Amazon Kindle

Aiee! Typo city. If it's any excuse, I cut the middle finger on my right hand two days ago, which means that for my messed up touch typing, YUIKM is a total disaster, and it's thrown off my typing more than I can possibly explain. there is nothing worse than all of the sudden thinking about something that was previously autonomic. It's also made me realize how messed up my typing pattern really is. I've been considering moving to DVORAK but, despite me retraining myself to use "standard" FPS controls after a lifetime of a weird pointless key mapping I came up with back when dinosaurs played doom, I don't think I could do it. How's that for a derailment.

I like the idea of having a library in my hands for traveling, but since I don't travel very much I can't justify the $399 price.

If I could download books from my local library, I'd be on board at $150. I do like the idea of reading the first chapter of any book for free.

from the other thread--

Because books have always been as cheap as they are now. That's like pshawing the horse-and-buggy because walking has been good enough for thousands of years.

not really the point. Books, as they are, have been roughly "mass market" for at least a century. No one, aside from nerds, cares about ebooks. People have been trying to sell these for over a decade.

I like ebooks, use my PPC/PSP/etc to read them, but those devices are able to do many things rather than only one thing for the cost. As was mentioned in the other thread, though, books arent things most people even read (for one) and for another, we don't digest books the same way we do music. We usually pick one, stick with it till it's done, and move on. This kind of device is pointlessly expensive to purchase just for books.

Does it have "potential"? Sure... I can see maybe college textbooks distributed this way. But other schools? Bah. I work in a high school, and I wouldn't trust more than 10% of our students with one of these babies.

I think Amazon would be better off trying to license something with apple for the iPhone/Touch/iPod than to release this reader.

Keyboard makes it fugly.

An iPhone touchscreen/interface would make it much sexier and appealing and the form factor could be 1/3 smaller.

You can't share sections of the newspaper on this thing. Your wife can't read 1 of your books while you're reading 1. Maybe they'll let you share if you have 2 $400 e-readers.

It's another gadget that we're asked to carry when we are also asked to carry an iPod, phone and laptop to name a few.

I'd probably just go on my computer if I was going to use Wikipedia.

I think technology still needs to get smaller to make something like this work if it doesn't jump to a future phone or sub-notebook. I also think a design that folded in half would be better. It would protect better. Give you a smaller form factor when transported. A line across the screen won't matter much with a book or you'd just make each screen a page. It also needs to get a bit thinner and I think feel is very important. They are going to have to use materials that are as appealing to hold as a book.

Also I think they are going to have to start marketing things like this to youngsters. Get them used to it while they are young. Folks used to holding books are going to be hard to convert to an e-reader.

And like was said above I don't need access to alot of books at once. I'm usually reading 1 book at a time and it takes me many many hours to finish it.

I do see the appeal of reducing clutter!!!!! I have a lot of mags laying around. Newspapers pile up every week. I have shelfs of books and boxes of books. So perhaps I could be persuaded to grab one if it looked more like an iPhone and had a sleek interface and was easy to use as iTunes/iPhone.

I've read books on everything, and I will say that until you've read something on e-ink, it's just not comparable. I can't read something on a regular LCD - iPone, PSP, Laptop, whatever - for more than an hour without just going crazy. E-ink, which I've been watching since CES in like 2002, is completely different - it falls on your eyes like paper, which is just flat out different and much more natural for reading over time. The keyboard is critical only because its designed to be a computer-less connected device, and adding a touchscreen over the e-ink would be somewhat pointless, because the critical flaw of e-ink remains, for the forseable feature, is refresh rate. It's fine for flipping pages, but animating an interface effectively would be troubling. That's why both this and the Sony e-ink reader use off-page navigation.

It's too expensive, of course. Ideally, this is a device given away as part of a subscription, just like a phone. But this household buys SOOOoooo many books that the economics go from being ludicrous to luxury.

We'll see whether it sucks tomorrow.

rabbit wrote:

We'll see whether it sucks tomorrow.

Amen. Here's hoping my UPS guy is faster than your UPS guy.

Did anyone else notice the address bar that clearly said "Enter URL" beside it when they were showing Wikipedia in the demo? If you could use this to post on gamerswithjobs.com while listening to mp3's from just about anywhere, wouldn't that make this thing easily worth $399??

Tobyus wrote:

Did anyone else notice the address bar that clearly said "Enter URL" beside it when they were showing Wikipedia in the demo? If you could use this to post on gamerswithjobs.com while listening to mp3's from just about anywhere, wouldn't that make this thing easily worth $399?? :P

Probably just like with pd-via-email conversions, "for a small fee", they can reprocess any website for you into the Kindle format!

rabbit wrote:

I've read books on everything, and I will say that until you've read something on e-ink, it's just not comparable. I can't read something on a regular LCD - iPone, PSP, Laptop, whatever - for more than an hour without just going crazy. E-ink, which I've been watching since CES in like 2002, is completely different - it falls on your eyes like paper, which is just flat out different and much more natural for reading over time. The keyboard is critical only because its designed to be a computer-less connected device, and adding a touchscreen over the e-ink would be somewhat pointless, because the critical flaw of e-ink remains, for the forseable feature, is refresh rate. It's fine for flipping pages, but animating an interface effectively would be troubling. That's why both this and the Sony e-ink reader use off-page navigation.

It's too expensive, of course. Ideally, this is a device given away as part of a subscription, just like a phone. But this household buys SOOOoooo many books that the economics go from being ludicrous to luxury.

We'll see whether it sucks tomorrow.

Yeah I just think the thing will fail commercially speaking.

I was reading some more articles on it and alot of old novels are just as cheap to order in book form from Amazon as to get in text file form for this thing which is blasphemous. I think $10 for new releases is high and yet from what I read Amazon is losing money on that because $10 is the wholesale cost from publishers. Amazon is hoping to make money off old books which again are as much ordering a paperback.

Newspaper subscriptions all cost $$$$$. $14/month for New York Times for this e-reader or free on the internet? Hhhmmm.

I think if I made an e-ink reader I would associate it with the pc more. It worked for the ipod and that's a music device which seems farther removed from computers than books are.

Let's say you can't do a touchscreen.

I'd still go no keyboard. I'd only have 3 buttons - Forward/Backward/Menu. I'd use my pc to transfer books/newspapers to it. The thing would basically be a screen and that's it. I'd find a way to fold the thing in half too. And spiff up the form factor design. Hire some automobile car (body) designers. Hell my appliances look better than this e-book reader.

A book is easy to use. Why does thing have all these keys on it? Bezos says it is for the person that reads 3 or 4 books at once. I guess it's going after a niche market.

Another idea is make a monitor with this technology if the reading is so easy on the eyes. I'd use one just to read articles. NO doubt they've thought of that.

I think if you're so hung up on price (OMG I can get THE BIBLE for free why do I ahve to pay), this thing isn't for you. I believe it's more about convenience.

I see a huge market for it, but not yet.

Amazon needs some way to keep people from posting reviews if they've never actually bought the item.

This is my favorite "review":

1/5 Stars
Response to Positive Comments

Amazing, all the positive comments on a product that no one has been able to use yet.

The most common praise seems to be supporting everything but PDFs. Yeah, pretty awesome. But easily overlooked. The Kindle supports MOBI files. It took me five minutes on Google to find the Mobi site, download their desktop software, and convert a PDF file to Mobi. Problem solved...

There is definitely a division between "make a computer dongle" vs. "Make a cell phone," and this thing is the latter (you get what I mean).

As for web browsing, e-ink is a very poor choice for an interactive device, unless they've really improved it from the Sony (which I don't think they have). It doesn't refresh in Frames per second, but in frames per minute (like 80 or so). More than good enough to read a book, craptacular for typing or surfing. Supposedly you *can* surf on it, which probably makes it good enough to be an emergency email reader, but I have no intention of replacing my Treo with it. Kinda not the point.

I have the first gen Sony Reader, and I can say e-ink is amazing for reading. When you pull it out in sunlight, it looks like a newspaper. No glare, no eye strain. Grab your book light for some in the dark reading and it looks just as good. I read on mine for an hour or more daily. And recharge at worst once a week. Try doing that with a PDA.

I'm still on the fence if I want to move to the Kindle or not. Most of my books are from Baen Publishing. DRM free and available in Mobi or HTML (for BookDesigner conversion to my Sony). I'm not interested in the blogs, newspapers, or magazines. I would like the word lookup feature, but I've lived without it on my Sony.

I'm interested to see if the Kindle handles .mobi files the same as it handles .azw. If it does...

trip1eX wrote:

I think if I made an e-ink reader I would associate it with the pc more. It worked for the ipod and that's a music device which seems farther removed from computers than books are.

Let's say you can't do a touchscreen.

I'd still go no keyboard. I'd only have 3 buttons - Forward/Backward/Menu. I'd use my pc to transfer books/newspapers to it. The thing would basically be a screen and that's it.

In your case, take a look at the Bookeen. Came out a month ago (backordered right now) and fully supports the Mobipocket store. Same e-ink vizplex panel, same dictionary lookup functionality.

I find it strange that Amazon, the owners of Mobipocket, don't support mobi drm on the Kindle. Maybe they'll add it in the future after they've established the Kindle store.

The bookeen thing is pretty, but at $50 less than the kindle, it seems expensive without any connectivity. Nice design though.

rabbit wrote:

The bookeen thing is pretty, but at $50 less than the kindle, it seems expensive without any connectivity. Nice design though.

I agree. But until the Kindle was announced yesterday, it was a great price. Also note that to get the leather cover, headphones, etc. it's $50 MORE than the Kindle.

My biggest complaint with the design is that I like to flip pages with my left hand. Bookeen only has the 5-way pad which is on the wrong side for me.

Ok, that Bookeen Cybook is exactly what I was imagining the Kimble should be. That one I'm interested in more.

For me, the newspaper/blog/online thing is really important, so its worth way more than the $50 price difference. Still waiting on the freaking UPS truck.

My UPS guy won.

First impressions:

-It's not as ugly as it looks like in the pictures.
-Dang, it already downloaded the stuff I added last night via amazon.com before I got it. I just opened it and the books are there. No setup needed.
-Text is very readable as expected.

Charging it up to read some this afternoon. (Says 2 hour charge, but can read while charging)

LiquidMantis wrote:

Ok, that Bookeen Cybook is exactly what I was imagining the Kimble should be. That one I'm interested in more.

Yep me too. The Bookeen looks much better and does what I'd want an e-reader to do - display books.

rabbit wrote:

For me, the newspaper/blog/online thing is really important, so its worth way more than the $50 price difference.

It's not the savings. If I get this I'd end up with the leather case anyway. I'd pay $50 more to get the keyboard off the bottom.

magnus wrote:

Charging it up to read some this afternoon. (Says 2 hour charge, but can read while charging)

Do post a detailed review please!

magnus wrote:

-Dang, it already downloaded the stuff I added last night via amazon.com before I got it. I just opened it and the books are there. No setup needed.

Was it within a minute or two (books or small) or was it literally the second you turned it on. If it's the latter then the implication is that somehow it matched serial numbers before it shipped, AND the wireless was on in the box (which strikes me as fun for air shipping "no radio" rules).

And, BTW, I hate you.

Oh I can't stand the name Kindle either. I keep thinking fire and book burning.

Anyway the big big big feature for me in a device like this is its ability to reduce clutter. That's why I like the Bookeen design.

The fact that you store something like 200 books on these things eliminates the need to shop anytime anywhere for me at least. So I don't need a keyboard. Their Sprint wireless service would be nice for getting the latest newspaper anytime anywhere, but I do wonder how much it adds to cost because the times I would really need that ability would be very rare and something I could easily live without. And then say I did want that what's the coverage area like?

And then say I did want that what's the coverage area like?

Check Sprint's site. It's pretty much everywhere.

Bookeen

What is the Cybook?
The Cybook is an electronic book, it is a portable device that lets you read as you do on paper everywhere you go.
You can now take along all your digital documents with you on a device as small and light as a paperback. The Cybook is perfectly readable in a wide range of lighting conditions, including direct sunlight.

What does the Cybook look like?
The Cybook simply looks stunning with its frosty black finish and its navigation pad on its front side.
With the size of a paperback, the thickness of a magazine and a weight of a mobile phone, the Cybook is truly mobile and can be easily arranged in a hand bag. The Cybook design is definitely beautiful and stylish.

Easy on the eyes?
The Cybook screen possesses a paper-like high contrast appearance. Like a sheet of paper, it can be viewed from nearly any angle, doesn't show any flicker effect and has a high resolution. When you read, you have no eyestrain and it definitely gives you the experience of reading from paper.

How long does the Cybook battery last?
As long as the Cybook E Ink® screen displays the same page, there is no power consumption. This technology drastically reduces power needs. Thus, the Cybook offers an impressive battery lifetime of 8,000 page flips on a full charged battery. It corresponds to a two (2) month battery lifetime for an average reading pace of 80 pages per day.

What can I read?
Almost any digital documents. The Cybook supports many open formats like HTML, Txt, PRC, PalmDoc and PDF. These formats are commonly found on Internet and can be easily generated by many text editors. All these files support font resizing except PDF files which can be zoomed.

Where can I buy contemporary titles?
The Cybook supports the MobipocketTM secured eBook format. This encrypted format enables the Cybook user to get access to one of the biggest catalogue of contemporary copyrighted titles with publishers like Random House, Penguin, Simon & Schuster or Harlequin.
You will find more than 200 eBook retailers on the web which propose MobipocketTM files.

How many books can I carry?
The 64 MB Cybook internal memory can contain several tens of books. You can also extend your storage capacity with SD cards storing several thousands of digital documents.

How can I add new files to my Cybook?
Connect the Cybook with the USB cable to any host computer and drag and drop your files. That's it, your new content is in the Cybook, ready to be displayed.
No software installation, no synchronization process, no file conversion and most of all the Cybook is compatible with any kind of host computer (Windows®, Linux, Mac®).

What else?
The Cybook can display many image types like JPEG, GIF and PNG. These images are automatically resized and displayed as on a digital frame device.
The Cybook can also play MP3 files along with the reading of a book.

Features:

Read books
With the Cybook, you can access more than 55,000 digital contemporary books from hundreds of publisher sources like Random House, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Harlequin"…. These digital books are in MobipocketTM format, the available catalogue grows very quickly and gain several hundreds titles per month.
The digital book version is most of the time 20 to 30% less expensive than its paper counterpart and more than 200 digital book stores propose MobipocketTM digital books.

Read documents
The Cybook can read different kind of digital documents like classical books in HTML or TXT, user's manual in PDF"…
Cybook supports all these document formats directly and without any conversion. To transfer your documents to the Cybook, you just need to connect your Cybook with your USB cable and copy your data in the Cybook memory. You can also use a SD card and copy your data in it.

Read news
The Cybook offers the possibility to download and read RSS feeds and online information from famous websites, using MobipocketTM eNews software.

Display photos
The Cybook can act as a digital frame to display photos and pictures in JPEG, GIF or PNG formats. These images are automatically resized, converted to grey levels and dithered offering an impressive rendering quality.

Play music
The Cybook can also act as a MP3 player. Thanks to its stereo headphones connection, you can listen to your favorite music along your reading.

The nice thing about both the Kindle and the Bookeen is that they both have Mac support. Well, aside from Mobipocket. That is still windows only, unfortunately.

My Sony reader has some just awful windows only software that is the only way to get books on the thing. There is a freeware mac app for it, but it's not very reliable. BookDesigner is the only way to make Sony formatted ebooks. Again, not the most reliable.

So, in my experience with a 1st gen reader, I'd recommend not getting the Sony. Either Bookeen or Amazon will have much more support, a larger library, and better potential for added functionality. I'm still leaning toward the Kindle, for the wikipedia search and the left hand page buttons. But if Amazon released a "Kindle Lite" without the radio, I'd buy it right now.

trip1eX wrote:

Oh I can't stand the name Kindle either. I keep thinking fire and book burning.

I'm Detective John Kindle!

I'm a cop, you idiot!

So, UPS finally came.

First off, it simply feels and looks different in person than it does flat on in a picture. In other words, if photographs poorly. Too bad since most people will only ever see one on the web, in a picture. If feels great in the hand, super light.

Second, the screen is really great, but there's a part of your brain that needs to process that it's not a computer. Page refresh is under a second, but not super speedy.

Third, as I expected, wireless in my house is a bit sketchy, but I can barely get cell coverage here. Made browsing around wikipedia a bit annoying (it pops an error when it can't connect) but it didn't have any issues getting the books I'd bought and the newspaper within a few minutes of turning it on.

I plan on spending the long weekend with it, really using it as my book/newspaper before I do any kind of real "review" but so far, it's exactly as advertised.

rabbit wrote:
Lester_King wrote:

I am a huge Proj. Gutenberg addict and if I can't add those .txt files to this thing without paying them $.10...

Filthy skimmer (heh).

Oh. Snap. I missed that.

Well, it's still ugly!

That and I just bought a Nokia n800, which does all this and more!

It's small, somewhat larger than a pocket book. Came with a nice leather holder that I'll most likely use. Read a few chapters at lunch and am very pleased so far. It's not for browsing, it's not for email, it's for reading books. I can see myself loading a few mp3s on it to listen to while reading, but hey, that's what my iPod is for. Don't know why they included that feature.

The sample books I added last night were on it when I opened it up. It's already registered to your amazon account before it's shipped, so I'm thinking they probably downloaded while I spent a few seconds skipping past the intro.

Honestly, I don't think I'll be buying a lot of books from the Kindle, unless I'm on the road. I'm just used to the browser shopping experience (over FIOS, thank you very much).

In short, it's great for reading and getting books fast. Which is what I'll be using it for.

Disclaimer: I still have "new-tech geekout-is", so I may change any opinion above in a day or two.