Do you use the keyboard on yours? What for? On a device that is trying to be small but have a big display, for consuming rather than creating content, keyboards seem like they would be a bad thing. Some references say they are for adding notes to the text you are reading, which sounds pretty unimportant.
I have no experience with these things but am thinking about getting one.
Thanks!
My Sony digital book has a virtual keyboard that I can type on with the included stylus. I don’t use it much, but yeah - it’s for annotation (note taking) which can be exported to PC. I don’t have the version with wireless (the PRS-950) but you can use the keyboard to browse to basic websites and look up stuff on wikipedia.
I’m considering one too. A feature that I’d like is to highlight text and export it to a PC. Do any of them have that?
I use mine on my Kindle when I want to highlight a passage and share it on Facebook, when I want to search either the book I’m reading or the entire device, and when I’m using the web browser.
You can also use it to make notes and annotations in the books you’re reading.
As far as highlighting text and exporting it to a PC: On the Kindle, everything you highlight / annotate gets saved into a file called My Clippings.txt accessible when you plug the Kindle into a PC. The highlights / annotations also get synced to your account at Amazon Kindle and are accessible from any web-connected device.
My nook has one, it’s used for searching and entering dictionary stuff, but I honestly couldn’t imagine useing it for any heavy duty entry. The Kindle strikes me similarly, it’s a ‘real’ keyboard, but small.
the iPad, on the other hand, I COULD see using, the screen is large enough and if it’s anything like my iPhones, pretty easy to enter email length things…The great american novel? Not so much. That said, they support bluetooth keyboards…
One of the features of the Kindle, et al, that some people have said they like is the ability to shop for and buy new e-books via the device itself. The keyboard lets you type in the name (or author, or whatever) of the book you’re searching for.
Though the Kindle isn’t designed to be a game-playing machine, there are some games available for it, some of which use the keyboard.
And there are other features (some of which have already been mentioned), like the ability to make “marginal notes” in a book you’re reading, the ability to search a book for a particular word or phrase, and the ability to organize files into collections, for which the keyyboard comes in handy. Some people use these features regularly, some don’t.
I very rarely use mine on the Kindle but was glad to have it while camping recently. I finished a book and instead of moving on to a book already in the Kindle, I wanted another by the same author. Simple matter to type in her name, find one that looked interesting, and download it.