What's Your Verdict on E-Readers?

I bought a *ook for my wife as she's decidedly a bookworm. She enjoys it for traveling and downloading new material that isn't out in hardcopy yet but I'm constantly having to reboot the thing. Maybe it was just a bad product choice on my part.

I bought a Kindle for my wife. She loves it. I use it too, sometimes, and I think it is great. It's easy to order books via Amazon's Kindle store, and there are thousands of free books available (many classics; some newer ones) and lots that are excellent books that are dirt cheap. Even new books are cheaper via Kindle. The e-ink is very easy on the eyes; the typeface is adjustable so even folks with poor eyesight can adjust the font to whatever size fits their needs. It also has an excellent battery life, which is very long if it's put in 'wireless off' mode.

The fact that it is reflective-only is not really much of a drawback, since I also got a nice clip-on, battery-powered LED light for use at night or in dim lighting.

I don't miss having color, since it is mainly used as a replacement for paperback books which are black & white anyway.

There are only 2 real drawbacks, neither of them major: One is the lack of a good page numbering system. You can't tell exactly where you are in the book, if you are discussing the book with someone reading a hardcopy version. The other is lack of random access; you can't just flip to a page at random like you might do sometimes with a hardcopy version. (Like if you are re-reading a favorite book and want to go to a particular section.)

Just got a notice this morning that Kindles are getting a software upgrade this week that includes "Page Numbering". YAY!!

I've been lobbying for this since I bought my original Kindle.

Hooker

Page numbers? I did not know that was coming. Thanks for the heads-up.

WOW ! Thanks for the info. That was the only negative..... now gone ! Great !

I like my Kindle, but prefer to read my books on my computer. The screen is brighter and bigger. All the Kindle books can be read on Android Phones etc. also. It is great to be able to carry around the Kindle with hundreds of books on it too.

i love my Kindle. i needed reading glasses of +3 to read books and newspapers. To my great delight, the crisp display of the Kindle is so good that i don't need the glasses !

Easily the best gadget i invested in...

No page numbers? No random (flip) access? Verdict: Guilty

Resizable font, crisp display--Verdict: Innocent

Overall (Scottish court system) Verdict: Not Proven

The Kindle beats the others hands down for readability and battery life.

The latest kindle from Walmart lacks the wireless capability, however the low price is just compensation.

The price of books for the kindle is very good. I've purchased many at 9.95 but some as low as $0.99. The biggest advantage is the reflective screen which can be read even in bright sunlight. Try that with a backlit LCD!

All in all, hooray for Kindle and Amazon, a winning combination.

Ummm, I could be wrong but if you bought an ebook reader at Walmart, it wasn't a Kindle.

All Kindles have Wi-Fi, but only the newest can be had without 3G.

Hooker

Yes, at least to the best of my knowledge, WiFi is always available, maybe he means 3G.

However, with two perfectly good computers at home, why would i need even WiFi on my Kindle? i always download ebooks to my PC and transfer by USB to my Kindle. If Amazon can knock off another $20 or so to eliminate WiFi, they may get even more customers !

Personally, I like the idea of Wi-Fi on the Kindle. Why, just the other night I ran out of stuff to read while sitting, er, ah, let's just say, occupying the bathroom. After a few minutes of browsing the Kindle store I had eight new FREE books to read.

On the other hand, I am disappointed that I can't browse the computers on my network using the Wi-Fi capability. One still has to hook up the cable to a PC to transfer stuff to/from the Kindle, as far as I know.

I did spring for the 3G version, too, as many places I go don't have Wi-Fi (even work) and I want to be able to download and do other stuff.

Hooker

Not a bad idea, reading a book when....ah... occupying a part of the bathroom. However, i realised decades ago that my brain is perhaps not conventionally placed, and i get the most creative design ideas, solutions to problems which were bugging the company for weeks, awesome creative jokes...all when ... ah ... occupying that vital space. i never took any book there.. maybe i will try .. thanks for the thought

You will only take my Kindle 3G from me if you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

And I figure that I won't live long enough to get through all the free stuff I want to read. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many Kindle books I've actually spent money on. That, however, does not include the cost of my digital subscription to Analog Science Fiction Magazine!!

That said, I do still use real books for a lot of technical reference stuff. Kinda hard to dogear ebooks.

Hooker

'Kinda hard to dogear ebooks.'

I've used the 'bookmark' feature in the Kindle, which is pretty handy. It's pretty close to dogearing the page.

Yeah, since I haven't really done much technical reading on the Kindle, I really haven't tried the feature. Maybe I need to expand my horizons a bit.

Might put sticky notes out of business though.

Hooker

I just bought a kindle a couple of days ago, along with the amazon brand case, the led light is built in & runs off the kindle

how does everyone manage the files?

I found Calibre

This manager will convert from pdf to MOBI format, so you don't have to scroll when you enlarge the fonts :D

it will also convert azm formated files that don't have DRM protection

The built in viewer works well...