# Kindle vs Paperback: Where's The Advantage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931 "2011-07-22T01:50:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/101 "2011-07-23T23:05:39Z")
Yikes! I had to check uptop to make sure we weren’t in GD all of a sudden! 😉 Q ---
**Author:** ![locamochagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/73ab20/32.png) [@locamochagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/locamochagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/102 "2011-07-24T00:40:05Z")
I got a Kindle for Christmas and my reaction was slow. I felt like I paused and then was like “OH WOW, THANKS” in an almost fake way. I am a giant nerd who loves reading books. I love having them, buying them, displaying them. I thought the Kindle would take that away. I LOVE my Kindle the the point of obsession. I love that you can look on Amazon for a book and within 30 seconds have it downloaded. They’re cheaper, and I don’t have stacks and stacks of books everywhere. I already have like 50 and it takes up NO space! LOVE the Kindle. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/103 "2011-07-24T01:46:41Z")
I love my new Kindle for one big reason: I like to read when I go out to eat, and it’s always been a royal pain in the ass trying to keep a thick paperback open while I’m reading, because my hands are otherwise occupied. I was always trying to use the edge of my plate or tray to hold the book open, and shuffling the plate/tray on and off the book every time I wanted to turn the page. And some books are just too thick (hey, I love fantasy novels, where it is almost a requirement that books be 500+ pages) to make that at all practical, especially if I’m near the beginning or end of the book. I also foresee the Kindle being helpful for those times when I want to tell somebody about a neat passage I read in a book. When I’m finished reading a paperback it goes on my shelf and I’m unlikely to have it at hand when I want to tell somebody about a passage. With the Kindle, I can just call up the book and the relevant passage. I have run into one minor annoyance, though. I downloaded a free copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and whoever transcribed/scanned it didn’t use a character set that the Kindle understands. So every time money is mentioned in a story I see weird codes where the British “pound” symbol should be, and the same problem when Holmes or Watson says something in French and the words include diacriticals and French-specific letters. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/104 "2011-07-24T02:04:19Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I find that at least some books seem to not be proofread at all. In the Windrose books, for instance, “th” is substituted in many cases for “m”, resulting in “me” being rendered as “the”. The spacing is also rather erratic. If I hadn’t previously read the books, I might have been stumped by some passages. As it was, I had to stop and stare at the words for a couple of seconds before realizing that the scanning wasn’t perfect. > [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I have run into one minor annoyance, though. I downloaded a free copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and whoever transcribed/scanned it didn’t use a character set that the Kindle understands. So every time money is mentioned in a story I see weird codes where the British “pound” symbol should be, and the same problem when Holmes or Watson says something in French and the words include diacriticals and French-specific letters. That kind of thing would drive me absolutely batty. Is there any mechanism or accepted basis for _returning_ (deleting and refunding, I suppose) imperfect e-books? I know the one mentioned was a freebie, I’m asking generally. (I have read on a Kindle, but don’t own one.) ---
**Author:** ![Helena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c68b51/32.png) [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/105 "2011-07-24T02:11:57Z")
Sook Nyul Choi’s _Year of Impossible Goodbyes_ was apparently the victim of bad OCR scanning–“It made me happy to see my little brother smile through his tears” was rendered as “through his teats.” In another spot it said “I went to a comet and sat down.” It took me a while to figure out this was supposed to be “corner.” ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/106 "2011-07-24T02:25:36Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I love my new Kindle for one big reason: I like to read when I go out to eat, and it’s always been a royal pain in the ass trying to keep a thick paperback open while I’m reading, because my hands are otherwise occupied. I was always trying to use the edge of my plate or tray to hold the book open, and shuffling the plate/tray on and off the book every time I wanted to turn the page. And some books are just too thick… This alone has sold me on the idea of a Kindle, even if a lot of the books on my Wish List aren’t available in that format. Where I work, meal breaks are taken as and when we are able. Sometimes I have a companion, most times I eat alone and I always like to have something to read while I’m eating. The Kindle sounds ideal for the reasons you outline. Thank you for helping me to come to a decision. I’m the most indecisive person I know and it’s a real relief to finally make up my mind. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/107 "2011-07-24T05:44:28Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I have run into one minor annoyance, though. I downloaded a free copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and whoever transcribed/scanned it didn’t use a character set that the Kindle understands. So every time money is mentioned in a story I see weird codes where the British “pound” symbol should be, and the same problem when Holmes or Watson says something in French and the words include diacriticals and French-specific letters. I was fortunate that most of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries were pre-loaded on my Kobo, but it screws up diacritics bad. German is bad, Hungarian is unreadable. The Holmes mysteries I had to buy were shoddy, for the reasons described by other posters. Scanned into a machine, doesn’t always groove with the font…the irony is that the free Project Gutenberg versions were of better quality, since they seem to be vetted by real people. I’m reading some Star Trek extended universe fiction, and i’m astounded by the sloppy spelling and missing punctuation in my ebook…☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/108 "2011-07-24T05:52:34Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > That kind of thing would drive me absolutely batty. > > Is there any mechanism or accepted basis for _returning_ (deleting and refunding, I suppose) imperfect e-books? I know the one mentioned was a freebie, I’m asking generally. That I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/109 "2011-07-24T06:21:01Z")
I personally like being able to buy and sell used books, and not having to worry about the publisher taking away or censoring what I’ve already bought on a whim. Oh, and the format is readable in perpetuity, no matter what happens to technology. (Language, of course, is another matter entirely.) ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/110 "2011-07-24T08:39:09Z")
Nobody outside of the clinically insane “worries” that the biggest publisher in the world is going to use the format they have invested heavily in to suddenly screw everyone. This is not a rational thing to worry about. And you and I both know you are far more likely to leave your book on the bus than to lose a Kindle book to shadiness. Anyway, the two are not mutually exclusive. If I want to read a cheap detective novel on the beach, I still can…and for cheap quick reads I do just that. But I find the Kindle a much better deal for the meaty pricy non fiction I tend to buy. I am addicted to the instant gratification, too. If I read an interesting book review or get a good rec from a friend, I can be reading it instantly…no planning a trip to the bookstore, forgetting about stuff you really want to read, etc. It is costing me fortunes, though! ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/111 "2011-07-26T21:24:15Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Is there any mechanism or accepted basis for _returning_ (deleting and refunding, I suppose) imperfect e-books? I know the one mentioned was a freebie, I’m asking generally. Yes, Amazon has a return policy for Kindle books. I’ve returned two because of the bad OCR making them unbearable to read. They refunded my money without question. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931.md?page=5)