Despite being relatively tech-savvy, I’ve been reluctant to give up my daily Chicago Tribune subscription. Of course I can get all the same content on line, but there’s just something about being able to hold the paper in my hands and turn the pages that appeals to me over reading it on the computer. Not to mention that I don’t care to drag a laptop with me to, say, McDonald’s so I can read the paper with my lunch, and certainly not into the bathroom.
But the price of having the paper dropped on my driveway every morning has gone up yet again. The lower cost of a Kindle subscription, as it turns out, would essentially pay for the Kindle itself in about a year and a half. So it makes sense financially to finally take the plunge.
My question is: how does reading a newspaper on the Kindle compare to the experience of actually reading the paper? Do I get a “home page” of sorts (like the online version) with various headlines, or can I just flip through the pages like I do now? Is the content arranged in sections like I’m used to, or is everything just kind of lumped together like on the website? And do I get the comics pages?
Any opinions you have regarding any particular newspapers are welcome, but specifically I’d be most interested in hearing from Chicgao Tribune readers.
Not a Chicago Tribune reader but someone who tried several (German) newspapers’ Kindle edition during an unscheduled 10-day hospital stay five months ago. (German Kindle newspapers seem to differ from the US in that Amazon seems to not allow them photographs, apparently because they made a worse deal on the 3G connectivity).
My experience: you get an overview page for sections; from there you read/page through the articles pretty consecutively.
Newspapers’ Kindle editions seem to vary very much in usability, depending on the care that was taken to select the articles and to format them for the Kindle.
Generally I like the Kindle very much for works that are read sequentially (novels, collection of short stories) but it’s a PITA for works that you read very selectively (newspapers) or where you jump between places (works of reference).
I had a Wall Street Journal subscription on my Kindle for a while.
There was a homepage that listed each section and the number of articles in each. You could either browse the article titles, or step through the articles one at a time.
Frankly, it sucked. The big problem with the Kindle is that it is slow - there is a substantial delay, less than a second but not by much, following every single action you take. This, combined with the small screen that can’t display much content at once, makes trying to skim through the newspaper to find articles you’re interested in a very frustrating experience.
I eventually got used to it, but it was nowhere near as enjoyable as the paper newspaper.
The Wall Street Journal on the iPad, now, is quite nice. Unfortunately, it is more expensive than the paper version.
The Kindle DX might be better for a newspaper, although it’s a bit more expensive. You can generally get a free trial of magazine and newspaper subscriptions so aside from the Kindle itself you don’t need to outlay any money to try it out.
A subscription is still cheaper. Newsstand price is up to $1.00 now; 2.00 for Sunday. Delivery price is about .60 per day including Sundays. The Kindle subscription is about half of that.
An alternative is using a service on your computer like Calibre - this will download your Chicago Tribune every day and then send it to your Kindle or to the Calibre desktop in .mobi format. This will drop your daily charge to either a few cents or free, depending on whether you choose to transfer the file via USB or wirelessly.
This is what I do for a few news sources.
I just tried this - the Tribune looks great and so do the pictures. The navigation is smooth - just go to the Sections list and the paper is organized by section and article.
Calibre has support for several devices besides the Kindle and is freeware - check it out.
I read the New York Times on my Kindle 1 every day. If anything, the drawback is my desire to get my money’s worth, so I tend to read quite a bit of it.
I like it and would never go back to paper (censored, delayed and expensive here) or to an iPad (poor battery life).
I’m resurrecting my own thread because I got my Kindle a couple weeks ago, and just today started my 14-day trial subscription to the Tribune. While navigation is easy and intuitive, I’m disappointed in the complete lack of graphics – no photos, no illustrations, no political cartoons, no comics!!!
The Tribune is justifiably proud of their photography staff, so it seems odd to me that they’d put out such a bare-bones, text-only edition for Kindle. (Unless there’s something I’m missing, which is entirely possible. Help me out if this is the case!)
I’ll be away from home until Tuesday, but when I get back I’m going to give this a try. I’m hoping I like it better, or I may have to go back to paper.
This is one problem I’m not having, maybe because I got the new model that just came out. The reaction is nearly instantaneous.
I suspect that Calibre is grabbing the RSS feeds from the news sites, which if your issue is graphics and pictures won’t be an improvement. However the variety of news sources available is fairly extensive. I personally just use the Kindle for book reading. While I grab the latest versions of several news sources, I normally only read them while traveling. For up to date news, it’s easier for me to take some time through out my day and read select articles from our local paper online.
I suppose I’ll need to check it out for myself to know for sure.
The issue for me, though, is portability. I’m a creature of habit, and I like to read the paper over lunch – which is always taken away from my desk – and then finish up what I didn’t get to while relaxing on the sofa after work. Or, if I’m out of my usual routine, I can read it on the train, or at the airport, or basically wherever I happen to be. A laptop doesn’t fit with that profile but a Kindle does. (And, by the way, the Tribune’s iPhone app sucks, so that’s not a real alternative.)
Just keep in mind that the Tribune feed set up in Calibre has no comics - but there is another feed from GoComics that should set you up in that regard. Just go through that feed, edit it and select the comics you want.
Yes. What Calibre does is download the RSS feed of the Tribune (or anything else), convert the HTML files into Mobipocket, and then either send the file to the Kindle wirelessly or keep it in a library until it is downloaded. I have this set to happen every morning at 5 AM so that I wake up to new content.
Calibre is pretty good for this. Amazon doesn’t have any newspapers for the Kindle from my region but Calibre gets four or five Australian papers and a couple of NZ ones as well. Being able to browse quickly through the headlines is great too.