Should I Get the New Kindle?
My question is--should I buy the new kindle? I've always been interested in it, but I have an attachment to my book collection, and worry that I won't be able to find as wide a selection of ebooks for download, or that the device won't be as pleasurable to read as a real book.
From a logical standpoint, having a kindle would help me save some money, reduce clutter around my house (I have a lot of books), and be far more convenient to reference old information (via searching a book on the kindle vs. flipping through pages).
Do any of you own a kindle? Do you find that it is pleasurable to read from? I'm especially interested in the opinions of other software developers who read a lot of technical books.
EDIT: The kindle I'm thinking about buying is the new graphite model DX which is 9.7" http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GYWHSQ/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=5676908467&ref=pd_sl_1bi5098qpb_e
22 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 70.0 ms ] threadThe iPad versions of the books are better, but still have odd font issues that I don't much like. If they used a reasonable font for the code, it would be great. I'm still deciding which display I like better.
The iPad is more polished, but the Kindle is smaller, cheaper, lighter, and has a battery that lasts for weeks. I keep wanting to touch the Kindle screen, though.
In the end, I prefer reading technical books as PDFs on my laptop, where I can work and read at the same time. The layout is better, and it's nice to switch between code and book quickly.
And regarding the clunky UI, what is the problem with it? The most important things to me, I think, would be easily flipping pages (back and fourth), and searching for text.
Given the price difference between the big Kindle and the cheapest iPad, I'd probably go with the iPad unless money is a huge factor. The keyboard is nicer, the touch screen is a huge benefit for things like using the dictionary, table of contents and bookmarks. Flipping pages is more intuitive. Install the Kindle app and iBook, and you're good to go. The only caveat to this would be if you really like the kindle display. It is different, and I can image some people putting up with the Kindle's lack of polish to have the screen. I wouldn't call it better, but it is different.
I don't have a Kindle, but really wanted to because it's light. But the screen flicker (will happen a lot esp. with technical books), useless buttons, and he inability to do pretty much nothing except reading books killed it for me. Also I believe, Amazon will redesign the Kindle soon to make it cheaper and better.
The Kindle service, though, is a winner.
I have a subscription to O'Reilly's Safari. The interface and text quality leaves a lot to be desired but it is unbeatable in its breadth. especially when I'm consulting a technical book, I'd rather have the physical book because I do a lot of shuffling around.
First and foremost, I think that for technical books, a Kindle DX rather than a regular Kindle is a must. I used to own a severely underused Sony eReader. The main issue with it was the screen size. At 6" it was useless for technical books.
I don't expect the Kindle DX to be perfect for technical books either. In fact, I heard that anything that doesn't come straight from the Kindle Store tends to look less than ideal (PDFs in particular). But since people like you and I pay for books, the inconvenience may be limited to research papers and a few free PDFs (Amazon offers a conversion service as well, but I don't know how well it works).
The truth of the matter is that, I love to be surrounded by books and have a large collection of titles. Having more books than I could possibly read in a lifetime gives me a constant incentive to read more and more to satisfy my passion for learning. If I want to learn about X, I can immediately grab a book off my shelf and immerse myself in it.
Being able to buy books in 60 seconds accomplishes the same thing without having to buy as many books or take up as much room.
A Kindle DX will decrease the expansion of my physical book collection, but the convenience is definitely there. Books are cheaper, immediate to buy, easier to search, and in many cases the Kindle will be lighter than the corresponding physical books.
It's clearly the future of reading, whether we like it or not, so I decided that it will be my gift to myself for my birthday in August. If I'm not happy, I can always resell it with little loss.
An even cheaper alternative would be the iPad and a Safari Online subscription. But even indoors, I assume that the backlit iPad is not nearly as nice on your eyes for extensive reading (plus, as is essentially an internet enabled computer, it could be more distracting as well). I'd be happy to hear different opinions in this regard.
Thanks for your thoughts!
I do buy a few books via Amazon, but mostly I buy PDFs so I can read them on my dev box, phone, etc. as needed. The PDF reader isn't perfect, but it's good enough.
So yes, in my opinion the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I'd suggest you get a slip case for it, though, otherwise you'll always worry about it when you carry it around. (That goes for and tablet format electronics, though.)
What annoys me is paying £50 in customs charges which I can't get back. Caveat emptor!
Instead of feeling bad of our purchasing decision, we should remember that during the time when we purchased it, we did it because we believed the product fulfilled all our needs.
- The setup cost is too high for an electronic reader. Starting or jumping in a book is faster than starting a reader especially when you have 5 minutes to kill in a traffic jam or while being in a train/metro.
- Comfort of reading is still much better with a traditional book. Having an electronic device emitting light while reading a book in your bed is not really comfortable if you want to sleep afterward.
- Annotation. I'm writing, adding post-it or even adding pages in my books... Sorry but beating a pencil in a book is difficult for a software reader. I think annotation is really important for technical books when you start to use and master a specific technology.
- Social impact. I like to share books with other and even with strangers in the train. With electronic reader socialization is much more difficult than with traditional books where everyone can read the cover.
I'm still not really convinced or found a real practical use of such readers for my day-to-day technical reading. The only advantage for electronic books is the fast look-up but with some nice placed annotation you can even beat the ebook look-up/search...
It's great for illustrations, too - all the drawbacks of the hardware-based Kindles disappear when you use the Kindle App on the iPad.
Despite its ugly appearance, it's easy enough to use that octogenarian judges were able to start using my Kindle without any assistance.
Plus, even though the Kindle uses proprietary DRM, that DRM is easier to remove than the ePub DRM. I've archived DRM-free copies of every book I've purchased from the Kindle store.
As other commentators have pointed out, the Kindle is not a good choice for technical books in the Mobi format because the Kindle overrides fonts and spacing. However, I haven't had any problems reading technical books in PDF format on my brother's Kindle 2.
If you live in Europe, the device, due to whisper-net limitations is crippled: no images in subscriptions, no simple web browsing, no blogs and the books are often more expensive than the paperback editions (!)