I've been giving some serious thought to picking up a Kindle from Amazon. I travel for work quite a bit and it would be nice to bring along several books in a convenient format instead of hauling physical books around. I order most of my books from Amazon now anyway and I figure that I'll probably break even in about 18 - 20 months. Does anyone have one? Thoughts?
Careful, if you get a Kindle... http://www.betanews.com/article/Bez...on-will-solve-illegal-book-problem/1248388364 Looks like Amazon has some pretty dangerous abilities there...personally, I'm going to stick with paper books after a thing like that.
My dad got me an EeePC for my birthday, and I must say it works pretty well doubling as an e-book reader. There is an option on its graphic control panel to rotate the screen, so I rotate it 270deg, then hold the netbook on its side, and it's like holding a book. And the netbooks cost a lot less (depending on the brand you get) and are more than just an e-reader. Joy
I love my Kindle. The only drawback I've found is that I want to load mine up with all of my 'old friend' books and not all of them are available yet. Jan
Actually, Amazon recently apologized very publically for that, and gutted that functionality. The owner of the company was -not- pleased, since it hurt their reputation.
I like the Kindle. But before I buy one, I'd like to know whether Apple is coming out with a rival product (tablet, netbook or whatever).
I don't understand why someone would pay $300 for a device to read a book... and then have to buy the books anyway. Is one paperback novel really that hard to carry around? And when you finish that one, carry the next one. I don't get it.
Recently I was on a vacation and I fogot to bring any books or my DS and I was bored out of my skull at nights so I ended up buying the Classics (or whatever it's called) app on my Iphone. Bascially it had a limited number of "classic" literature titles like Huckleberry Finn pre-loaded and you got them all for one price. I wasn't sure how I would like reading a book in that format, but it actually worked out very well. After and experience, I've found myself looking more at the Kindle but the price of not just the Kindle but the books themselves has pretty much turned me away. Plus I'd probably forget to pack it anyway when I travelled.
The Kindle is large, compared to an iPod or iPhone. I have dyslexia and have been listening to books on iPod for years; the Kindle would be pretty clunky compared to iPod. I did check into it, and the speech they have on it doesn't sound as good as Apple's either.
The cost of the books are deeply discounted. Most books appear to be around $9.99 in e-book format, compared to $20 + for a new release, so there is a big savings there. Like I said, at the rate that I go through books, I'll probably break even in 18 months or so and the rest would be savings. One paperback isn't hard to carry around, but typically I'll bring 2 - 3 books on a trip, sometimes hardbacks. When I travel I usually don't check bags either, so a carry on, plus my briefcase/computer bag, and 2-3 books add up.
They have apologized, and I thought that took guts...however, I need to see concrete proof of action taken. Do you happen to have any statement or any other source stating that the remote access ability is actually gone, or is it simply that they say they won't do it again?
Part of the problem with e-books is that publishers don't want them to cannibalize traditional sales. That's why they are priced so high. Amazon charges $9.99 but they have to pay royalties to the publisher as if it was sold for the hardcover price. In other words, Amazon is subsidizing their e-book sales in order to move Kindles. In my opinion, e-books can slag off until publishers wise up and realize they should cost a fraction of hardcover or even paperback. For how long have they played the tune that book prices are so high because of the "rising cost of paper"? Well, the cost of paper is not a factor for an e-book, so how much sense does it make for it to cost almost as much? Unless they've been lying about how much it costs to manufacture books... Makes you wonder. I think $5 is probably a reasonable price for your average novel. Since there are no manufacturing costs associated with it I don't see where all the overhead is. Publishers claim they have huge fixed costs, like editing and marketing and such--well, so do musicians, and somehow they get by with $1 songs and $10 albums, even though the industry claimed it couldn't survive at those price points.
Ten bucks for a book you don't physically own?! You can get a book for free from the library... for 25 cents at a book sale... or for four bucks on Amazon Marketplace because they quickly drop down to a penny.
The point is that the device carries your entire library not just one book. And the Kindle let's you buy new books directly to the device, so you have Amazon's entire book selection at your fingertips anywhere, anytime. So, instead of just reading that one paperback that you happened to take with you, you can read anything you want!