A Kindle

[AFriendlyFace]

Hey Everyone!

 

I was just wondering what you guys thought of Amazon's new book reader, the Kindle? I read an article about them and they sound pretty nifty! (They've also been advertising for them here at GA)

 

Granted, I probably won't be getting one for a good 3 or 4 years even if they are reliable, simply because for whatever reason I'm inherently distrustful and intimidated by new technology (I've only just begun considering getting an IPOD), but I'd love to hear the opinion of those who do keep up with this sort of thing. I really think they could be the future of books.

 

Take care all and have a great day!

Kevin

[BeaStKid]

Well... I simply hate E-Books or anything about reading full blown novels on the computer (except for those nifty stories I find on GA and similar sites).

 

Personally, I enjoy reading the authentic way---> From Paper!!

 

There is not substitute for that and even my Mom cannot complain about my increased time spent on computers!! And then, I have this problem that I get a severe headache after sitting on the computer for more than 2 hours....

 

[/rant]

 

I really would not go in for these.....Kindles....you say? Plus, I was never a fan of Amazon!

 

BeaStKid

[AFriendlyFace]

Well... I simply hate E-Books or anything about reading full blown novels on the computer (except for those nifty stories I find on GA and similar sites).

 

Personally, I enjoy reading the authentic way---> From Paper!!

 

There is not substitute for that and even my Mom cannot complain about my increased time spent on computers!! And then, I have this problem that I get a severe headache after sitting on the computer for more than 2 hours....

 

[/rant]

 

I really would not go in for these.....Kindles....you say? Plus, I was never a fan of Amazon!

 

BeaStKid

 

Well they're designed to be about the size and weight of a book, to not require being plugged in (and have a long battery life), and to have a good resolution/contrast that won't be hard on the eye. In fact the article I read went into great detail about how much research they did to create something that would be, for lack of a better phrase, easy on the eyes.

 

Plus, they're always connected to the internet no matter where you are because of some new, magical technology that's an advancement of wi-fi. I think it's either called whisper-net or shadow-net, but I could be wrong and I have no idea how it works, just that it's supposed to work anytime anywhere, and that you're supposed to be able to find, buy, and download a book to it within 1 minute (or maybe it was 5 minutes, can't remember).

 

-Kevin

Edited December 1, 2007 by AFriendlyFace

[BeaStKid]

Well they're designed to be about the size and weight of a book, to not require being plugged in (and have a long battery life), and to have a good resolution/contrast that won't be hard on the eye. In fact the article I read went into great detail about how much research they did to create something that would be, for lack of a better phrase, easy on the eyes.

 

Plus, they're always connected to the internet no matter where you are because of some new, magical technology that's an advancement of wi-fi. I think it's either called whisper-net or shadow-net, but I could be wrong and I have no idea how it works, just that it's supposed to work anytime anywhere, and that you're supposed to be able to find, buy, and download a book to it within 1 minute (or maybe it was 5 minutes, can't remember).

 

-Kevin

 

It is still essentially a screen that one is looking into...

[pitchan]

Well it sounds nice. Im cynical about new technology as well, so lets just wait and see.

@BeastKid. You make no sense. No offense, but your missing out on some truly amazing fiction by not trying out e-books. Granted, lots of them are pointless smut (especially if one is looking for erotica, which is where most gay themed books are published as), but then there are jewels in the rough as well. Oh well, its your opinion anyways. At least your not missing out on the great stories here

[BeaStKid]

You make no sense. No offense, but your missing out on some truly amazing fiction by not trying out e-books. Granted, lots of them are pointless smut (especially if one is looking for erotica, which is where most gay themed books are published as), but then there are jewels in the rough as well. Oh well, its your opinion anyways. At least your not missing out on the great stories here

 

For me, real reading is reading from a book. Even if I am recommended some E-Book, I'll get a print copy of it and then read it. I did this with one of the round robins i'm taking part in on another site.

 

I took out the prints of the chapters written before me and then went through them before writing my own!

 

 

BeaStKid

[clumber]

I don't think I could really get used to it... there's something about reading a book from paper that is just...better. I don't know what it is... being able to actually turn the pages etc etc. If I could I'd print out the storys on GA to read them, but I can't

[Graeme]

Plus, they're always connected to the internet no matter where you are because of some new, magical technology that's an advancement of wi-fi. I think it's either called whisper-net or shadow-net, but I could be wrong and I have no idea how it works, just that it's supposed to work anytime anywhere, and that you're supposed to be able to find, buy, and download a book to it within 1 minute (or maybe it was 5 minutes, can't remember).

I was wondering if this would be useful to take on a long plane trip, but from what you've said they may be banned on planes as being transmitters. Though maybe not -- they don't tell laptop owners to disable their radios....

[glomph]

I was wondering if this would be useful to take on a long plane trip, but from what you've said they may be banned on planes as being transmitters. Though maybe not -- they don't tell laptop owners to disable their radios....

 

They do expect you to have the WiFi turned off even if they don't say it explicitly every time. For the same reason, I'd expect you must be able to turn it off on the Kindle. If you haven't already loaded what you want to read on the plane, you could find a hot spot in the airport while you are waiting for the plane.

 

What reviews I've read and heard suggest that it is much more book-like than past readers. (And why do they call them "readers" when they just display the book and don't read it? The person is the actual reader, like with a book.)

 

I do think "Kindle" is a strange name. Do they expect you to burn your real books? If I got one, I guess I'd read Fahrenheit 451.

[CarlHoliday]

As much as I dislike technology, the e-book market is probably going to expand. Of course, don't hurry to buy a Kindle because they're out of stock and even if you order one today, it won't be delivered by Christmas. And, don't even think about sending one to a friend outside the U.S.

 

But, I still like books. Reading a book is a lot more tactile than looking at a visual display. There's just something about holding a book, turning a page, and touching paper. And, with print on demand, booksellers don't have to worry about keeping huge inventories.

 

I kind of like the name, though. But, I'm from Seattle and that's where Amazon is, so maybe it's a regional oddity.

[C James]

I like the concept (especially for travel; being able to take along many books in such a small space).

 

However, color me skeptical. The "Connect from anywhere" claim is not true: it uses cellular networks, so if you're out of range of a cell tower, it can't connect (same as a cell phone).

 

Another issue I have with it is that it look like (going by the images) that the screen is shorter than a book page, so you'd end up scrolling with every page (annoying). OK, confirmed; it's six inches diagonal, so definitly shorter than a paperback page.

[colinian]

The Kindle is similar to the Sony Reader and uses the same Electronic Paper technology. It's VERY easy to read in dim room light through bright glaring direct sunlight, but like a book doesn't have a backlight so you need a light source to read it in a dark location. The screen is strictly black and white with maybe 16 shades of gray, and doesn't display graphics very well. It's convenient to scan through a book. The books for the Sony Reader and the Kindle are set up for that device (and are mutually incompatible proprietary formats); it's not a picture version of the pages of the equivalent printed book. I played with a Sony Reader and it's trivial to "turn" pages back and forth.

 

The Kindle has a keyboard which has huge benefits. With the Kindle you can "dogear" pages, set bookmarks, search for text strings, change the typeface and size. You can have multiple books open at a time and switch from one to another with a click of a button, keeping your place in each book. You can do searches through your entire library.

 

What the Kindle won't do (in this first model, at least) that you can do with the Sony Reader is directly copy your own MS Word and PDF documents to the device; instead, you have to send the files to Amazon and they'll convert them for you for some sort of fee. Here's a potential privacy issue! I'd love to be able to upload stories from GA and other story sites directly to the Kindle; maybe they'll add that feature in the future.

 

A great feature of the Kindle is that they store your "library" of books on Amazon's servers in case your Kindle stops working or is damaged or stolen. You get your new Kindle and download all of your books. It also has an SD slot so you can put thousands of books onto SD cards and carry them with you.

 

The cell phone ordering and downloading of books is the best feature of the Kindle. The typical price per book of $9.99 is a lot less expensive than most printed books, even paperback books, these days. As a college student, what I'm waiting for are textbooks to be available for the Kindle. If that happens, and most textbooks are available for it, I'll buy one immediately thereafter! That would be such a huge $$ and weight savings, even assuming that electronic versions of textbooks would be more expensive. The textbooks I have to buy for spring semester will cost me $714.60 assuming I can get good used copies if the ones I want used are available. That doesn't include the 8-1/4% sales tax.

 

Colin

[shadowgod]

It should also be noted while it works on Amazon's proprietary whispernet ( through Sprint cellular networks) there is no monthly charge to the purchaser for access to the network. Also regaurding the word doc. I was under them impression that the device has an email address you can send stuff to. It's not word but it will work in a pinch if you copy and paste what ever you are working on -or- reading into an email and shoot it off the the device.

 

So yeah it looks very interesting, especialy where textbooks are concerned. Though I only really use 1 of the four I purchased to any extent

[C James]

I can certainly see the advantages, though the inability to easily load in your own documents is appalling. I'm also very concerned over another issue; once you purchase a book, can you transfer it to a PC for easier reading?

[Rabble_Rouser]

I don't know about this because of the size of the display as to how enjoyable it would be to read something on it... plus curling up by the fire (I've got 50km\h winds and 40cm of snow on the ground here) with a tablet and a beverage of choice just doesn't give me the same warm feeling as the same idea with a good old book.

 

Steve

[SonoLuminus]

My husband ordered one already, but they're on backorder, so it will be awhile til it gets here.

 

We'll probably mostly use it for travel, and not as a substitute for real books. I think he wants to put all of his favorites on it just so they're all easily accessible when he's not home. It's not something I feel like I have to have, but it might be cool.

[LRWilliamson]

I'm thrilled that my novel Prairie Springs is #1 in the Gay Fiction category for Kindle downloads. I can't believe I'm beating out, at least for the moment, Armistead Maupin's Michael Tolliver Lives.

 

As far as getting the file ready for Kindle submission, that was the real nightmare. I thought it would take only a few hours. The reality was more like three weeks to make the file look decent. Nevertheless, to be at #1 in any category is a thrill for me. I hope everyone will read the book in some form or another. You can check out my website at LRWilliamson.com

I'm glad to be here.

 

Thanks.

[Myr]

Here is a good review:

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/kindle.asp

 

The screen technology that the Kindle uses is the very cool "e-ink". Tech Geeks can check the details out here:

http://www.eink.com/technology/howitworks.html

 

I will be looking at one in generation 2.

Kind of like I'm now looking at picking up a second generation Zune. (I hate IPod and pretty much all things Apple)

[Drewbie]

New Zune is pretty good now, got rid of the drm crap that the first one had.

 

I own an ipod and like, two advantages I see of having a zune is that you can also listen to fm radio and it is cheaper. But also look for creative zens as well Kevin.

 

Most of the time, I convert the stories I read into pdf documents.

Edited December 16, 2007 by Drewbie

[glomph]

(I hate IPod and pretty much all things Apple)

 

You'll probably like this one.

[JamesSavik]

I don't know about the kindle per see but I've got ~300Gbytes of ebooks of all sorts: vast majority of which are pdf, lit or djv.

 

Since I am a tekkie, my library is slanted that way (nonfiction, science & technical)) but there are tons of hard sci-fi, fantasy, westerns, mysteries, etc that I simply don't collect.

 

I keep it on a Seagate usb drive and backed up on a second. I have a serious indexing and management system to keep track of it all.

 

It is impossible to tell what its monetary value is but it is an exceptionally powerful information repository that is jammed full of topics of interest to me.

[Umbathri]

I got a PSP last year, and you can connect to the net from it np. I do almost all of my online reaing from it now, just load the website and click through chapters. Its my little E-book, much better then sitting in front of a computer. I hardly ever use if for games anyways. Though I dont think you can buy a book online and have it sent directly to a PSP.

Edited December 17, 2007 by Umbathri