Should I buy a Kindle?

[Miss Chicken]

Amazon's Kindle is going international this month and I am debating whether to buy one or not. Does anyone here own one or can anyone give me some advice?

I checked and EDGE/GPRS coverage is available in my city. How good is this?

 

[Jan]

I *love* my Kindle. The only downside is that what I want to load mine up with are all my 'old friend' books and too few of them are available so far. I find some of them on publisher's sites rather than Amazon, though so my library is growing steadily.

Jan

 

[Sephiroth]

Just buy a book, cheaper

 

[Miss Chicken]

I buy 100+ books a year, many of them from Amazon. When I buy from Amazon I have to pay intenational shipping which increases the price quite a bit.

I think a Kindle would pay for inself within a year.

 

[Sephiroth]

perhaps, but what if a book you want is unavailable for the Kindle?

 

[KiraDax]

perhaps, but what if a book you want is unavailable for the Kindle?

Then you buy the print version. Nothing is ever 100%.

Heck, there are books I want that are only in hardcover and I hate the bulk and bigger price...but if I want to read the book badly enough, I guess I'll eventually buy anyhow.

Seems the benefits of a kindle would outweigh the detriments.

Of course, I'm still saving for mine...

 

[Miss Chicken]

If I bought a Kindle I would still buy printed books from Amazon especially as I already know that many books that I want aren't available on (or not suitable for) Kindle (especially art books etc). That still doesn't negate the fact that I would save about at least $5-10 a book by getting Kindle books when they are avalable.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, I think in your case, being able to cut out the shipping costs is a huge win for you. If you really buy that many books, you're right, what you save in shipping will quickly pay for the Kindle.

I don't have one, but my mother does, and I played around with it. It's pretty nice. Very readable.

 

[backstept]

the thing with Kindle is that Amazon has the ability to remove them from your collection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle#Remote_content_removal
though I doubt they'll ever do it again

 

[Saturn0660]

I have a Cybook Cybook. I got it because it works with this ClevNet. I can download book that only work for 21 days and I don't have to buy anything..

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I have a Cybook Cybook. I got it because it works with this ClevNet. I can download book that only work for 21 days and I don't have to buy anything..

I suspect that's not going to help Miss Chicken at all, since she lives in Tasmania and nowhere near northern Ohio.

 

[SeerSGB]

I'm sort of on the fence about the Kindle. I've known a couple of people that used them, and once the novelty wore off they were right back to buying paperbacks and hardcovers. One of the big complaints was that you can't pull a Kindle out in every place like you can a paperback; to use an example: the courthouse where all electronic devices are ordered to be shutdown.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

If you're ok with the fact that the books are locked in to Kindle and there's the off chance Amazon can reach in and delete your books, go for it. Different people's mileage may vary as the liklihood of them being effected by that stuff in any way really varies.

I'm not quite there yet, as though other media has gone that way, I'm not willing to give up "I paid for this so I own this book now and can do whatever I want with it" as far as books are concerned.

 

[Saturn0660]

I have a Cybook Cybook. I got it because it works with this ClevNet. I can download book that only work for 21 days and I don't have to buy anything..

I suspect that's not going to help Miss Chicken at all, since she lives in Tasmania and nowhere near northern Ohio.

True enough.. However, her local may use something like it.
Course i could always give her my pin

 

[Michael Chris]

My parents use them quite often. My father very much likes it because he can control the font size as he has a very hard time reading normal books with some vision problems that he has.

 

[Kirby]

I bought a Kindle this summer and I absolutely love it. I read 2 - 3 books a month and I figured that mine would pay for itself in about 20 months. I also travel quite a bit, so it's a huge space saver with carry on bags.

The Pros:
The books are cheaper, no shipping charges, you can change font sizes, highlight sections, built in dictionary, and notes (which I use quite a bit).
It also syncs up with an iPhone or iPod Touch - I just bought an iPod Touch and was surprised to see that it syncs perfectly to the last page you were reading on the Kindle, and then when you go back to the Kindle, it picks up where you left off on the ipod - it's a cool feature if you can stand reading on your small ipod screen, which I can only do for limited periods of time.

The Cons:
Text to speech is awful, I tried it just for fun and the female voice is very annoying. The male voice is bad, but better than the female voice. I have no intention of ever using that feature, but if that's important to you, be wary.

Battery life - I have a bad habit of never shutting it down, so the battery drains quicker. I'm sure over time the battery itself will die out, but I don't know how to replace the battery or if you just have to buy a new Kindle. If that's the case, then that sucks.

Construction quality - Someone at work has the 1st generation Kindle and the 2nd generation is built much better, but still I'd hate to get this thing wet, or drop it on concrete. There is a drop test video on the Amazon site, but I don't believe it.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The battery is replaceable, so you do not have to send it back to Amazon for that. Just buy a spare battery.

 

[Kelthaz]

The Amazon Kindle is amazing, but the way I see it is that with any new technology it will be obsolete very soon. If you can wait 2-3 years you can probably get an e-reader that is far better (better screen, coloured screen, more features, etc.) for the same or even less money.

Personally I prefer to avoid bleeding-edge technology and wait for the superior and cheaper mainstream models to come out. But if you don't mind spending the money I say go for it. You would probably enjoy it.

 

[Alpha Romeo]

This is a waste of money. Go to the library or your local book store. How much are you going to be spending on this? I bet it's a bit expensive.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I have the Sony PRS-505 eReader and I'm quite happy with it. It was more than the Kindle is by about $40 when I bought it, but it does what I want it to do. Though I don't use it that often because I have loads of print books to get through, and the SonyStore is not exactly user friendly, I would recommend the new Sony eReader. I believe it may be cheaper than the Kindle.