Kindle
I got a Kindle e-book reader for Christmas. I'm not sure about this thing. As with digital textbooks, I think this is The Future but that the technology is not ready for practical use yet. Notes:
The Good:
-The screen is surreal, and not in the bad sense with the melting clocks. It's better-looking than a monitor, in a way, though the contrast is still mediocre. It doesn't look like a normal screen.
-It's smaller and lighter than a single book, yet holds potentially thousands. This is what's so cool about it.
-Unlike the iPad it doesn't try to be your main computer (or your god) and do everything. It's a book reader and little else. That's good because it doesn't become a bloated, expensive gadget. I see the Nook is heading in the direction of an LCD screen (ie. short battery life), higher price, and Facebook access.
-You can transfer files for free with the included USB cable, from a PC. (The Kindle shows up as a thumb drive.) So yes, I could go to classics.mit.edu and download a book from there. I've, uh, confirmed it's also capable of loading up a draft of my novel. *ego*
The Bad:
-PDF support. There's no zoom setting between "devote much of the screen's width to blank margins, squashing the text to near-unreadable size", and "zoom so far you have to scroll to read one page". Getting practical, comfortable reading of PDFs is one of the main things I hoped to do on a Kindle, and it can't do that. I'm pretty sure it'd be acceptable if there were only a simple intermediate zoom function, and it's just plain stupid there isn't.
-Battery life isn't as advertised. This page is used to market the Kindle and it says: "Kindle lets you read for up to one month on a single charge." This page is for helping people who've already bought one, and it says: "With Kindle's long battery life, you can read your Kindle device on a single charge for up to a week with wireless on. Turn wireless off and read for up to 2 weeks." One month means two weeks? I looked into this subject because I'd left the Kindle on a dresser for most of the last three days, and today found it had a battery-empty display. My understanding is that even though I'd turned wireless service off, the Kindle continued to drain power much faster than advertised because I hadn't explicitly put it into sleep mode. Because the designers didn't think to automatically make it sleep after an hour's inactivity.
-Wireless service: It's $50 more for the 3G version, which is what I have. I feel guilty about asking for this version, because in hindsight, the $50 gets you what, the ability to buy books without going to a restaurant that has free wi-fi?
So... I've thought about returning this thing. It's cool, but not quite what I'd hoped for.
The Good:
-The screen is surreal, and not in the bad sense with the melting clocks. It's better-looking than a monitor, in a way, though the contrast is still mediocre. It doesn't look like a normal screen.
-It's smaller and lighter than a single book, yet holds potentially thousands. This is what's so cool about it.
-Unlike the iPad it doesn't try to be your main computer (or your god) and do everything. It's a book reader and little else. That's good because it doesn't become a bloated, expensive gadget. I see the Nook is heading in the direction of an LCD screen (ie. short battery life), higher price, and Facebook access.
-You can transfer files for free with the included USB cable, from a PC. (The Kindle shows up as a thumb drive.) So yes, I could go to classics.mit.edu and download a book from there. I've, uh, confirmed it's also capable of loading up a draft of my novel. *ego*
The Bad:
-PDF support. There's no zoom setting between "devote much of the screen's width to blank margins, squashing the text to near-unreadable size", and "zoom so far you have to scroll to read one page". Getting practical, comfortable reading of PDFs is one of the main things I hoped to do on a Kindle, and it can't do that. I'm pretty sure it'd be acceptable if there were only a simple intermediate zoom function, and it's just plain stupid there isn't.
-Battery life isn't as advertised. This page is used to market the Kindle and it says: "Kindle lets you read for up to one month on a single charge." This page is for helping people who've already bought one, and it says: "With Kindle's long battery life, you can read your Kindle device on a single charge for up to a week with wireless on. Turn wireless off and read for up to 2 weeks." One month means two weeks? I looked into this subject because I'd left the Kindle on a dresser for most of the last three days, and today found it had a battery-empty display. My understanding is that even though I'd turned wireless service off, the Kindle continued to drain power much faster than advertised because I hadn't explicitly put it into sleep mode. Because the designers didn't think to automatically make it sleep after an hour's inactivity.
-Wireless service: It's $50 more for the 3G version, which is what I have. I feel guilty about asking for this version, because in hindsight, the $50 gets you what, the ability to buy books without going to a restaurant that has free wi-fi?
So... I've thought about returning this thing. It's cool, but not quite what I'd hoped for.