Kindle: Amazon's new wireless reading device

[cianosheehan]

I think they could have gotten people much more excited about it if it looked the part. But it really doesnt. Kinda suprising that the aesthetics are so bad actually. I'm not too sure about those 'next page' buttons on either side...I know they want to mimmick the physical action of turning a page, but still. Just seems too clunky. I'd like to see how the words look on the screen though.

If the Kindle was really durable, and about half the price I'd consider it.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I think the ebook market is very different from the music market though. either way the music is coming through speakers, the source ends up not mattering very much.

with ebooks, the source is basically the same as the output device.

wrt to the other stuff this thing can do, I already touched on why I think this will ultimately be inferior to smartphones with good screens (ie iphone). and unless amazon has a monopoly on online sales of ebooks (this is I know nothing about) there is not much of a reason why you need the kindle.

edit: I am talking more about the medium term viability of this thing (2-4 years from now) than its utility right now. I just think this market is one more where convergence will happen into the pda/smartphone/mp3 device market

[cianosheehan]

I have to say also, that carrying around a library would be quite nice. There's loads of times where I 'could' listen to my mp3 player but just dont feel like it whereas it'd be nice to read something instead. And if I could select what I read at any time, whether it's a magazine or a novel or a paper or whatever, that'd be sweet.

And travelling with it and having access to magazines and newspapers while in a foreign country whose print is mainly in a different language would be really good.

[kabouter]

I want one of these for school, as a Law student it would be awesome not having to carry around those heavy books anymore. And it's great for the environment as well.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

does anyone know if they will continue adding already published titles? selection is very limited atm. Not a single G.Greene book available.

lol @ 343 mostly negative reviews on amazon from people who have not bought the thing yet.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

"The most common complaint seems to be lack of PDF support. Yeah, pretty dumb. But easily handled. The Kindle supports MOBI files. It took me five minutes on Google to find the Mobi site, download their desktop software, and convert a PDF file to Mobi. Problem solved."

[KneeCo]

[ QUOTE ]
I want one of these for school, as a Law student it would be awesome not having to carry around those heavy books anymore. And it's great for the environment as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the market for novels is very different from that for txt books, also the client base for the latter is built in, it's not about getting more or less people to buy it.

I doubt txt book publishers are going to want to convert their libraries to a medium which would just really cost them money.

At best, if these really blow up over the next few years and are common for students, students/environment/... associations can choose to pressure faculty to choose kindle txt book; but that will take time and I can't see it being a reality for anyone who is already in university.

[Nicholasp27]

the advantage of the kindle is that it uses e-ink, which iphones and computers don't use

e-ink only uses battery when u change the text (turn the page), so it can stay on one page forever without battery dying

it also looks much much much more like reading a book...no backlight and no glare like with computers/iphones

this is just a start and not the holy grail, but e-ink is a huge advantage over normal displays when doing something like this

the eventual winner(s) in the ebook space will use e-ink or some similiar technology

[kkcountry]

[ QUOTE ]
the advantage of the kindle is that it uses e-ink, which iphones and computers don't use

e-ink only uses battery when u change the text (turn the page), so it can stay on one page forever without battery dying

it also looks much much much more like reading a book...no backlight and no glare like with computers/iphones

this is just a start and not the holy grail, but e-ink is a huge advantage over normal displays when doing something like this

the eventual winner(s) in the ebook space will use e-ink or some similiar technology

[/ QUOTE ]

couldn't bother to read the 40 some replies in this thread?

[Nicholasp27]

i read the entire thread

multiple people mentioned iphones, computers, htc phones, etc etc

others talked about hard drives and battery life (long life is due to NO power being used when not 'turning a page' not due to hard drive size) and other such things

so i posted to clear some of that up