Gary, What formats do you use that the kindle cannot handle?
This was too harsh, and I apologize. I missed the edit window.
Still, for its flaws, the Kindle format isn’t that bad.
The 3G costs an extra 150 on the ipad, making it three times more expensive. It also costs 30 bucks a month, making it probably 4 or 5 times more expensive over the life of the machine.
The ipad lasts about one week, six days, and 14 hours less on a single battery charge than the kindle.
And the e-ink thing.
What about children’s books?
The Dude’s only a few months old, and right now a lot of one-handed feedings take place while I struggle to keep a book open and read to him. He’s a little young to voice an opinion on subject matter (but who would object to being read the Hobbit, Watership Down or The Princess Bride? OK, maybe the last one but I skip over the kissing bits), but as he gets to the one-year babbly stage I’d like to switch to things like the Doctor (er, Seuss; Doolittle will come a bit later, and The Doctor will have to wait until he can pronounce Raxacoricofallapatorius) or other sound/age appropriate materials.
There’s plenty of other reading time for illustrations, colors, tactile feelings and whatnot, but feeding time is a bit much to manage dexterity-wise.
Granted it’s just a thinly veiled excuse to get an e-reader, but still… can I veneer this?
I think all new hardback books are 9.99. I have gotten new paperbacks for much less, and there are many books that are free or cheaply discounted (.99)
I bought a Barnes and Noble nook for myself as a Christmas present. I’m really pleased with the e-ink reading experience. There are no monthly fees, and it reads pdf files natively. Books download in seconds, and I don’t know what the battery life is, but I’ve only charged it 3 or 4 times in the last month, so it’s got to be pretty good. Lots of free books are available, and it will store 2 GB (1500 books) out of the box, with a microSD slot to expand the memory.
God this a terrible comparison. The 3G on a Kindle lets you download books and an RSS feed. The 3G on the iPad downloads the entire (non-Flash) internet. There’s a *slight *difference in functionality there.
Do not consider buying one till they are in color, all these out now will be worthless once color arrives, and because they want textbook and childrens book market, I guarantee it will. Also comic books and probably later music videos and U-tube stuff will come as well for the color units. The units selling today are the HD-DVD equivalent units of tomorrow.
I’m mostly on my back since 5 days ago (in hospital) and my Kindle has done much to relieve the tedium (easy to hold up with one hand for long periods of time). The display is much easier on the eyes than a LCD screen of comparable size.
One thing: it’s ideal for material that you read sequentially (like a novel or a newspaper - in the latter case you just fast-forward over an article that does not interest you) but not for material that you read by jumping between places (like a work of reference or a book with code samples).
Kindle lets you access almost the entire internet as well. It’s a very slow connection, but if you’re patient you can even do graphics intensive pages. (I always just turned images off though, to be honest. But still. Point is. Kindle has free internet.)
Depends on what you need it for, of course. If you want a go-anywhere do-anything kinda laptop replacement, the iPad is probably better. If you want a device that will let you read books on the bus or on plane rides, and have a laptop (or indeed, a lack of interest) for the other stuff, a Kindle might be more your thing.
For all the internetting and messaging and watching videos, I have a laptop and a Crackberry. For reading books and newspapers, I have a Sony Reader (Christmas present). I put it on my Christmas list at the suggestion of one of the sergeants in my squadron, who mentioned that an eBook reader is smaller, lighter, and easier to not break than a laptop is, and you can pre-load it with a small library (say, a hundred books or so to start with if you’re a light reader ;)) so you’ll have plenty to read when you aren’t connected to update it.
So really, Apples to Apples, the kindle is cheaper. Apples to Fruitbaskets, the iPad has more fruit by the sounds of it. I say this having only seen a picture of one for the first time a few minutes ago (gotta say, I’m not terribly as enthralled about Apple products as I am about, say, the fact that I just learned they’re making a new MechWarrior game ZOMG! Call it a different set of interests. :-D)
ETA: the “Apples to Apples” thing was not an intentional joke, but I’ll run with it.
Right, but a few people have suggested that the iPad and the Kindle are competitors, and i think what Mosiers points demonstrates is that, in many ways, they’re really not.
Someone whose main purpose is to read ebooks probably isn’t going to be interested in paying double the price for the device, plus an extra $150 for 3G functionality, plus an extra $360 a year for 3G access. The two devices have rather different audiences.
If you want to read books on the ipad you don’t need 3g. You only need 3g on the ipad if you want to download new books or news papers when you are away from free wifi.
The kindle is better than the ipad in three areas.
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The screen is reflective. You can easily read it in bright sun. A lot of people feel that a reflective screen is easier on the eyes that a back lit LCD screen.
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The battery life on the kindle is very good. This is because the eink does only needs power to change the image once the image is displayed there is almost no power used to keep it that way.
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The kindle is 1/2 the price of the base ipad.
Unfortunately, Dr. Seuss and similar children’s books are not currently available for Kindle, probably because they would lose the colors, illustrations, etc. that you mention. OTOH, The Hobbit, Watership Down, and The Princess Bride are all available. I’d say you finesse this by claiming that your son is precocious enough to skip right past those silly picture books to more sophisticated literary works. 
I like my Kindle, which, as in some other cases mentioned upthread, was a gift given while I dithered over when would be the right time to buy one. There’s never going to be a perfect time; with technology the latest and greatest is always just around the corner. If you like the idea of being able to carry a single, paperback-sized device that can hold over a thousand books, only having to recharge about every two weeks, being able to download new books instantly from almost anywhere, and reading in an e-ink format that doesn’t strain your eyes any more than a traditional paper book would, then I think now is the time for a Kindle.
Gah. I wish. I’ve bought about three dozen books for my DX – more than half of them have cost more than $9.99, often much more. Technical and nonfiction books tend to cost many times that; I can’t imagine what textbooks must cost. The $9.99 thing is pretty much just for fiction.
On the other hand, they’re cheaper than the paper editions (at least before discounts), and the savings may have added up to enough to pay for the DX by now.
Not really. I got myself one for Christmas and less than 10% of my books come from Amazon, and of those I only paid money for two of them. Amazon only charges you if you use whispernet (their wireless delivery system) to get the files on the book. You can transfer books that you’ve downloaded onto the Kindle for free via the USB cord which works very simply. Kindles read .mobi , .prc files, and .pdf files natively. The only thing that they don’t read is .epub files, but you can use Calibre to convert those.
That being said, I back up all of my files just to be safe.
Thanks everyone. Great discussion and very helpful.
If you can wait the Skiff Reader looks pretty fantastic. No word (beyond “2010”) on when it will hit the street or how much it will cost. Nevertheless I was considering a Kindle till I saw this…now I am definitely waiting.
iPad…meh.
I just re-read my reply above with respect to book prices, and I think it may send the wrong message – I absolutely love my Kindle; both as a repository for technical information (paired with the Mac’s print-to-PDF capability, I can basically print-to-Kindle) and to read various books from Amazon and elsewhere (the Kindle does, despite a lot of reports to the contrary, support most e-book formats…it just doesn’t work the other way around.)
The PDF/technical stuff will probably get relegated to an iPad here in a few months (faster search, color, much better zooming, editing capabilities, waves of cool that will stun my co-workers so I can steal their lunches), but for simply beginning-to-end reading, I don’t see the Kindle going away any time soon; the screen is just too easy to read. The Kindle’s lighter, too, and the side-mounted buttons make turning pages not require large movements – a requirement for reading in bed while cat-hindered.
That looks cool. But it is far to large. One of the best things about the smaller kindle is travel. When I go on vacation I would like to bring 4 or five books to read more depending on the type of vacation. The skiff and kindle DX are too large to be easily tossed in a carry on bag.