer
*) For bonus points, give me the option to search both the content of books and my notes
*) For double bonus points, make that search rip through my annotations
*) For even more bonus points, give me a Mac/Windows App to manage my docs (think iTunes)
eBooks are better than paper books (Score:5, Insightful)
Heresy!
But it's true, and I've been saying it for at least five years, ever since I first got my Rocket eBook reader. Read the article, and you'll understand why. Yes, eBook readers have some downsides, but not many, and they're trivial compared to the upsides -- assuming, of course, that you can get the books you want in electronic format.
Until you've done it, you simply can't understand how liberating it is to be able to read without holding the book in your hands. As the author of the article says, he found he could read while eating, holding his daughter, even running hard on a treadmill. And he's absolutely right that a good eBook device is "invisible" -- within a minute or two you completely forget that you're using it, because it gets out of the way of the content that it's presenting. Reading on your PDA or your laptop is not the same thing at all, because those devices don't get out of the way. Laptops are too big, too heavy, too powerhungry and PDAs are too small.
Here's my bottom line on just how much better eBooks are: My choice of reading materials has adapted to what I can get electronically, because I find paper books so annoying. Luckily, I was already a fan of much of the stuff from Baen Books, and they provide all of their stuff in electronic, DRM-free format for a very reasonable price (half the price of a paperback for single books, and about $2 per book if you buy their Webscription bundles). Because of the super convenience of an eBook, I now read almost nothing but Baen's titles.
BTW, as for reading in the tub: I've been doing it for years with my eBook. Just don't drop it in the water and you're fine (have you ever dropped a paperback in the tub? I haven't). If you're really worried about it, though, there's a very inexpensive and simple solution: Get a big ziploc baggie and put your eBook in it. Seal it up tight and you have no worries about water, sand or anything else getting in, and you'll have no problem pushing the buttons or reading through the clear plastic. I find that I can read eBooks in many places that I wouldn't take a hardcover book, because I'd be too afraid of damaging it, and it's not feasible to read a paper book wrapped in plastic. I also like the fact that my LCD-display eBook reader is readable in the dark. The Kindle isn't, but it's better in daylight (my eBook works in full sunlight, too, but it is a little harder to see).
eBooks are the future not because they're cool gadgets but because they make for a better reading experience.
Not a book iPod (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I'm completely open to the idea of an e-book; as an environmentalist I positively love it. But it seems like too much attention has been focused on making an iKindle, to the detriment of the actual reading experience itself. e-ink is much better than LCD, certainly, but anybody who would claim it's is as pleasing to look at as even a $.99 paperback has pretty low standards. And I feel like a real opportunity has been missed in making it waterproof, too. Who wouldn't love to be able to read in the shower!
Well I like it... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the cost: It's fine given that it has bundled always-on wireless access. If I had to pay $25 a month for wireless for the device and if the device was, say, $100 - I'd be out of pocket in 12 months. TCO is good. Look past the $400 price tag and realize what you are getting for the money. A version 1 ebook (it's pretty good - will get better with V2, V3.....) and 24x7x365 wireless access to a huge library. Good value in my book!
Oh dear (Score:4, Funny)
iPod (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus, I'll go ahead and predict the success of the Kindle here and now. Within 2 years 90% of slashdot readers will own one, and those who don't will own a knock off that runs open source firmware.
Look at the eBook Prices (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, start browsing. Yes, New-York-Times bestsellers are $9.99 or lower. Sadly few of the books in the Computers and Internet [amazon.com] section are significantly cheaper than the physical versions: Fred Brook's Mythical Man Month [amazon.com] - $25.91 in eBook format. Martin Fowler's Refactoring [amazon.com] - $35.87. Joshua Block's Effective Java [amazon.com] - $39.99. To be fair, not all computer-science books cost that much but $25+ for an eBook is too much for me.
So while the overall selection is good and the prices on a lot of large-print-run books are great, it looks to me like the publishers are sticking with the view that books with low print runs must be priced higher, even when electronic. Too bad. I was hoping Amazon eBooks would let me carry more of the stuff that interests me beyond literature.
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I would guess looking at the specs it's lighter than most books, water issues are exactly what the reviewer is talking about.
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The video says something about it not using a back-lit LCD display, but rather something called 'Electronic Paper' which can be read even in the brightest of sunlight. Personally I think the whole active electron (ie monitors) vs passive reflection (ie light bouncing off paper and hitting your eye) is much more of an issue than they lead me to believe,
FYI (Score:2)
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However, when it comes to reading traditional books I often find it hard to find a position that's comfortable for holding the book open and also turning the pages (this is particularly a problem in bed). Being able to hold the device stationary and just press a button with my thumb to advance is quite appealing.
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You must be one of those REALLY compulsive shoppers. Turn off one-click if you haven't had your coffee yet.
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Re:A solution in search of a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Okay, I'll just toss these ebooks in the fire and stuff a dozen hardcover books into my jacket pocket. While I'm walking home in the rain I will open one up and yell "SEARCH, DAMN YOU!" at it until it flips open to the page I need. When I get home I will tear out the pages I need, fold them up and slip them into the CD-ROM drive on my PC, hoping that it will somehow figure out how to import the a few sentences and a diagram into a paper that I'm working on...
And then I'll go out and search for some more non-existant benefits to using eBooks.
Don't get me wrong, I like real books just find and am quite happy lugging around big stacks of paper, but there are many cases where eBooks are much more convenient than traditional printed volumes.
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Do you really think that you're paying $100 for the physical artifact when you buy a textbook? You're really just paying what the publisher can get away with because everyone has to buy it.
Go to a normal bookstore and look at the prices for books that are the same size and weight as textbooks. They're all around $50 or $60.