Forums | MacLife

I am AFRAID TO ASK.

Last edited by user (2008-11-13 9:13 pm)

I played with a sony ebook reader ... and the screen looked just like paper ... It was weird ... but awesome.

You might read Steve Gibson's review of the Kindle.

There are some good things about the Kindle. It saves space compared to physical books, and has an easy to read display, free cellular Internet access, and probably a handy search feature. Unfortunately, it also has DRM, which harms only the honest; those who pirate get the non-crippled version. That is fundamentally backwards.

The only DRMed content I purchase is standard definition DVDs, because there's currently no DRM-free legal alternative and because that particular DRM is very much broken.

TheUltimateMacUser wrote:

That is my big concern.  The screen.   I'm told it looks 'just like ink on paper' but without seeing it in person, i can't really be sure.  How ink-on-paper-like is the screen?  Is it just as comfortable as reading a paper book, or do you get the sort of eyestrain you get from reading off an LCD screen?

It's hard for me to say ... I don't get eyestrain from lcd monitors very often and I only spent about 15 minutes with the sony buuut ... It looked like someone put a piece of plastic on a page of a book.

Macskeeball wrote:

There are some good things about the Kindle. It saves space compared to physical books, and has an easy to read display, free cellular Internet access, and probably a handy search feature. Unfortunately, it also has DRM, which harms only the honest; those who pirate get the non-crippled version. That is fundamentally backwards.

The only DRMed content I purchase is standard definition DVDs, because there's currently no DRM-free legal alternative and because that particular DRM is very much broken.

I agree.
It can apparently read MOBI content.
I have to see if there is a proper way to compile LaTeX documents into MOBI because it looks like PDF to MOBI can be a bit quirky.

mo' ron wrote:

Where do you find overpriced digital picture frames? I've been looking for a good one but all the ones you see in stores have terrible picture quality, but they are priced for what you'd expect really cheap LCD panels to be priced at.

Digital picture frames have dropped considerably in price over the last few years.
The Kindle will too. In 3 to 5 years, you will be able to get better models for less than half the price.

Now, if it was an Apple product, the price wouldn't drop - but fortunately it's not.

TheUltimateMacUser wrote:

D'Eyncourt wrote:

You might read Steve Gibson's review of the Kindle.

I have, and on that i'd buy one, i just wanted to see if anyone here had anything negative to say about it before  made a decision.

The person i'm thinking of the Kindle for has avoided eBook readers because he doesn't like reading a 'computer' screen for extended periods.  But, the ePaper display is supposed to negate that issue.

On your question I guess Gibson is wrong person to ask since he literally spends hours at a time staring at computer screens (he's an assembly programmer).

Likewise I wouldn't be able to answer your question since I do not have any problems with reading computer screens "for extended periods" (but I do not have a Kindle either).

Until someone comes up with an ebook that can soak in water for a week and be jumped on and can have notes written in it as easily as with a pen, I'm sticking with physical books.  Much more durable.  They take up more space and don't have a search function, but I can trust them to always work.

Mercury52 wrote:

jkahless wrote:

... but I can trust them to always work.

Until they catch on fire...

Throw a kindle on a fire, see how long it keeps working. 

user wrote:

kindling?

Yeah. It's prophetic.
For it's design, Amazon hired the same people who designed the PowerBook G4 batteries.

JediKnightChewie wrote:

I know I have been seriously contemplating the kindle latley becuase where I am currently living I have about 40sq feet of space to myself (twin size bed takes up about 45-50% of the room), so anything that is good at saving space is essential. About half of the books I need for school are old enough to be in the public domain, and though I dont really like paying for things that are legally free, I hate reading off a computer LCD screen.

I dont really have a problem dropping $300-400 on something that would let me carry a collection of books in my pocket. Like Skee pointed out though, there is the problem of DRM and I would like to be able to carry around the ebooks I already own or can get cheaper from somewhere other then amazon.

They do support some non DRM formats.