Wherein the Grouse takes the future of reading for a spin; can his dormant love of reading be reKindled?
Posted 08.13.2008 at 12:51 pm
12 Comments
For a brief second, I wonder why this wireless device doesn’t have a built-in email client—and then it dawns on me why I’m enjoying the Kindle so much: I’m completely absorbed in the experience of reading without any distractions from email or IM. It’s very book-like.
To my absolute shock, I’m also enjoying the audio book I downloaded: Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone (hey, I never got around to it). The experience is not unlike listening to a lecture. I suppose this is what it was like listening to a radio serial back in the day. On my iPod Touch, the book is easily found in the special spot reserved for audio books, so I don’t have to flip through my entire music collection to find it. I was delighted to find that the book picked up where it left off if I switched to music and then back again. It even saved my place during a firmware update. While I much prefer reading, an audio book is perfect for a road trip. I’ve actually been listening to The Hot Zone at the gym, which has been great—who’d have thought treadmills and virus-ridden exploding monkeys were so compatible?
On Lmitations
The Kindle is certainly amazing. It’s reanimated the corpse of something I’d long thought was dead: my love of reading. These days, most of the reading I do is done online. But, the Kindle has helped me realize how much I miss sitting on the couch or on a park bench to read. Coupling books with its ability to snag newspaper headlines and blog posts, the device strikes a nice balance between the offline and online reading experiences. The iTunes audio book is whole other animal completely, but an animal that has its place.
The paperback still has them beat, however, and for some very basic reasons. An iPod might survive a trip to the beach, but I would never bring the Kindle near one. It’s not necessarily a fragile device, but its exposed ports all beg to be invaded by sand. Plus, I never have to worry about a book melting if I fall asleep in the sun.
While we’re on the subject of durability, let’s be honest about where a lot of reading takes place: I’d hate to see what would happen to the Kindle after an accidental swim in the toilet.
Air travel is another leg up for books. I’m one of those people who likes to read while the plane is taking off, as if to somehow distract myself from the fact that I’m leaving the safety of the ground in a 300-ton metal sarcophagus. Point being: I can’t turn on a Kindle or iPod until we’ve reached cruising altitude, nor can I have it on while we land.
The final advantage for books is that they’ll never run out of batteries. It’s so simple, but so true. No matter how cool, well designed or technically advanced a gadget is, a gadget is still a gadget. It is still subject to power failure. A book could never leave you hanging like that.
What are your thoughts? Are electronic books the future or will Gutenberg always be king? Has anyone out there had any experience with the Sony Reader? Share!
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I would love it if Barnes & Noble had something like this. They already track what books you have bought so it would be cool if I could use that record to also get an electronic copy. I read alot and have thousands of books, it would be nice to be able to haul around some of my favorites whenever I like. Also I don't know how often this happens to others but I have had the bindings on my books crack on the larger books or hardcopy books, I hate when you're trying to read a book and pages are falling out. I think that an electronic copy would be a good alternative.
I was under the impression that an ebook reader is being developed which only uses power when turning the page. It was supposed to use polarized molecules that were white on one side and black on the other in order to create images. What happened to that? Is it still in development or was it swept under the rug?
monkeybuttons - yes that has been developed. It's called the Kindle.
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monkeybuttons - yes that has been developed. It's called the Kindle.
Books will be around for a long time. However, when we invent the technology we will be able to download information right into our brains. Matrix style. Except without the caulk gun sized needle into back of the neck.
Well, I am a book lover so I am slightly biased. But the reason books will be around for ever is that many people get a need to unplug for a while. To disconnect from their computers and cell phones and absorb themselves in a story. You can't do that with any kind of electronics because that is what they are trying to get away from.
We are flooded with e-mail and text messages and phone calls etc all day every day. Sometimes it is nice to just turn everything off and curl up with good book.
I recently had the opportunity to review something new called a printed book. The reading experience was excellent, but it was so ugly. The tops and sides of the pages were not illuminated by those wonderful pictures the monks paint. And its just atrocious to think that all the everyday rabble will be able to read all these new books protesting the system of indulgences. Not only that, but people will start reading books instead of talking to each other and discussing the content of the book. Sure, printed books are great, but the illuminated books will *never* go out of style.
I have used the Sony Reader for over a year and got a Kindle two weeks ago. They are very comparable devices. With that said, here are some differences.
In Sony's favor:
It is very difficult to handle the Kindle without accidentally hitting the Next or Previous page buttons. The Sony Reader has no such limitation, although, I find the buttons on the Kindle more comfortable to use for an extended period. If the Kindle is in its included cover, it become possible (though still not easy to handle it without turning pages). The Reader has two sets of Next & Previous Page buttons located on either side of the device. For some reason, the Kindle only has a single Previous Page button on the left side of the device -- the right side includes a smaller Back button which performs a different function.
The Sony Reader maintains a history of the pages that have been visited within each book. The user can display this list, which includes a snippet of the text from each page. This is particularly useful when you have lost you place in a book, e.g. after having accidentally hit the navigation buttons or when handing the device around for others to check it out.
In the Kindle's favor:
The wireless connection is a big, big advantage. When I think of the many times I have been stuck in an airport, etc. and could have downloaded a book I wanted to read. I have also been known to spend several days before a trips loading books and documents on the Sony Reader; with the Kindle I can do it enroute. It should be noted that when the wireless is turned on, it draws the battery down much faster (as a previous commentor noted, the screen only uses power when changing the display). However, Amazon thought to include an easily accesible switch that turns the wireless radio off/on. The Reader will eventually exhaust the battery if left unattended for a long period and strongly suspect the same is true of the Kindle.
The ability to accept input is also stronly in the Kindle's favor. Aside from web-browsing and purchasing books, it is very helpful in some circumstances to be able to "highlight" sections of text and to make notes. The Reader only has the capability of storing a bookmark, i.e. marking a page as being of interest. The Kindle can also do that and has a superior method of navigating among the bookmarks. Anyone who has typed on a Blackberry will have no difficulty at all typing on the Kindle. It is certainly slower than a laptop, but much easier than a typical cell phone. The one area of input that I have not come around to like yet is the Select Wheel and Cursor. In order to mark or select something on the screen, the Kindle has a thumb-wheel which moves a silvery Cursor up and down its own slot-like display located to the right right of the main display. This would be used to select text for a dictionary lookup or to mark a highlight. I have difficulty determining exactly which line the Cursor is indicating.
The Kindle's display seems superior to me. To be fair, it is more than a year younger than my Reader, so perhaps there is some aging involved, and it is possible that the newer version of the Reader that is now available is improved, I don't know. One concrete feature of the Kindle is the 6 text sizes that are available within any book, as compared to the 2 or 3 sizes available on the Reader (depending on whether you are reading something in native format or not).
Finally, I have struggled mightily to convert documents in Adobe's PDF format to make them readable on the Sony Reader, generally without success. If the PDF file wasn't originally formatted to be readable in that size and aspect ratio, the odds are that you aren't going to be able to read it. The Kindle does not support the PDF format, however, I have successfully used the PDF-to-Mobi software I got free on the web to convert PDFs. The resultant Mobi-formatted files have been highly readable on the Kindle (not perfect, but certainly readable.
monkeybuttons-yes, that has been developed. It's called the kindle.
I completely agree with eggman002. I crave solace in a book. The ability to escape from the stress of the workday is something I relish. Sure, the fancy-schmancy version sounds cool but it's not the same.
monkeybuttons-yes, that has been developed. It's called the kindle.
I completely agree with eggman002. I crave solace in a book. The ability to escape from the stress of the workday is something I relish. Sure, the fancy-schmancy version sounds cool but it's not the same.
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monkeybuttons - yes that has been developed. It's called the Kindle.
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monkeybuttons - yes that has been developed. It's called the Kindle.