Should I buy a Kindle?
Posted by Scott Laird Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:43:00 GMT
I’ve been tempted to buy most of the e-ink ebook readers for months, and now I’m faced with spending around 16 hours on airplanes in the next two weeks, and I’d love to travel without 5 lbs of books. From what I can see, Amazon’s Kindle
I highly recommend the Kindle. I can’t sing it’s praise high enough. It replaced whole bookshelves in my house, I take it with me everywhere, it got me reading poetry again, and it’s got a great wireless connection if you need to find a gas station in a pinch.
I bought my sister the Sony Reader and she likes it well enough but it’s certainly a generation behind the Kindle.
I love my Kindle, though I bought it for different reasons. I just like how it keeps book shelves from taking over my whole apartment and in the long run will save me some money.
The biggest thing that you should consider before you buy a Kindle is if the books and such that you want to read are available on it. The easiest way to get books it to just go through Amazon, but you can also load MobiPocket (non-DRM) ebooks, .PRC, .TXT, .DOC files.
Scott,
I would encourage you to read the forums at http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=140 and compare the different models before deciding. There are a number of drawbacks to the Kindle (and most of the other current devices) of which you should be aware (vendor lock in, pdf support, resizing book issues, converting issues etc.).
I personally don’t like the small screens on the 6 inch devices. I have seriously considered the iRex Iliad (an 8 inch device) but the price seems too high for the functionality. I am waiting on one of the new 9.7 inch devices like http://www.astak.com/97Ebook_Reader.html. They appear to be targeted at the right price point. A 9.7 inch device will make reading normal books pleasant.
In the mean time, I picked up a true Fujitsu tablet PC on ebay for a couple hundred dollars. The battery only lasts 3-5 hours on normal settings, but it faces none of the issues of the current devices.
Best of luck!
Eh, I’m waiting for Apple to do it better (mainly because most of what I read are PDFs with graphics, etc.). If you need a short-term solution, I like Dr. Mark’s idea of just buying a used tablet PC and loading up books on it.
I adore Amazon, but I can’t stand the design of the kindle. I’m waiting for a Kindle 2, hopefully with a much better design (or an Apple version). Can we say, full-touch-screen-just-like-the-iPhone?