LostKnightsRPG.org

[Rusty]

My shiny new kindle is barely out of the box and I'm madly in love with it. Granted, I am definitely part of the demographic it's marketed to, and though I love the feel of a worn paperback, or the heft of a reference text, I've found a very different and very space age feel coming from the kindle, that I've found to be almost equally or possibly greater than the feel of the analog Book.

Let me first say that, at a tender young age when I saw Captain Picard reading a data pad for the first time, I wanted the data pad to exist. Kindle is a very powerful step towards what a data pad could some day be, I'm not sure that I"m ready to go ahead and say that it is one, as composing a document from scratch does not appear possible on the kindle through any direct method, though if they included say, wifi so they can talk to each other, an OLED touch screen, voice recognition and transcription, and video playback, I think we'd be there. As it is, it's incredible. I was skeptical about the screen format at first, it's black and white, it's not illuminated, and it's processor isn't all that fast, but once I got my hands on it and started using it every single day for school, news, and recreation, I realized that, especially compared to a computer screen, the image really does look and "feel" like paper. The objective of the kindle appears to be a substitute upgrade for books, taking advantage of cutting edge technology.

I think that, even though this is the second edition of the kindle, they have a little way to go before it's a completely transparent experience. In image rich books there can be a short delay before pages change. The Kindle DX includes native PDF support, I have just a regular international kindle, which requires me to send pdfs to amazon for conversion, which often ends up choppy and limits the size to 36mb, which would normally be enough but, for example, pathfinder is over 80mb.

The onboard dictionary and its integration into the reader is excellent, and I have tested it a bit and found that it does know technical and scientific terms. I was suprised to find that the wikipedia and basic internet browser seems to work just fine. I don't use wiki much when studying or reading a book, but sometimes the newspaper I take on the kindle refers to things I don't understand, and I can look them up on wikipedia real quick (and for free) to see if anyone else does either.

Once I researched into the kindle, I found that most if not all the books on it, including (and important to me) medical text books, are at drastically reduced prices. I've got five or six medical texts of varying natures on my kindle, and I paid half price or less for them, which in one fell swoop "paid" for my kindle. One of those books was another copy of a book I have, but is too heavy to carry to class.

The ability to "carry" 1500 books in the kindle isn't really that big of a deal to me. If it could only carry 10 books, plus the current issues of my magazine, journal, or newspaper subscriptions, I'd be happy. I find internet versions of books difficult or fussy to use, especially with the bad internet we have on campus, but because I have those, the kindle isn't "really" taking weight out of my backpack. It's taking theoretical weight out of my backpack, which doesn't really change what I carry around all day. I have, on the other hand, found that reading books on kindle that are 800 pages or more in real life is much easier, physically. Digging into reference or textbooks can be cumbersome, if you do it a lot, and I do. On kindle, my books don't hang up or load improperly because someone on campus is uploading a youtube video, nor do they tire out my wrists or require strange postures. Whether I'm reading the news, James Joyce, or Pharmacology, I've got the same physical object in hand. I've already found that this has gotten me in the habit of reading, a habit I lost when the internet became functional. (Prodigy wasn't, even at the time.)

All in all, I find my kindle to be indispensable, even though I got along fine without it before.

I won't really go as far as to say that it's superior to book. There is a rich, warm, fuzzy feeling one gets from curling up with a book, it puts you in touch with hundreds of years of readers in a profound way that nothing else, no matter how advanced or convenient, will replace. However, it does have upgrades from book. In a lot of things, some people prefer the classic to the new. Classic Book will probably never go away, Kindle is the new hotness, and I'd recommend anyone to check it out. I get stopped or interrupted constantly by people wondering what it is I'm doing, why I'm playing with a calculator at subway, and is that the thing I keep seeing on amazon.

[Liquidprism]

I'm glad your happy... you should send your 'Im on Love With My Kindle' essay to the company who makes them. Im sure they will put it in their brochure.. or something.

[arete]

Hmm maybe I should get one...

[rydi]

I'm tempted, very tempted. But also poor, and doing ok without it. I'm think I might get one (or something much like it) when kindle 3 has been out a bit, but at that point the market will be changing rapidly, as the third edition kindle will mean the market has hit full stride on e-readers (remember what the mp3 player market turned into by the time the 3rd ed ipod came out), and the tech will be rapidly improving. So, my first e-reader may actually be more like the 4th edition kindle knock-off that Sandisk starts making when the tech has become common place.

This is sad, I want to be able to read in a format less retina burning than my laptop, but also means I'll get to skip complications in the tech, user interface, and software. And that is very, very happy.

[Ivanovich]

I think the Kindle is nice, but i am going to wait for the Nook to come out before i make a definitive decision on which i will get. The big thing is that for the same price as the Kindle International, the Nook has native PDF support. Granted it lacks a browser, but i have an Iphone for that.

Granted i do not think Gideon could have gotten one, i do not think the Nook will ship internationally.