Tech win

[belisarius_534]

I'm pretty sold on the Kindle after a couple of weeks of using it. I really like the free downloads of classic and some modern books, plus the lack of clutter. I may go for a policy of not buying any more fiction as physical books, and just use the Kindle and the local library wherever possible

Comments

[sarahlascelles]

I like my kindle and almost don. Know how I managed without it, especially with being away, shame you can't take it in the bath. I plan to put Cds in storage when we move. I packed them 2 weeks ago and neither of us has wanted one since

[bacony]

The Kindle can't yet replace all books, because you can't safely teethe on it, nor can you drop it in the bath. Small plastic books with Spot running in them still have their uses :)

[richc]

I'm still not convinced ebook readers aren't a dead end technology. they basically look like single purpose tablet computers to me. Once tablet computers hit a sensible price then I don't see any reason to own an ebook reader.

[belisarius_534]

Its the non-backlit screen that makes the big difference. Its a completely different experience to reading something off an ipad, for example.

[richc]

IMO the screen has as many disadvantages as advantages.
I'll give it very low battery usage and being good for people who don't like reading off normal screens. But in exchange it has a terrible refresh rate (making it unusable for anything except static images), has pretty poor contrast (compared to paper), needs an external light source (so is useless in the dark) and is monochrome only.

But my real point is that it's a single use device in a world where functionality is converging onto a few multi purpose devices. I can, and do, read books on my phone, the only inconvenience being a slightly small screen.

Oh, if you really hate backlit screens you could look at Mirasol displays, not here yet but would fix most of my objections to the screen. But then you might as well fit one to a tablet computer...

[sarahlascelles]

reading from a back lit screen makes my brain hurt. The kindle's main advantage is that it isn't back lit. Its easier on the eye

[salyavin]

What's it like with PDF files? Since that is what I'd probably get one for.

[sarahlascelles]

the page scrolling is sometimes slow, especially on a large file. I have all the contracts relating to my new client on mine and it works fine