The kindle
I've been thinking I should make a "Now that Novelty Has Worn Off, What Do I Think Of The Kindle" post for a while, and I was spurred to make this post by someone looking to buy. The short answer is that even with the novelty gone, I am happy with the kindle.
It's my preferred way to read books. The kindle stay flat so it's easy to read in situations where it'd be otherwise hard to hold open a book. (Consider exercise machines.) Also, because you can adjust the font size to large you can place it where you couldn't otherwise read a book. It's also good for just plain comfortable reading in bed. (It's also easier to read while holding a baby, but I don't have to do that quite so much any more.)
I liked being able to order a book and have it delivered while sitting on the runway. It was also nice to buy the Sears vaccine book and start reading immediately (especially since I put off the purchase until only a few days before Helen's 1 yr appointment).
My one big complaint is the book availability. I have plenty of books to read, but I haven't yet been able to get a book for my book club on the kindle.
One thing that puzzles me in reviews and discussion about the next generation kindle is the fascination with a color screen. Very few books have color except on the cover; those that have lots of color are not likely to be amendable to Kindle format. Of the hardware and software improvements I'd want, a color screen is very low (just above "cooks me breakfast") on the list.
Bottom line:
I hesitate to tell anyone whether they should or shouldn't buy this device. I can say I'm happy with it because it makes it easier to read books. Even though the price has dropped, I'm glad I didn't wait more to buy it, since I've gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of it already. I should have bought it earlier, in fact.
A second generation one will likely be better, but without knowing exactly how different it will be and when it will arrive, I don't know whether it's worth waiting for. My instinct would be not to wait, since the Kindle right now is a damn fine book reader even given its quirks.
I've tagged my previous posts on the kindle, so you can read the "just thinking about it", "yeah it arrived", and the "I've had it a week" posts.
It's my preferred way to read books. The kindle stay flat so it's easy to read in situations where it'd be otherwise hard to hold open a book. (Consider exercise machines.) Also, because you can adjust the font size to large you can place it where you couldn't otherwise read a book. It's also good for just plain comfortable reading in bed. (It's also easier to read while holding a baby, but I don't have to do that quite so much any more.)
I liked being able to order a book and have it delivered while sitting on the runway. It was also nice to buy the Sears vaccine book and start reading immediately (especially since I put off the purchase until only a few days before Helen's 1 yr appointment).
My one big complaint is the book availability. I have plenty of books to read, but I haven't yet been able to get a book for my book club on the kindle.
One thing that puzzles me in reviews and discussion about the next generation kindle is the fascination with a color screen. Very few books have color except on the cover; those that have lots of color are not likely to be amendable to Kindle format. Of the hardware and software improvements I'd want, a color screen is very low (just above "cooks me breakfast") on the list.
Bottom line:
I hesitate to tell anyone whether they should or shouldn't buy this device. I can say I'm happy with it because it makes it easier to read books. Even though the price has dropped, I'm glad I didn't wait more to buy it, since I've gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of it already. I should have bought it earlier, in fact.
A second generation one will likely be better, but without knowing exactly how different it will be and when it will arrive, I don't know whether it's worth waiting for. My instinct would be not to wait, since the Kindle right now is a damn fine book reader even given its quirks.
I've tagged my previous posts on the kindle, so you can read the "just thinking about it", "yeah it arrived", and the "I've had it a week" posts.
- Free books are available from gutenberg.net, tor.com, and baen.com.
- Some Bujold (she's a favorite author) books are available for purchase from Baen and Amazon. They are substantially cheaper from Baen. (Amazon's price is some percent off the cheapest printed price, while Baen has different pricing structure for electronic books. Plus, I think with the Baen electronic books, the authors get twice the royalties they otherwise would.)
- There are formatting quirks in some books. The Sears Vaccine books references page numbers, which are pointless in Kindle format. Another book has somewhat distracting underlined links to its glossary for many terms.
- The "Get Sample" for Amazon books is something that didn't impress me until I tried it. It's nice to have a no obligation way to look at the book before buying. I've used that to determine what to buy.
- The wordlookup feature is cool, but the dictionary is somewhat lacking. Half the time, no definition is available for the word is I wanted to look up.
- Quirk: The keyboard takes up too much valuable device space. However, if they got rid of it entirely, there'd be no good place to hold the kindle. So I don't know what I want there.
- Quirk: Page flipping takes a while. This ihsn't a problem if you are reading and just going to the next page, but it is annoying if you want to go back a few pages to see who the heck this character is.
- Quirk: The line spacing is rather large on the larger font sizes.
- Quirk: Now that I have it loaded with books, it's clear that the interface for navigating books is clunkier than would be ideal.
- Quirk: Line graphics (such as maps from scifi books) are unreadable. This is a software problem, not a screen problem.