I’d say most of the books I try to buy are more expensive for my Kindle than the physical copy price right next to it.
Anyone using the Notes feature on the Kindle?
Is it very useful? I thought about making breif plot notes to try and keep up with Tom Clancy’s drawn out “epic” 800 page stories. George is a safecracker, Shirley had sex with our hero’s brother Billy, the hero is really in love with Shirley.
Are notes very useful for stuff like that? Basically, I’m talking about the tiny notes some people write on the back page of books. 
I know that Kindle’s Chiclet keyboard that comes with the Kindle Touch is horrible to use. I prefer searching & buying books on a real computer keyboard. But the Chiclet keyboard is required when I create a new collection folder. I always have multiple typos on that silly touch keyboard.
The Nook Color (and the new Nook Tablet) both have Micro SD card slots. They are in the corner underneath that loopy looking thing.
I really like my Kindle. I got it for Christmas. I like the idea of owning my favorite books so I can look at the covers up on the bookshelves (like the hoarder I sometimes aspire to be.) But, for other books an e reader is perfect. In fact, I was reading a library book before Christmas, and I was able to find an ebook version, and I just seamlessly switched over to it. So, now I’m set. And when I am done I won’t care if I just delete the book and never read it again. Just like a library book.
Now that Kindle books are available at the library it makes it a lot better. There are a ton of options out there.
Yeah. The pricing does suck. I don’t mind a Kindle book being a couple bucks more than a used book. But, it bothers me when the Kindle books (or any ebook) is priced more than a new book. It just seems unfair to me. Which is ridiculous, but that’s how it feels.
Have you tried the Back button?
MacTech, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to post your evaluation. I’ve talked to several people who got e-readers, and when I try to find out their opinions it’s either “yeah, I like it” or “nah, it wasn’t for me.” I want to slap them and scream “give me some depth! Why do you like it? Why don’t you?”
And here, I didn’t have to slap OR scream at you!
It’s these kinds of posts that help someone that’s uncertain (like me) make a better decision.
Thank you. That’s better. Still a bit awkward, mostly because of the display delays, but better.
I can’t see erasing an Ayn Rand book as anything but a net improvement. If only they could erase them from the whole world.
Of course you can. The Kindle is basically a USB drive with an e-ink screen attached. On Windows and Linux (both of which I can personally attest to) the Kindle is recognised as a storage device. I assume Macs and other devices work the same way. You can copy things to and from the Kindle to your heart’s content.
That’s how you, for instance, load ebooks from Project Gutenberg on to your Kindle: download them on to your computer’s hard drive, copy across to your Kindle. I use the Kindle for PC software on my Windows installs, rather than shop/buy directly from my Kindle. So, I buy an ebook from Amazon, it gets sent to my hard drive, and I then copy it to my Kindle. On Windows the books are stored in My Documents/My Kindle Content - it’s not like they’re hidden away or anything. And, yes, the Amazon how-to pages and the Kindle manual explain all this, they’re not “not publicising” the information, it’s basic information that they explain up-front.
Amazon use DRM on their ebooks. Assuming you don’t strip the DRM from your ebooks, then you (theoretically) can’t open and use those ebooks anywhere but on your own Kindle(s) or your Kindle for PC (or Mac, or whatever) program/app(s). I say “theoretically” because as I recall it, mine open in Calibre too, but I can’t convert/save them unless I strip the DRM.
The DRM does not stop you from making as many copies of an ebook as you like. You can back them up all over the place, and that’s what any computer user should do with any and all important files. So there’s really no danger of losing any ebook unless the ONLY place you have it stored is on your Kindle. Amazon could possibly erase a file from the Kindle for PC program - I don’t know if they have done this or not - but they can’t erase it from elsewhere on your hard drive and they certainly can’t erase it from your burned back up CD.
Say you want to read a book that Amazon has decided you shouldn’t have. Turn off the wireless/internet connection on your Kindle - and most people have it turned off as standard to save battery life anyway, and only turn it on when they want to receive files. It’s very easy to turn it off, it’s on the top layer of options.
OK, internet connection off? Copy the book to your Kindle. Read it. If it’s an Amazon-proscribed book, don’t turn the internet connection back on till you’re finished reading it. What can Amazon do about it? Nothing at all.
All the paranoia about Amazon assumes that you let them control what you have on your Kindle. If you don’t, it’s not an issue.
Actually, it IS the point. There was no “question about their legitimacy”: There are no legal Harry Potter ebooks. (They’ll finally come out as ebooks in 2012). Someone posted illegal copies on Amazon and sold a few copies, defrauding the buyers by supplying them with pirated goods. Amazon fixed the problem by refunding the monies paid, and deleted the copies - what should they have done?
There’s no way in the world they could allow themselves to supply pirated books to buyers, they’d be sued out of existence if they did. And I think we can all agree that there is no moral question that they should allow Amazon to be used for the sale of pirated books. So what would you say they should have done?
In each case, the books were illegal versions. In each case, Amazon did the only thing they could legally do. I agree that they could have handled it better, but in reality there’s no way in the world they’re going to expose themselves to a massive lawsuit; they’re just going to have to annoy some customers and inflame an unfortunate amount of internet paranoia instead.
What they should have done was refund the money and email the customers asking them to delete the books off their Kindles.
From the customer’s perspective, I agree.
From the perspective of a company trying not to get sued for copyright infringement, it probably looks a bit different.
I’m not trying to defend Amazon’s actions themselves, just trying to say that people have reacted to those actions as if Amazon was just wilfully deleting things based on whim. There are reasons - if not good reasons at least understandable reasons - why Amazon did what they did in the cases where they did it.
Acting like they might do it at any time to any book is unreasonable. They have only done it when the book in question is an illegal copy. If I’d spent good money on something in good faith and it turned out to be a pirated copy, I’d be very annoyed. Most people would want a refund. Amazon gave refunds. They did it in a clumsy way, but they did the right thing.
I don’t think people’s agitation with Amazon was because they thought Amazon will do it again for legit books. I think it was because they felt violated by Amazon reaching into their personal property (Kindle) and messing with it without their permission - for whatever reason. You may have quite understandable reasons (let’s say your frisbee flew onto my roof and you’d like it back), but you cannot step into my house or onto my roof without my permission (or a warrant). It’s the same principle.
I understand that, but what I said was “people have reacted to those actions as if Amazon was just wilfully deleting things”. They’re not, and even if they were, it’s trivially simple to ensure that they can’t.
I agree that Amazon’s actions were ill-considered, but they’re hardly Big Brother and it’s really not anything like 1984.
…and, more to the point, as far as I can see the majority of the freaking-out-about-Amazon is from people who do not own a Kindle and don’t know anything about how they work, but read a scary-sounding story on an internet forum about Amazon deleting books.
I did my research before I bought my Kindle. My conclusion was that the scare stories were blown way out of proportion. I’ve owned my Kindle for nearly a year now, and nothing I’ve seen makes me doubt my original conclusion.
As I stated upthread, I own a Kindle, I like it, and I am not really worried that Amazon will start deleting books on it out of the blue. They still should not have done what they did.
Heh. I like the disclaimer. “As long as you don’t break them, they never break !”. I got an ebook reader for Christmas and while I like it very much, I’m quite concerned about that. A book you can store in a backpack pocket, or at the bottom of a gym bag, you can just drop it from the bed when you want to go to sleep, you can read in the bath etc…
Sure, all those things will shorten a book’s lifespan but I still have books I dropped in the bath and for all intents and purposes, they still “work”. Also, if you completely destroy a paperback, you can replace it on the cheap. An ebook is something of an investment.
Bottomline: I find myself handling my reader like it’s Ming china.
I’ve got a Kindle. It usually gets stuffed into a pocket in my backpack, or stuffed into a pocket in my camera bag (with the camera and lenses inside pressing against it through the main pocket). I’ve dropped it a few times, and I’ve had to clean droplets of spilled coffee/ramen broth/whatever off of it from time to time.
So far, I’ve had part of the casing on one corner pop out of place (popped it back into place), and the “Next” button on the right side feels a bit loose (there’s a spare on the other side if it ever breaks completely).
Also, if you use the 3G wireless option in Japan, it eats up the battery like crazy. Not sure why. I don’t normally need that option, so the wireless is kept off most of the time.
It’s not a very good web browsing device compared to my iPod Touch, but it’s a pretty danged good one considering that web browsing is not a feature on it that they advertise (from what I understand, they quietly disabled it for the Kindle Touch due to data costs for them). It’s listed in the menu under “Experimental” and is a bit inconvenient to get to. I have used it in the past to get to Facebook and Gmail’s mobile webpages, which has been a lifesaver when letting my wife know I had arrived at the airport when flying home from Korea (my Korean pre-paid cell phone did not work in the US, and my wife could receive emails on her phone).
That said, one of Facebook’s updates included changing how the Notifications menu works, making that particular function not work very well on the Kindle for some reason.
If you spend $180 on an eReader, why not go all out and spend another $20-50 for a case to keep it in? Amazon offers one for the Kindle for $60 that’s available in multiple colors and includes a reading light (which would have been handy for me on those late-Sunday-night bus rides back to base on the Air Force-owned buses that invariably had the ceiling lights disabled for some reason. I once actually ended up using my iPod as a light to let me read my Kindle.
Book cost-wise, it varies. From what I understand, the costs on the Kindle store are often set by the publishers (if Amazon doesn’t want to sell that eBook for $9.99, they can feel free not to sell that eBook at all and let their customers go to the Barnes and Noble eBookstore to spend $9.99 on it instead).
Nobody has mentioned it here, but one meme I usually encounter in these discussions is the claim that you HAVE to buy eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It’s pretty clear that folks in this thread know that’s not the case, so I can only assume that the SDMB’s fight against ignorance has made a bit more progress. Many of the books I read are published by Baen Books, and they offer many of their books on Webscriptions.net typically for around $6.00. You can get advanced copies of books before they hit the streets for around $15.00, but I understand those include typos and such as a bonus. They also sell bundles of books at a discount.
Some online bookstores that sell books for the Kindle (usually in Mobi format) can deliver them electronically if your Kindle is on a wifi connection, using your Kindle’s email address (both Amazon and Webscriptions have pages explaining how to set this up). The Kindle’s email uses a Whitelist which only includes Amazon by default, in order to keep folks from dropping stuff on your Kindle against your wishes. If all else fails, download the book to your hard drive and transfer it via USB cable. If you forget your USB cable, duck into an electronics store or a Wal Mart if you have time, and grab another one (the Kindle uses the Micro-B USB plug, which is also pretty typical of many cell phones I’ve seen in the past few years.
As far as a Dead Tree Book not requiring power, try reading one at night some time. They don’t work very well at all without power in those circumstances. 
eReader wins:
I love my iPad - it solved the problem of transporting books, music, email and videos for travel. I would have needed a second suitcase.
I love having the New Yorker on hand at all times, as well as plenty of books, games, vids etc. When waiting in the doctor’s office, I’m no longer at the mercy of a year old copy of Golf Digest or an HMO parenting rag.
Dead Tree Book wins:
As a lifetime Dead Tree Book local library patron, the price of first run ebooks is a massive deterrant, so I keep my ebooks for travel and “emergencies”. Yes, Gutenberg has lots of freebies but the variety/availability in the library can’t be matched. Oh and plus besides: the library has certainly eliminated that pesky book storage problem for me.
I second the collector’s dilemma as well - a DTB can be a special sentimental pleasure, in addition to the potential monetary value. Trashy though they are, I love my full set of Travis McGee pulps, and there’s no replacing a signed first edition of The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode…the main character is based on my brother, and the author a dear family friend.
I got my Kindle case when it was on sale for $4.99. If you want one with a light, they’re of course more costly, but you can even get a solid case for the thing for well under $10.
I’m a fan of the case I have because it’s still nice and thin, but I can throw an ID and some money in there if I’m going out and don’t want to bring my whole purse.
1.) Yes, I don’t own a kindle, and am not famniliar with how they work. As I noted, I’m trying to find out, which is supposedly what this Board is about
2.) It’s not hysterical freaking out. It’s concern that they do, indeed, have the capability to remove content – which is the point, not the legality. That it can be backed up is excellent, and is a prudent precaution, but nothing I’d encountered before said anything about this possibility.
3.) As noted, they have done this more than once. My question – still not answered – is whether they did this with the Markham book. (I suspect not, as Amazon is still sdelling the hard copy on their site) Saying that they “probably won’t” doesn’t answer the question.
A few more thoughts:
ENLARGING TEXT:
As I mentioned earlier, this is a huge win on the iPad over paper books. So why on earth didn’t the magazine people notice? When the reader is an armlength away on the treadmill, the print on magazine apps (e.g., “Wired”) is too small to read, and unlike the book reading app, you can’t enlarge magazine text. Someone was asleep at the wheel on that one.
DURABILITY:
I’ve been using personal computers for over 30 years now. There are files I used to use that I can no longer access for whatever reason: corrupted data, unreadable media, lost backups, incompatible file systems (I remember a really cool e-book I had on CD for my first Mac back in the late 80s called “From Alice to Ocean” Modern e-books don’t have HALF the features that had). I have books that are hundreds of years old. I wonder how many of the books on my iPad will still be usable on whatever device I’m using in 30 years. I wonder how many of the DRM’d files from companies like Amazon will be utterly useless on future generations of devices. I wonder how much work it will be to migrate libraries.
MULTIPLE FORMATS:
I know several authors who have released books for Kindle only. “No problem,” they say. “You can get a Kindle app for your Nook or iPad.” I, for one, am not going to manage multiple libraries of books on my devices (is that title in my iBook library, my Kindle library, my Nook library…). This problem is going to get worse as more publishers and authors start embedding multimedia and finding different ways to represent scientific and mathematical notation. I hope that eventually the industry can settle on a single standard format.
JUST LIKE PAPER:
Why is everybody so hung up on making e-books just like paper? When music went digital, we didn’t try to recreate the scratches, pops, and speed variations of vinyl. When video went digital, we didn’t try to recreate the wow, flutter, static, and roll of VHS. If you’re going to build an e-reader, why not make it BETTER than paper? Backlighting is the obvious first step (It’s one of the reasons I don’t want a Kindle. If I’m going to use a booklight, I might as well use a “real” book).