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Kindle, any good?

William Rea

DP Veteran
Joined
Aug 23, 2010
Messages
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Location
UK
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Socialist
With the festive season coming up I was looking at the 3G enabled kindle. Does anyone have any experience with it?

I've downloaded many of the free classics available on kindle but never looked at buying books from the site. Is it generally good value (considering the publishers no longer need to invest in a mechanical carrier for their intellectual property).
 
I hate the Kindle! Do we really want to be a society that no longer produces paper books? Kindle and the like is evil.
 
Kali said:
I hate the Kindle! Do we really want to be a society that no longer produces paper books? Kindle and the like is evil.
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I understand what you are saying, I used to love vinyl records and sought them out even when CDs were available but I am totally converted to .wma now. It seems to me that a kindle might help preserve my back when I go on visits or holidays, I'm not getting any younger.
 

I like mine a lot. A charge on the battery lasts and lasts. I buy my ebooks from Amazon where I bought my Kindle. It's one click to purchase and it's on your device in 20 seconds. Can't beat that. Just bought Decision Points for $9.99. I think it's a fair price for the tremendous convenience. Lots of free stuff on Amazon as well.
 

LOL! Point Taken and anybody reading from anything? It is a good thing

Edit to say luv your humor and you READ tooo? Lovely
 
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spud_meister said:
As I say in every thread on Kindles: Don't get one, the name is misleading, they are a pain in the arse to set on fire.
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I did check back a few pages to see if there were any threads but couldn't see any so apologies if I have regurgitated an old theme.

I didn't plan on burning it but it is like so many of these so called conveniences, you get the story from the seller because they want to sell it to you and the reality of the item itself. I must admit the one thing that really concerns me is battery life because it's a pain recharging my mobile phone constantly and that only has a 3.2" screen!
 
Kali said:
LOL! Point Taken and anybody reading from anything? It is a good thing
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Absolutely, reading is the only way to really stretch your mind.
 

Thanks for that, as I said previously, battery life is one of the key issues.
 
William Rea said:
Absolutely, reading is the only way to really stretch your mind.
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I feel talking to other people can stretch your mind too.. I mean those are the ones that write the books
 
spud_meister said:
As I say in every thread on Kindles: Don't get one, the name is misleading, they are a pain in the arse to set on fire.
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Which means a good old fashioned book burning is out the question


Here is a deep theological question


Would deleting a copy of the Koran on an E read (ie Kindle like device) be an offensive act in the same manner as burning a Koran
 

Kindles own. I put free literature on them.
 

I looked into getting a Kindle based on recommendations from people here, and talked to my sister who has one, among others. Based on that talking, a Kindle is tops on my christmas list this year, and it looks like I am getting one. The number of free books you can get for them is amazing. Things like the entire series of Baum's Oz books, Burrough's Mars Series, and hundreds of thousands of others, there simply is not a better investment if you like to read.
 
Kali said:
I feel talking to other people can stretch your mind too.. I mean those are the ones that write the books
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Hmm, I can physically feel brain cells dying when I talk to some people but I know what you mean. Loud music in public houses in the UK has been the death of decent conversation though.
 
William Rea said:
ahem, lol. I get your meaning. Is that easy to do?
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Yes. And dont be a cynical bastard! Its not like I steal, its just the books i read are generally free access
 
William Rea said:
Hmm, I can physically feel brain cells dying when I talk to some people but I know what you mean. Loud music in public houses in the UK has been the death of decent conversation though.
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My point: people write the books you read..
 

Really? I guess that I am just one of those that will never do it.. I want and need a REAL book..
 
Z3n said:
Yes. And dont be a cynical bastard! Its not like I steal, its just the books i read are generally free access
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Huh? Not sure that was needed?
 
Kali said:
Really? I guess that I am just one of those that will never do it.. I want and need a REAL book..
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That's fair enough, the cover art and the feeling of pulling out a book and the smell of the paper is very evocative. I know that that won't happen with a Kindle but , well you know already
 
E-ink is fantastic, but it has drawbacks. Reflex is the biggest issue. If you need to flip between pages quickly, it will take time to have the display refresh, but also much much longer if you have a wide disparity between pages (say it is 10+ page difference). Firmware upgrades have continued to improve the Kindle experience, but I am still running into the following issues:

PDF document zoom: Difficulty in getting just the right zoom if each page has more than one column.
Kindle page format: Far too vague for research/citation purposes.

The pc/mac software itself is lacking. The developers in their infinite wisdom decided it be a good idea if only books purchased through the store receive viewing. Therefore, any additional documents stored, any subscribed publications magically have no presence on the computer software. You would have to continue relying upon a Folder experience via Windows' Explorer or OS X's Finder, for instance.
 
Kali said:
I hate the Kindle! Do we really want to be a society that no longer produces paper books? Kindle and the like is evil.
Click to expand...

I have hundreds of books, but I saw the Kindle as the one thing to keep my printing costs significantly down if I wanted to actually *read* the documents I have stored from archives. Reading hundreds of pages on an LCD screen is the biggest form of masochism I have ever come across.
 
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