Obsolete? Never! For one thing, you can’t fill a bookshelf with your Kindle.
I got laid off in the spring and decided that one way to trim my budget was to stop buying so many damn books and make use of our excellent public library system. I quickly got used to keeping an active wish list on the library’s website and having books delivered to the local branch when available. I have been pretty pleased with how that’s worked.
Given how well that system has worked, I was very dismissive of the Kindle and the Sony Reader until I learned one important fact. The Seattle library lends e-books in a format that works with the Sony. So I get all the advantages of using the library (books for free) along with the advantages that e-books provide (immediate availability, exceptional portability, no driving to the library). The selection is not as good as the physical collection, but they’re adding books all the time.
I’d say the technology is not quite there for your average non-technophile, but it’s close. The biggest surprise for me was the number of different, potentially incompatible e-book formats. I find that I spend more time than I would have guessed monkeying around with the formatting to end up with optimally readable text. I guess the new ePub format may fix that, but I think the jury’s still out.
You can not read a Kindle during take-off or landing…
I used to work for a company creating an electronic book, but I still prefer real books. I suspect I always well.
If you drop a book, it doesn’t break. I can read it while taking a soak, it isn’t too costly to worry about getting wet.
Obsolete doesn’t mean everybody stops using it. I think they could become obsolete if misfortune doesn’t set us back. They most certainly are less used now. I will use an electronic reference over a reference book. I prefer to let my book be read to me as I work on stuff about the house and property. You know you use goggle instead of going to the library to look up something.
Unfortunately, e-books do not make nearly as good a bonfire as paper books do. As long as there is a religious right in America, there will be a demand for paper books. 
OK, time to break the Kindle ignorance in this thread.
The Kindle is WAY better than a physical book in bed. It’s light and small - making it much easier to lay on your side and read. There’s none of that thing that happens with real books where you can comfortably read the pages on the one side but when you turn the page and are reading the opposite side you have to be a contortionist to hold the book. And my arms/hands have never fallen asleep while holding the kindle, unlike many real books.
It’s very sturdy, too. I wouldn’t worry at all about dropping it, provided your bedroom floor isn’t poured concrete.
There’s a large group of Kindle lovers here on the Dope. There’s also many people who love the Sony reader.
Imagine it’s 11 at night, you just finished the first book in a series, you can’t sleep, and dammit, you want that second book RIGHT NOW because you can’t wait to see what happens. Enter the Kindle. Voila, you have the next book RIGHT NOW.
Imagine you want that great new bestseller that just came out. Cover price: $24.95. Even through discount sellers like Amazon, it’s $18. Kindle edition: $9.99.
Imagine you read a newspaper or magazine. When you’re done, you have a massive amount of paper to get rid of. Especially newspapers - even with recycling, it adds up. E-media is the way to go with disposable reading.
Imagine you’re on vacation. If you’re anything like me, that involves many pounds of reading material, especially for a long vacation. You get to carry that around, even when you’re done reading it (unless you just throw the book away, which I never do). Kindle is bloody wonderful in this situation.
Mr. Athena bought me a Kindle as a gift earlier this summer. I really didn’t know if I’d like it or not, but he said “go ahead, try it for 30 days, it can be returned.” So I did, and even though I am a crazy book lover (I realized my dream of having library stacks in my house earlier this year), I love the Kindle.
Why is it so great? Because if I try to buy & keep a physical copy of every book I read, I’d quickly be out of room. I realized that after I got my home library set up. For the first time in my life, I had enough shelves to put all my books up. Even so, after a few months, I could see that I’d be running out of room (yet again) if I kept all my books.
After a good think, I also realize that there were many, many books that I really didn’t need to keep. I would never read them again, they were fun the first time through but just not compelling enough to provide the physical room to keep them. This is where the Kindle shines - the beach reading, the guilty-pleasure reading, and the aforementioned newspapers and magazines.
I love the feel of a real book, I continue to buy them for any book I feel strongly enough about that I want a physical copy of, and I would be sad to see them go away altogether. But the future is digital reading, there’s no doubt about that. As the price of the readers come down and the quality/design goes up, you’ll see them become ubiquitous.
There are plenty of people who collect vinyl and/or cds and have shelves and shelves of them but there are probably as many if not more people who have got rid of all their cds once they could rip them or download the tracks on them.
The problem with books is that they’re too damned user friendly.
Crash proof, power source is sufficient ambient light, true random access, portable, who’d need anything else?
I think it does depend on why and how you read. When I buy a book, I keep it unless it’s lousy. I don’t sell them back, or take them to work in giant shopping bags, or trade them online. When I want to fin something from a book again, this involves a combination of memory and intuition, and I need the book in my hands for that. I guess my better ways of thinking are still more analog than linear.
Thank you for jumping in. I dislike not having my facts straight. I’ve never seen a Kindle in real life, but I’ve read some reviews and looked at the video and FAQ on the Amazon site. Can you tell me whether these criticisms are accurate?
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B&W screen, so no color illustrations or charts
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I’d have to pay Amazon to transfer my own personal content to it (e.g., e-books I’ve already purchased from someone else, material I’ve written, free stuff I’ve downloaded from places like Project Gutenberg…). It’s not a large amount, but dammit that’s MY stuff I already own!
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One of the most widely-touted features (wireless connectivity) is tied to Sprint, so it isn’t available at all in the state I live in and at least one other (I found this tidbit buried in their FAQ).
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When I’m done reading a physical book, I can give it to a friend or trade it in at a used bookstore. Can’t do either with Kindle.
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Since the screen is pretty small, it won’t work for reading large books that have wide tables, illustrations, heavily formatted text unless you do a lot of side-scrolling or make the text really tiny
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In fact, the demo video didn’t show any pictures at all. Do Kindle books even have charts, tables, graphs, pictures, and so forth?
Do I have those right?
At my local library, if I see a book on TV ,they will usually get it. They are linked with other libraries ,so if one has it, they all do. Free ,how can you beat it.
Not obsolete for all the good reasons stated.
I’ve been dying to get a book reader but haven’t because like the music industry publishers are looking to gouge the reader. When I buy a product that has no physical form I expect to see substantial savings. And no - I do not believe for one nano-second the cost of electronic production and distribution comes anywhere near the cost of cutting down trees, making paper and providing a 40% mark-up to retailers.
Make all e-books £4 and I’ll buy loads. Try and palm me off with £1.30 off the already outrageous paper price and I’ll buy none.
No problem!
True. No color, and from what I read, color will be a while coming.
On the other hand, the black and white is fookin’ gorgeous. Really. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s miles ahead of a standard computer screen - teeny tiny pixels and this cool matte look. It has a screensaver that comes on and shows really detailed pen-and-ink pictures, and I’ve had tons of people go bonkers over that alone.
Not true. If you want to use the wireless feature, you have to pay like 10 cents per item. But if you are OK with using the USB cable that comes with it, it’s free.
True. In fact, the wireless is not available where I live. I use the USB cable to transfer books I buy to the Kindle, which really isn’t all that hard (it shows up as a drive on your computer when you plug it in. You just copy files over like any other drive.)
The only think you can’t do without the wireless is get the free preview chapter that you can get if you live in an area with the Sprint coverage. This was a bummer, I’d really like that feature.
I did take my Kindle out of town with me a couple weeks ago, and got within Sprint’s wireless range. It was cool, but not so cool that I’d say don’t get the Kindle if you don’t live in range. The USB cable is easy and fast, I don’t see it as a huge problem at all.
True. On the other hand, Kindle books are just about always cheaper than the print version, and if your used bookstores are like mine, the price difference you make up by selling it still doesn’t bring it down to Kindle prices.
Not being able to give to a friend is a two edged sword for me. Sure, it’s nice to be able to lend books out. But my friends have habits of keeping the books I lend them, so I’m not always thrilled at doing that either.
Yeah, I could see this being an issue. I personally haven’t tried any books with wide tables or illustrations; I think I’d tend to buy books like those in the physical form.
Yes, they do include charts, tables, graphs, and pictures. Newspapers, for example, always come down with the illustrations. And I’m pretty sure I’ve had books will illustrations show up as well. How they look depends on the illustration itself; photographs are so-so, line drawings & graphs are gorgeous.
One thing that I forgot to mention is that the Kindle has opened me up to reading a lot more uncopyrighted material, just because it makes it easy. For example, I was reading something about Frederick Douglass in (I think) Smithsonian Magazine last month. The article mentioned that Mr. Douglass had written a couple books about his experience as a slave. “Hmm,” I thought, “That’s long enough ago that it’s probably public domain.” Sure enough, Project Gutenberg had his books. A quick download, and they’re on the Kindle. It was a great read, and I know I wouldn’t have 1) read it at the computer (not comfortable enough) or 2) printed them out to read (too expensive, too many trees killed) or 3) actually gone out and bought them (I was only mildly interested in them at first - but once I started reading them I got MUCH more into it.)
Overall, the way I look at the Kindle is NOT as a total replacement for books. For some things - newspapers, magazines, and books I know I don’t want taking up shelf space forever - it’s superior to physical books. For other things - books with lots of illustrations, books I luuuurv and want the “real thing” - I buy the physical book. Given the price & convenience, I’m OK with it not being the only way I read.
In other words, for the things it’s good for, it’s very, very good. For the things it’s not good for, there’s still physical books.
Amazon prices the Kindle edition of most new hardcovers at $9.99 - about £5, if I’m doing the conversion right. Paperbacks and older books are even less.
You can download Gutenberg books right to the Kindle from the Kindle browser if you are in wireless range. Even better than this is the Feedbooks setup - you can download a directory of all Feedbooks Kindle books, browse it at your whim, and with one click download a book. And the directory is self-regenerating from a link on the first page - when they add new books, you just download a new directory and check it out.
Feedbooks even has a way to convert RSS feeds for the Kindle. It works great - but I prefer using the Mobipocket Reader for this purpose, since it will automatically pull full articles from a partial feed. For this, though, you need to be tethered. The Feedbooks feeds can be delivered wirelessly.
There is lots of good stuff out there.
I can’t imagine reading an ebook as a bedtime story to a child.
Does it give you eye strain? I know I hate reading anything more complex than a website on a computer because of that. I just hate reading off a screen…I don’t know, does it feel like you’re reading from a screen?
No, absolutely not. It’s not a screen like a computer screen at all. It gives off no light - if you want to read in bed, you need your lamp on. It’s incredibly easy on the eyes.
Plus, you can adjust the type size as well. A lot of the older people I show it to think it’s really cool because you can make the letters really big if you want.
Thanks, Athena. I wasn’t aware that you could transfer stuff free from your computer to the Kindle. The Amazon FAQ said you had to transfer it through Amazon to perform the necessary format conversions, and they charged to do it.
Not so. I picked a book off the NYT bestseller list and looked it up (Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell):
- New paperback on Amazon (or any physical store): $9.99
- Kindle format on Amazon: $7.99
- Price at my used bookstore: $4.99
- Trade-in credit at my used bookstore: $1.79
So I can buy a used copy and trade it in when I’m done, spending a total of $3.20 (and let my wife read it before trading it in).
On the Kindle, it costs over double that – about the same as buying a new copy and trading it in.
Lest you complain that I picked a cheap mass-market paperback, let’s look at a trade paperback (also chosen at random from the NYT bestseller list). How about Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson (a fantastic book, BTW):
- List price for new paperback: $15.00
- Current paperback sale price on Amazon: $8.25
- Kindle format on Amazon: $8.25
- Price at my used bookstore: $7.50
- Trade-in credit at my used bookstore: $2.10
So a new paperback is the same price from Amazon as a Kindle version.
If I buy a used copy and trade it in when I’m done, I’m spending $5.30, about 35% less than Kindle.
Conclusion:
Unless you’re really driven to read new releases NOW, Kindle is not about saving money.