Comments on: Books for Me, Thanks

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:14:26 +0000

The kindle 2 is igniting a spark to ignite and end Literature..This is it everyone, we actually have something to reaad for us. I fear for future generations knowing that everything is going to be done for us. I know im being a little crazy. IT IS just a little gadget, but then again so was the atomic bomb..

-Resist the temptation of buying the latest technology, and hope the best for the kids.

By: some &etcs « idiotmusic

some &etcs « idiotmusic — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:15:59 +0000

[...] It also really scares me that at the end of the Bookslut interview there’s an ad for the Kindle. Anyway, I wonder if Tao Lin will google his own name and find this. Seems like something he would [...]

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:09:20 +0000

Most of the arguments I’m reading here aren’t really arguments against the Kindle, so much as they’re arguments for physical books — or maybe just kneejerk, “Don’t take my books away from me!” reactions. I haven’t used the Kindle, I have my reservations, and I think the price tag is much too high — but I’m intrigued by the possibility of having a small portable and lightweight library with the size and readability (if not the texture and tactility) of an regular book.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t carry around 200 regular books with me even if I wanted to.

By: Peter L. Winkler

Peter L. Winkler — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:53:49 +0000

Ebook readers are a solution to a nonexistent problem. There’s also a problem I have with the ergonomics of the Kindle and many other portable devices. They’re all made of hard, unyielding plastic or metal. The Kindle is all hard angles and edges. Uncomfortable to hold. Why can’t the edges be covered with some silicone or simlar material, so the pressure of your fingers holding is dampened?

By: Kris

Kris — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:23:37 +0000

So….how many of you with favorable comments about the Kindle are actually well-paid and MBA’d “guerrilla marketers”?

I think this device is silly, designed for rich people who don’t actually read anything.

By: Vadim Vojeiko

Vadim Vojeiko — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:59:59 +0000

1. Kindle’s battery lasts a week with the wireless turned off. Sony Reader, a device that uses the exactly same technology minus the wireless, lasts about 7500 page-turns before a battery recharge is required. (And page-turns is what the battery performance should be measured in, since E-ink devices only use up energy to change the contents of the screen.) From what I’ve heard Kindle’s battery is just as good, if not better than Sony Reader’s. 7500 page-turns – that’s a lot of pages. Can you really read that many without once remembering or having an opportunity to recharge?

2. Well, that’s the danger of using expensive portable equipment, yes. Doesn’t stop anyone from buying Ipods, though.

3. Like I said, doesn’t use up energy to actually keep showing you the text. The battery is only used to turn the pages or use the wireless connection. And the device turns automatically turns off when not being used.

4. The screen is not an LCD. It’s E-Ink. And I wouldn’t read anything in the bathtub, if I were you. Book or e-book.

5. That doesn’t seem to be a problem to anyone who actually used the device.

6. Kindle apparently comes with a copy of the New Oxford American Dictionary. It’s not Oxford Dictionary of English, but it’s still pretty good.

7. Well, the ability to format the text is there – the proper formatting will probably only be available in one font size, though. But how many books with gimmicky typography are there?

8. You can turn the wireless off.

9. The memory isn’t the selling point here. 200 books plus extra space if you use that $80 Flash card of yours is more than enough, trust me.

10. Yeah. He’s shifty.

By: amcorrea

amcorrea — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:44:26 +0000

All true.

But.

For those of us who have to wait a month (if we’re lucky) and pay extra shipping fees plus full price just to be able to read new books, it is certainly something I am hoping to be able to purchase soon. (The prospect of being able to buy a new book at an affordable price and have it within two minutes makes me giddy.)

Once the price goes down by about $200, of course.

By: R Ellis

R Ellis — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:07:48 +0000

It’s not a bad idea for textbooks or other reference material, I guess. But why mess with perfection?

Oh well: they’ll take my books when they pry them out of my cold dead etc.

By: linda

linda — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:53:47 +0000

Does Amazon really think Kindle will have 1/10 the impact that an actual book has? Granted reading levels are down, but in one way is a $4oo dollar electronic device the answer. This is another version of the ebook. I don’t care how many people sing its praises. Books are here to stay. So deal with it. I love the feel and smell of a book, and no batteries.

By: Øystein

Øystein — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:35:05 +0000

I don’t think any of these reading boards use LCD-screens, but rather e-ink. The only one I’ve tried was the Iliad (which seems to have by far the most features of the various boards coming out, but which also is damn expensive) and its screen was -very- comfortable to look at.
Also, I used to have a phone with an e-ink screen, and it was very readable from all angles and in direct sunlight etc (no glass-plate above the display, so it looked like a toy-phone with a sticker in place of a screen). It may well be more comfortable to read than a page, there’s less reflection of light. The only real downside with those screens is that they’re much slower than LCDs etc, so animation and scrolling etc isn’t at all practical. Colors are out as well. Re: point 9, I know at least some of these tablets support generic memory cards.

Anyways, as far as comfort for the eyes goes, these things can be pretty excellent. The one I tried also had lots of good tools for annotating, marking etc. It IS of course very different from reading a book, and I think I’d mostly like one not so much as a book-replacer, as a better place to read blogs and online articles (Harper’s vast archives, for instance!) and to some extent as a research tool. Working as a programmer, I generally don’t want to sit much in front of the screen to read at home, so there are a lot of good articles online that I never get around to reading.

Though I guess I’ve modeled myself as a sort of defender here, I won’t be buying any of these second-generation reading tablets within the next few years. I’d be shocked if I -don’t- own one of these in 2017, however. By that time they’ll probably be much more open for enthusiast developers, so lots of useful programs/plugins will be available, and the interfaces will probably have gotten an excellent look-and-feel. Not to mention that prices will have come down.
Thankfully there won’t be an either-or relationship between these tablets and books, at least not for a good number of years yet. I’m a bit too sentimentally attached to books as objects to be comfortable with some people’s idea (hopes, even!) that they won’t be produced in any large scale anymore.

(Pardon the rambling nature of this post, I -am- at work, so I’m kind of throwing this out there, and don’t have time to pare it down)

By: Internet Man

Internet Man — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:00:29 +0000

I have no interest in reading anything on an lcd screen; as it is, I can only take so much reading on my computer screen. Call me a luddite if you must. Reading from an actual book is a singular pleasure that I hope will not die for the sake of convenience.

By: Brian F.

Brian F. — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:15:41 +0000

And let’s not forget the fact that I spend eight hours a day infront of a computer screen. Reading a real book is my time away from that.

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:59:41 +0000

Gee, I guess the next time I cut down a multibillion dollar company with a pithy remark, I should really have a better idea who the actual target is. That comment of mine above might have been appropriate for Google, but not necessarily for Amazon who, I just now realized, is the company that’s putting out the Kindle. My bad.

Which is not to say, however, that Google DOESN’T have a secret plan to burn every book in the world, that is.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:37:15 +0000

If the Kindle cut its price by $200 and allowed me to check email constantly, then I would buy it. Since neither of those things will happen, I guess I won’t be buying it.

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:00:15 +0000

And what’s with the name? Is it in reference some secret Google plan to incinerate every book in existence, thus creating a monopoly for electronic book readers? “Ooops, sorry about that little fire. Good thing you can still read all those books on the Kindle, now available for $400. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!!”