So I'm thinking of getting my wife a Kindle (or Nook) for the holidays. She's a constant reader and our house is rapidly filling up with books with no place to put them. She's expressed some interest in a Kindle before, but is worried how easy they are to read, how much eye strain you get, etc.
You all with a Kindle (or Nook), what do you think of it?
My brother-in-law got himself a nook (the Barnes & Noble version) and absolutely loves it. I'm saving up for one myself.
I love our Kindle (when I get to use it). Its very easy on the eyes and you start to ignore the page wipe/flicker when turning a page. Battery lasts forever. The best thing for me is Whispersync. Being able to read a few pages when I can get the Kindle in hand, then pick up where I left off on my iPhone is great. I mean, if she leaves the Kindle at home, she can even log into a website and pick up where she left off. What's also neat which we've not tried is we could read the same book at the same time on different devices, as long as we didn't sync to each other's "last read page".
The only thing I don't like is that when everyone bought MP3 players, you could say "I can put all of the music I already have on it". Now a lot of movies will come with a digital copy when you buy the disc. Books are still left out. I can't "rip" my copy of William Shatner's "Star Trek Memories" onto the Kindle. I'd have to buy it over again, if it was available.
I wouldn't cheap out either. We started out with a cheap ereader, for which she bought "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest". Then when we decided we like the ereader concept, we bought a Kindle, then had to re-buy the same book for it.
But the book prices are good, being able to have samples sent to your device helps you to know if you want to actually buy the book (I use mine as a kind of wish list to remember what books people have suggested to me, then I can just click "purchase" when I want to start reading them).
Any other questions?
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doubleofive said:
Any other questions?
Can I...have yours? ;-)
I don't get to use mine, you think I could give it to you? ;-)TV's Frink said:
Can I...have yours? ;-)
doubleofive said:
Any other questions?
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I can't say I'm crazy about the kindle stuff. I think something is lost when you don't have an actual physical copy of a book in your hands when reading. Its just not the same.
Oh, I agree, and I guarantee my wife does too. But it's a space issue. We don't even have room for our combined physical library at the moment, let alone room to add to it.
I like having books on my shelf, and I do miss that (I've only bought one Kindle book, its not a huge deal yet). I'm also obsessed with lining things up, so the fact that my wife has the first "Girl With" book in paperback, the second in hardback, and the third on Kindle irks me a little.
But if I don't think about it, I'm fine. ;-)
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At Chateau Bingowings we have book shelves everywhere, in the bathroom, on the space at the top of the stairs, all all the bedrooms, in the kitchen, even in both labs (there is even a small bookshelf in the boot cupboard).
If we want to experience a book digitally we get audiobooks and listen to them while do anything else we maybe doing.
I'd just get a nice clean drive and fill it with audiobooks and a pair of MP3 Players.
Option 2: Sell some books. If you feel the need to rebuy them in a few years, do it for the Kindle. Then you can afford the Kindle and have room in case you do want something physical.
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Sell some books? Sure, we've sold a few, but my wife can't bear to part with most of them.
While I agree that having an actual book is nice, and I like the tactile nature of it, I'm honestly not that fussed about that new-fangled digital readin'. I don't even need a Kindle. I just read books on my laptop. I read all of zombie's book (several times) on my laptop. This summer I read Little Women on my laptop. Sure it's not AS portable as a Kindle (or a book), but it gets the job done.
There is no lingerie in space…
C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.
I'm almost against digital readers for one simple reason: technology evolves. I love to read. On average, I read about one novel every 2 weeks. So I would definitely benefit from a digital reader. But 10 or 15 years down the line, all those books that you bought for the kindle will be obsolete, because either the battery will start to slowly die (and they won't make the same ones by then), or a totally different technology will come along to replace it.
Same with DVDs. People spent hundreds of dollars on DVDs and now they are all being replaced by blu-ray. In a few years, no one will be releasing DVDs anymore, just as VHSs are no longer around. And I don't like the idea of paying (often full price!) for ebooks when I won't be able to make use of them forever. At least with physical books, you can get them on sale or much cheaper from a private seller or the internet. There isn't much competition with ebooks because there are so few platforms.
There's not much of a quality comparison when it comes to words that one would want to upgrade. Just like the newest printing of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy isn't any higher quality than the original. Words on a page, digital words on a digital page, same thing. While I will miss getting books second hand, I also support the author with my money now, instead of waiting to pay a bookstore money that the author should be getting a cut of.What Plans? said:
I'm almost against digital readers for one simple reason: technology evolves. I love to read. On average, I read about one novel every 2 weeks. So I would definitely benefit from a digital reader. But 10 or 15 years down the line, all those books that you bought for the kindle will be obsolete, because either the battery will start to slowly die (and they won't make the same ones by then), or a totally different technology will come along to replace it.
Same with DVDs. People spent hundreds of dollars on DVDs and now they are all being replaced by blu-ray. In a few years, no one will be releasing DVDs anymore, just as VHSs are no longer around. And I don't like the idea of paying (often full price!) for ebooks when I won't be able to make use of them forever. At least with physical books, you can get them on sale or much cheaper from a private seller or the internet. There isn't much competition with ebooks because there are so few platforms.
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What Plans? said:
because either the battery will start to slowly die
you can't replace the battery on these things?
I guess they assume that you'll want to upgrade to the newest hardware every few years.Warbler said:
What Plans? said:
because either the battery will start to slowly die
you can't replace the battery on these things?
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Sounds like the ipod.
Hey, here's a question. Can you plug the kindle into an outlet? I do that with my ipod all the time so that the battery won't die.
Yes.
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TV's Frink said:
Sounds like the ipod.
yeah, that the think I stand about Ipods. Why in hell didn't they design them so you could replace the battery?
Warb, I've had my ipod for years with no sign of battery failure. I keep it plugged into a dock for my stereo system and an outlet at my desk, as well as a car charger in the car. I rarely am running on battery power, so it's a non-issue for me.
User-replaceable batteries small enough to go in a device like that wouldn't be powerful enough to run it, while batteries big enough to do it would add to the size.
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I don't have any of these things, so please keep that in mind as I share my thoughts:
Why would you unload that kind of bread on a digital device that does so little compared to digital devices in basically the same price range that so much more?
Like Gaffer, I use my laptop for any thing like this. I don't read a lot of 'text' books on it, but I do read a lot of digital comics on it. I listen to a lot of audiobooks on my MP3 player. And I buy (and sell!) a lot of used books. And I spend enough of my day looking at glowing rectangles, that the time I spend with a book... I kind of like it to be a 'book', you know?
As much as I don't need an iPad, since I have a smart phone, another MP3 player, and a laptop... I would much sooner buy one of those than a book only device. Actually, I'd just go buy a netbook or a different brand of notebook PC that I can actually run 'real' software on.
That's my 2 cents.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
I obviously can't answer this yet, but I thought the big advantage was it's easier on the eyes (i.e. more "booklike"), which is something my wife is concerned about.
Also, can you get a laptop for $139?
also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI0Zry_R4RQ
Tee hee!
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
xhonzi said:
also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI0Zry_R4RQ
Tee hee!
I can't see this right now but I'm pretty sure it's that Empire rap song video again.