• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Just got a Kindle.

Robin said:
I use my iPod with a Stanza reader - it is perfect, good bright contrasty screen, it can get books from a number of sources and it fits neatly in a pocket. I feel kind of sorry for Kindle readers when I see them on the train - what do they do with it for the rest of the day?

Of couse the small page is not everybody's cup of tea.
Click to expand...

I'm glad I'm not the only one. :)

Before I got my iPad, it was my iPhone that I used for no-light reading and my Kindle when I had light. The screen size didn't bother me, but everyone reacted like it should. So I stopped mentioning it until I could pretend that I was talking about the iPad all along. :)

Linda
 
Robin said:
I use my iPod with a Stanza reader - it is perfect, good bright contrasty screen, it can get books from a number of sources and it fits neatly in a pocket. I feel kind of sorry for Kindle readers when I see them on the train - what do they do with it for the rest of the day?

Of couse the small page is not everybody's cup of tea.
Click to expand...

I also have a netbook, so I can do much more than the poor iPad users. When I'm done reading, I can work on my office documents, or do some coding, or watch a movie. I feel pretty sorry for them, also;)
 
PhreePhly said:
I also have a netbook, so I can do much more than the poor iPad users. When I'm done reading, I can work on my office documents, or do some coding, or watch a movie. I feel pretty sorry for them, also;)
Click to expand...

???

You can watch a movie or work on office documents on an iPad.
 
amused said:
You might take a look at the Kindle DX then, since it is larger than the regular Kindle. It's set up for large formats like magazines and newspapers, and I suspect they see it being used for technical documents too.
Click to expand...
Yeah, what he said. At reasonable font size, the DX presents about the same amount of text per screen as a book page. I'd played with a colleague's Kindle2 (less than half DX size) and found that I very much disliked the reduced content per screen.

Received as a "fallback experimental" Christmas gift because neither my wife nor I could think of anything else, I'm happy with the DX. It's my handy lunchtime/barbershop/waitingRoom/airport library. Sure, there are things it doesn't do well, or at all... but it's very good at doing what it's for.

What it does really well is provide a portable prose library with such amazing battery life that it's always ready to read, even for a charge-forgetful user like me. I can attest it will run a month between charges, with the wireless mostly off. The bright and colorful iPad touchscreen is way cool... but I'm sure *I* would find it unusable too often from forgetting to hook up the charger.

One of the things it doesn't do especially well is PDF documents. The display looks good enough at DX size, graphics and all, but if you're used to Acrobat reader with a real keyboard and mouse you'll find navigation pretty klunky. That may be good enough to keep a rarely-referenced doc handy, but I'd hate to use it for more than infrequent lookup. I'm also not thrilled with the formatting of Kindle-published periodicals... so I just don't use it for that.

At least one person below has ranted (more or less) ideologically against the Kindle because Amazon wants to sell books in their proprietary format. In case the point hasn't been made clear already, there's no real barrier to loading your Kindle with stuff that won't make Amazon a dime; they'll even help you. Your Kindle registration has two associated Amazon Email address, to which you can send all manner of documents for them to convert to Kindle-usable format. Documents sent to one address will be wirelessly transmitted directly to your Kindle for $0.15/MB (IIRC); but the convenience and few-minutes turnaround time is worth that much. If you don't want like paying that much, the other address will Email the converted document back to you for free to transfer yourself by wire.

A lot of stuff you can get free is available from Amazon dirt-cheap anyway for a price that's worth the convenience (YMMV). I could probably have downloaded every work by Charles Dickens from the internet and loaded them to my Kindle for free, but for $0.99 I just let Amazon handle the drudge work and got them all in one bundle.
 
Speaking of reading machines, Borders is advertising a Kobo eReader for $99 with 100 titles - but I suppose they preload it with their choices, not yours. Still, they're flirting with my price point. Has anybody used a Kobo, and if so, what do you think?
 
sts60 said:
Speaking of reading machines, Borders is advertising a Kobo eReader for $99 with 100 titles - but I suppose they preload it with their choices, not yours. Still, they're flirting with my price point. Has anybody used a Kobo, and if so, what do you think?
Click to expand...

I don't know how well the device works, but the 100 titles they advertise are free ebooks - that is, books you could download for free, anyway. The only title the site gives is Tale of Two Cities, easily available from Gutenberg. Odds are the other 99 titles are, too.
 
Mirrorglass said:
I don't know how well the device works, but the 100 titles they advertise are free ebooks - that is, books you could download for free, anyway. The only title the site gives is Tale of Two Cities, easily available from Gutenberg. Odds are the other 99 titles are, too.
Click to expand...


Yes--I would bet that that is the case. Otherwise, they would say something like: "A $XXX value--free!" (Speaking as someone in advertising. :D)

Seems like a bit of a tricky way to sell their product... Not everyone might know that they can get these books for nothing for any device, and all they're getting with the Borders reader is the convenience of not having to download them.
 
fls said:
Yes (there's an app for that).

Linda
Click to expand...

If you mean Documents 2 Go, I'd rather not. I'll stick to actually using Excel.

My initial reaction was to the snide "I feel sorry for the Kindle users" comment, which you didn't make, another poster did.

As I pointed out earlier, as a READER, and comparing the e-ink screen to the iPad LCD, the Kindle is better than the iPad. I had fun using the iPad, but frankly don't see the draw and would never spend that much for it. The biggest issue being that I have to also run iTunes on my PC, and that's a non-starter.

But, if you try to compare the Kindle, or any e-reader, to the iPad for general media management, web surfing, doing e-mail, then the iPad is miles ahead.

In fact, for a train ride commute to work (an hour or so), I think an iPad would be great. The screen would give no eyestrain for that short period of time, magazines with color look better on it, and the occasional movie would be great, but on a 10+ hour plane flight, I would much rather have my Kindle and a bunch of books. I would read for that entire 10 hours.
 
Mirrorglass said:
I don't know how well the device works, but the 100 titles they advertise are free ebooks - that is, books you could download for free, anyway. The only title the site gives is Tale of Two Cities, easily available from Gutenberg. Odds are the other 99 titles are, too.
Click to expand...
Not surprised to hear that. As far as how it works, I'll just have to go to the store and play with the machine.
 
Buckaroo said:
Bought the second-generation Kindle back in July, and liked it. Couple of cosmetic issues bugged me, though: The ugly white of the device screamed 1990's beige computing, and, being brighter than the screen, was distracting. . . . Loooove the graphite color.
Click to expand...
Glad I opted for the graphite model! Now I feel I made the right choice. :)
 
PhreePhly said:
If you mean Documents 2 Go, I'd rather not. I'll stick to actually using Excel.
Click to expand...

Of course you're under no obligation to use anything other than what you want to use.

My initial reaction was to the snide "I feel sorry for the Kindle users" comment, which you didn't make, another poster did.

As I pointed out earlier, as a READER, and comparing the e-ink screen to the iPad LCD, the Kindle is better than the iPad. I had fun using the iPad, but frankly don't see the draw and would never spend that much for it. The biggest issue being that I have to also run iTunes on my PC, and that's a non-starter.
Click to expand...

Right. It works for me because I like to watch movies, web surf, check and respond to email, work on documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, stream Netflix, play games, get maps for various locations including mall maps, access sheet music, play on a piano keyboard, tour the night sky and identify stellar objects, look at pictures, watch YouTube videos, listen to music, find recipes, view medical images, have a picture/weather station/LCD clock viewer, and occasionally read in bed without disturbing my husband, without being tied to a particular location and on a device which is more portable and convenient than a laptop. But of course, not everyone has those interests or priorities (or disposable income).

For the bulk of my reading, I use a Kindle. I also happen to use the voice-to-text function a fair bit.

But, if you try to compare the Kindle, or any e-reader, to the iPad for general media management, web surfing, doing e-mail, then the iPad is miles ahead.

In fact, for a train ride commute to work (an hour or so), I think an iPad would be great. The screen would give no eyestrain for that short period of time, magazines with color look better on it, and the occasional movie would be great, but on a 10+ hour plane flight, I would much rather have my Kindle and a bunch of books. I would read for that entire 10 hours.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I bring both. :)

Linda
 
roger said:
You people anger me. My Kindle arrived yesterday.
Click to expand...
So did mine! So far, I'm loving it. The display is amazing. It's my first experience with an e-reader, so I have nothing to compare it to, other than lcd displays and so forth, so I am truly impressed with this display. It makes you want to look at it.

I've been trying to get acquainted with some of its features. Loaded about 20 free books, some "purchased" from Amazon, some obtained from Gutenberg and the like, some from other sources converted with Calibre (can't say enough about Calibre--if you have an e-reader, you NEED Calibre. It's free, and it's awesome. There is no reason not to try it).

Readability is very customizable. When you press the 'Aa' button, you can choose from: 8 different point sizes; 3 typeface styles (regular, condensed, and sans serif), 3 line spacing options; 3 words-per-line choices; and four different screen rotation orientations.

I actually like the "cat's tongue" feel to the keys (very apt description, Phrost, btw!). My fingers tend to slip off of such small keys, and these give me a good tactile sensation of which key I'm pressing. I think the 5-way navigation widget is a bit small, and I find myself pressing it with the thumbnail rather than with the pad of my thumb.

I like some of the subtle touches such as the random sleep screen images. Very nice. Everything about this device says "I may be hi-tech, but I'm still a book." I love the graphite shell color.

Not one, but two built-in, full text dictionaries! Holy crap.

It connected to my wi-fi with no problem. (I actually got the 3G model--with the service being free, I figure it's worth the extra $50 for that capability). I sent several files to my @free.kindle.com address. Within a few minutes, there they were (and yes, the books I had ordered before I received the Kindle were on it when I turned it on!).

Only tried one pdf file, a map. Displays rather nicely and can be magnified to a large scale, provided the original file is large to begin with. Moving around the page is a bit dodgy, though. Haven't tried a pdf with text yet. I report back when I've experimented with more pdfs.

Tried the Read Text (or Text-to-Voice or whatever it's called) feature. Interesting. It's like your GPS is reading to you.

The browser is interesting. Not ready to duplicate BenBurch's experiment of posting to message boards with it, yet!

Made a couple discoveries:
1) If your book doesn't have a cover, download an image from the web (convert it to grayscale it you want to reduce file size), edit the metadata for the book in Calibre, and load the cover. You'll have the cover on your Kindle.

2) When browsing the Kindle Store, while you're on a description page for a book, instead of moving the cursor over the "more" link and then clicking on it, just press the page forward button and it will take you to the full book description.

Don't have many complaints yet:
--I wish there where two shift keys. Typing A or S is a little tricky.
--Html files are cumbersome to convert. Amazon sends you a file with all the html code in it. Calibre didn't work too well, either, at least on the files I tried. The text seemed to be all in a table or something, so I have to copy and paste the text to an rtf and send that. That worked.

One more thing. I still love real books. Have lots of them; intend to keep them; will undoubtedly buy more of them. No one is saying e-readers are superior to printed books or that books should go away. The e-reader is fun and has its uses, and it's not really that expensive. Newsflash: you can have both. :)
 
Last edited:
I've installed it. It seems to have sped up page turns and web browsing. Other people have said that it sharpened the font but that could be pretty subjective. Others have said that wifi access is more reliable but I never had a problem with it before.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom