New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

The Kindel

post #1 of 31
11/27/09 at 12:21am
Thread Starter 
Kindle.

I almost got one, but was disappointed when a lot of the books I want to read (in Spanish) are not available.

The screen is nice though, so if the books you want to read are available and you travel a lot then this is a great device. The wireless on it is a nice feature though ... not sure how good the pdf reader is.
Reply
post #2 of 31
11/27/09 at 12:28am
I work at a Barnes and Noble, but I'm not a big e-reader guy to begin with. That being said, I would buy a nook. Even though pre-ordering now won't come until after Christmas, it has a lot of features (including being able to read anything that's available in the store/online, which would include Spanish-language books) that are better than the Kindle. You can do pretty much everything you would do on the Kindle, and you can also transfer your eBooks to your blackberry, iPhone, laptop/home computer, etc.
Reply
post #3 of 31
11/27/09 at 12:31am
Can't you also expand the memory on the Nook, whereas you can't with the Kindle?
Reply
post #4 of 31
11/27/09 at 1:09am
Yeah, you can expand memory from the intial 5,000 or so to something like 17,500. nook (not 'the', always lowercased)* also allows you to swap out memory cards so you can store different libraries on different cards, so it's good for families. I just started at B&N, but I was specifically hired to sell these things, so I'm sure I will be a fountain of information in the weeks to come. (And again, really, I'm not biased -- if I thought Kindle was better, I'd tell you guys so. But right now, Kindle will be available for Christmas, nook won't, but there might be some available in stores after December 7th, although it's first come, first serve.)

*I know. :: eye roll ::
Reply
post #5 of 31
11/27/09 at 1:21am
The Nook is pretty much taking the Kindle to fucking e-reader school. If you can wait, I'd go that route.
Reply
post #6 of 31
11/30/09 at 5:50pm
I was ready to buy the nook until I saw the after Christmas wait time. I may just wait to see what Apple comes out with instead. Went with a PS3 for Christmas.
Reply
post #7 of 31
11/30/09 at 6:21pm
I have the Kindle DX and like it quite a bit as it's larger and, for me, easier to read than the regular Kindle and also is easier to take to the gym. That said, the Nook may be a step up from the Kindle, but the real Kindle-killer is going to be this Apple iTablet (if they ever get around to making it).

For me, though, all I use the Kindle for is reading books I download, I'd imagine all the bells and whistles on the iTablet probably won't make me switch. I subscribe to the New Yorker on it, which is a lot easier than having stacks of New Yorkers around the house, which I'm happy about and I read something off the thing pretty much every day.

When I've got to do research for a project, it can sometimes suck as I immediately go to my Kindle only to find that a handful of books I want to get are available as e-books, but when they are, it's nice to not even have to drive to Borders or Barnes & Noble, but to start something right then and then just Amazon the others which'll arrive by the time I finish the downloadable ones.
Reply
post #8 of 31
11/30/09 at 6:24pm
Complete hearsay, and keep in mind I'm a Kindle owner, but I've heard the nook's selection is not as wide as the Amazon's, from what I've been reading on various talkbacks and discussion boards.
Reply
post #9 of 31
11/30/09 at 6:39pm
Also, the prices on B&N's store at launch were insanely high compared to Amazon's. Plus, the battery life on the kindle is far better than the nook. I'm intrigued by the nook based on aesthetics, but I think it's going to have a lot of usability issues.

Basically, there's the iphone, then there's the new nokia or LG phone that comes out every six months that's the iphone killer. My bet is that the kindle is the iPhone.
Reply
post #10 of 31
11/30/09 at 6:57pm
When I read I have a habit of frequently flipping back any number of pages to re-read some past passage relevant to a current one. I know some other people with this habit, and it is difficult to read this way with the Kindle. It does have a feature which will allow you to mark a passage, and even type in notes which are alot less messy than writing in the margin, but dog-earing a page is still faster, and if you need to go back to a passage unexpectedly, it can be frustrating since the pages on a Kindle cannot be rapidly scanned through like the pages of a physical book.

The Kindle is really cool, but it still feels rather impenetrable, for lack of a better word. Each "page" feels disconnected from the others in more than just a literal way, but it's probably just my cave-man brain wrestling with new technology.
Reply
post #11 of 31
11/30/09 at 8:24pm
I mean, you can bookmark and search anything on the kindle, so I don't think it gives up too much in terms of usability there.

Nook is delayed until mid-January as of Today.
Reply
post #12 of 31
11/30/09 at 10:25pm
I have a DX and it's become another appendage. I thought I was going to have a hard time transitioning, but after about 10 minutes you'll never want to put it down. I do think the nook looks really cool, and if it's down between the regular Kindle and nook I'd probably take a chance on the nook. I wouldn't trade my DX for it, though.

Whatever way you go I'm sure you'll be happy.
Reply
post #13 of 31
12/1/09 at 11:14pm
Barnes and Noble is selling these things pretty fast, and they say they "underestimated demand," but not having a working model in the store for, say, the last month, or on time, and the shipping delays are two all-time boners. I sold a few this past week in-store, but I guarantee you that if they had a demo working, I would have sold a lot more.

That being said, I would buy this, if only because of the expandable memory, but part of me wants to wait for the iTablet or whatever it is, even though it's supposed to be the size of the DX.
Reply
post #14 of 31
12/1/09 at 11:47pm
The thing that sold me on nook, rather than Kindle, was the fact that it supports .pdf and .epub files natively. Supposedly Kindle is getting .pdf support in the newest software upgrade, but given that nook does both file types, and can connect to a computer via wireless or a USB cable, I'm not stuck with a single source for ebooks. Amazon's selection may be somewhat better, but B&N has a deal with Google so that books in the public domain in the US are free. The fact that nook runs Android as it's OS is cool, too - it means there may be other functionality implemented down the road.

eBook pricing is retardedly high at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, given that you don't have to actually manufacture and ship a book anymore.
Reply
post #15 of 31
12/1/09 at 11:56pm
Yeah, public domain books are free, and Project Gutenberg books either do e-downloads on certain titles or pdfs. There are like three different ways to download. The sharing/lending factor is a big selling point for people, too.

And we've been told that e-book pricing is determined by the manufacter. Working that display, I've very quickly learned that the three big things Apple will need to do to smoke the nook and the Kindle for good are breaking the textbook market/companies, improving international download capabilties, which requires smashing copyright law, and color, which I guess has to do with the backlighting.
Reply
post #16 of 31
12/27/09 at 8:40am
'Project Gutenberg' ?!!

So that's what Mahoney has been up to. Sorry.

The new Kindle also has 3G connectivety, which is a major plus because you're not tied to a wireless location. You can be on the bus and download a book.
That could swing me. Not sure if the other ereaders have that. If only Amazon would stoop to releasing the Kindle in the UK!

Anyone use Wattpad? I've got the Sony W995 mobile, and am considering using that or google.mobile to get some free books.
Reply
post #17 of 31
12/29/09 at 8:22pm
The nook also has 3G connectivity, and any e-reader is going to have problems downloading interntionally.
Reply
post #18 of 31
12/30/09 at 1:13am
There's a Kindle with built-in global wireless. I haven't used it though so I can't say how it holds up.
Reply
post #19 of 31
12/30/09 at 1:21am
You may able to use most of these devices wirelessly globally -- you can with the nook -- but many of them have severe limitations on what you can download off an international IP address/server/whatever, and it all has to do with licencing and copyright. For example, on the nook, if you have a subscription to the NY Times and you're sitting in a hotel in London and you want to get that day's issue, you can -- but you have to have bought your subscription in the United States. You can't be sitting in that same hotel and download the last volume of Stieg Laarson's Millenium Trilogy or Don Winslow's The Gentlemen's Hour (two books available internationally but not yet in the U.S.) off an international site.

The key phrase with all of this is "yet."

And I'm hearing that the nook's already been modded by some tech whizes to run a web browser and pandora and what not via Android and the microSD card. Pretty cool.
Reply
post #20 of 31
12/30/09 at 1:32pm
Yeah, what's interesting about the Amazon Digital Text Platform thing that's letting me upload stuff to publish on the Kindle is that about two months ago, it added a check box to make sure you owned not only the domestic publishing rights, but also international as a ton of the free/cheap Kindle books are U.S. only. So, I published one then went back and re-published the other two with the box checked - which seems to suggest, if a publisher doesn't go back and do that with every last one of their titles (there are copies posting up literally hundreds upon hundreds of titles a week), then those will just stay domestic-only.
Reply
post #21 of 31
12/30/09 at 1:38pm
Lack of DRM is leaning me heavily towards the Nook camp.
Reply
post #22 of 31
12/30/09 at 1:44pm
It seems wise to wait to see what the new Apple product is that they're unveiling early next year. If it is something like the iPad, you know that that is going to light a fire under the ass of Amazon and B&N to be competitive in terms of services and pricing.
Reply
post #23 of 31
12/30/09 at 1:56pm
By all accounts, it's called the Tablet, it's basically a giant iPod Touch, which means it will be back lit because no one knows how to do color eInk yet (and backlighting destroys the point of eInk in the first place), and cost at least a grand. What it has going for it, though, is that you'll be able to write on it with a stylus. All of these products have advantages and disadvantages, but I think we're a little ways off from seeing an eReader take over the market the way the iPod did. There are a couple of major hurdles -- lack of color and touchscreen, international capabilities, making the textbook market play ball -- that need to be jumped before that can happen.
Reply
post #24 of 31
12/30/09 at 2:10pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RathBandu View Post
There are a couple of major hurdles -- lack of color and touchscreen, international capabilities, making the textbook market play ball -- that need to be jumped before that can happen.
Battery consumption is going to be a big factor in that regard, I doubt Apple's tablet will be able to even compete with ebook readers in that area at all.
Reply
post #25 of 31
12/30/09 at 2:13pm
I don't know what that means. (There was actually an idea in one of the apple mags for an eReader that was damn sexy.)
Reply
post #26 of 31
12/30/09 at 4:03pm
Thread Starter 
I meant the advantage of the e-Ink based readers is that they last longer without recharge, which is something the touch screen LCD devices can't really compete in that regard.
Reply
post #27 of 31
12/30/09 at 4:07pm
That's the big invention that the Israelis, the Chinese, the U.S. Navy and a whole slew of American garage inventors are working on right now. You know how in that Julia Roberts/Clive Owen movie, the holy grail was a cure for baldness? The real industrial espionage grail-to-end-all-grails is who will create the first so-called "forever" battery. I knew a guy working on one (he'd turned his garage into a dust free cold room out in Pasadena - JPL'er by day, would-be inventor by night) and he once explained to me that, yes, it was coming and would change so many things overnight that I almost didn't believe him as battery technology is slow, slow, slow to evolve.

When this happens, look for Apple to somehow have been the ones who had put the most money into it.
Reply
post #28 of 31
12/30/09 at 5:06pm
A different approach to e-books: platform independence. Kurzweil's 'Blio':
http://gizmodo.com/5435814/first-loo...y-ebook-format

I bet it'll look great on an iSlate/iTablet.
Reply
post #29 of 31
1/2/10 at 10:18pm
I'm curious how Kurtzweil gets over the fact that any type of color and image heavy is going to be (as far as I know) backlit, which causes eye strain and battery drain. Also, since they haven't yet figured out how to create an authentic sounding text-to-speech feature.
Reply
post #30 of 31
1/17/10 at 1:48pm
Just used the Nook for the first time today. That thing is a damn disaster. I can see the promise in the touchscreen, but it's not there yet.

With the PIxel Qi on its way, I question if e-ink is really going to be the thing, anyways. Most of the blogs seem to think that LCD tech will be caught up in very short order.
Reply
post #31 of 31
1/17/10 at 4:03pm
Any thoughts on the Sony Reader?
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Chewer Tech