Kindle: Amazon's new wireless reading device

[swingdoc]

Destined to fail. What is the benefit of this compared to standard book(s)?

Smaller/lighter/easier to transport?

Yes and no. Certainly no when compared to a single book. Yes when compared to 400 books, but who needs to (or does) transport 400 books? Outside of very select populations (travelling abroad for months at a time) this seems a rather weak improvement.

Easier to read than standard bokos?

No. Approx the same ease of reading.

I just don't see any great improvement over standard books here. Digital music was obviously a huge improvement. Increased ease of use (wrt mixing and matching songs from various artists), increased portability for EVERYONE, not just a rather small sub-population. iPods are smaller and lighter than any CD player, not even mentioning the vastly higher number of songs which can be stored. An enormous market for digital music existed well before iTunes. Pirated music drove the expansion of this technology. Pirated books simply aren't the same force.

[astroglide]

<font color="green">
Smaller/lighter/easier to transport?

Yes and no. Certainly no when compared to a single book.</font>

the kindle weighs 10 ounces. the latest harry potter book has a shipping weight of 1.8 pounds.

<font color="green">Easier to read than standard bokos?

No. Approx the same ease of reading.</font>

the kindle is 7.5" x 5.3" x 0.7". the latest harry potter book is 9.1 x 6 x 2.3.

these are hardcover comparisons, but some books are only available in that format. that is currently the case with the potter book i referenced. it's not currently available on kindle either, though. just a marquee example with which many should be able to relate.

books also have to be held open. that is more difficult at the beginning and end of a book, and the effects are worsened as the page count increases. i find myself constantly annoyed with this issue on certain large technical books and i am unable, for example, to comfortably read them lying on my back.

i'm not necessarily pro-kindle, and i don't currently have plans to order one. still, i don't get these knee-jerk reactions from people who presumably have no actual experience with the product.

[SamIAm]

I thought it was pretty clear that the advantage of digital books isn't in ease of reading, but rather in distribution. The whole goal of the new screen was to emulate books, not improve on them. I guess being able to carry bunches of books w/o the weight is nice, but the real power will be when Opera's book club can sell the actual book along with the recommendation.

Treating books as information instead of a physical product will change the book market dramatically.

[SamIAm]

By the way, my brother was given a promo copy of the kindle, and I got to play with it over thanksgiving. It does seem clunky as hell. The interface just feels very 1980s, although the screen is really nice in light conditions that'd make a pda unreadable.

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, my brother was given a promo copy of the kindle, and I got to play with it over thanksgiving. It does seem clunky as hell. The interface just feels very 1980s, although the screen is really nice in light conditions that'd make a pda unreadable.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does the resolution compare to printed text? Readable serif fonts?

[Jack of Arcades]

Yeah, reviews aren't being kind to the usability of it all. The design of the product makes accidental page switching the norm and it's hard to hold.

[pr0crast]

Ill buy it as soon as the DRM is cracked. Paper books are the last frontier for piracy to conquer... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

In all seriousness though, $10 is too much for a book when you don't get the physical object to put on your bookshelf. $5 is closer to what I'd pay.

[astroglide]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought it was pretty clear that the advantage of digital books isn't in ease of reading, but rather in distribution.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think that's a bad assumption. with digital books you gain the possibility control fonts and text size. there aren't binding issues or offset printing. if typos or errors are present, they can be corrected in a revision. upgrade pricing for new versions of technical books also becomes an option. so do alternate languages. you can perform word searches. highlights and page noting are virtual, and can be undone. as i already mentioned, holding the book open and dealing with weight or high page counts become non-issues. all that stuff is just off the top of my head.

so as long as the screen is at least as readable with no eye fatigue issues, i can see a ton of advantages. so much that if a one-off digital book were side-by-side with a print version, i would opt for the former if the prices were close and component waste wasn't an issue - even without revisions or upgrades. that hypothetical effectively ignores distribution.