Kindle: You've got to be kidding me

[Onkel Neal]

It never fails, a smart guy has a good idea, succeeds and garners riches and accolades... so what does he do for an encore? Tries to hype a $300 electronic book reader ?

Don't get me wrong, I love new technologies, and I'm aware in 5 years it is possible I may do a 180 and be touting the greatness of the e-book (but I doubt it), and there could be some good uses for having 200 books close at hand, but this just seems to be the opposite of what really appeals to me in reading, namely the actual feel of holding, carrying, and reading a book, turing pages, and feeling some connection to the greatest on man's technologies. I also like books to get away from computers for a while.

[Peto]

And dropping a real book in the toilet is much less costly.

:rotfl:

[CCIP]

Personally I've been waiting for something like this for years. It won't replace "The Book" for me, but in the end the convenience for a reader like that would be massively important for me. Mind you, a very large part of my reading is for academic and not pleasure-oriented purposes. Especially with so many academic journals going online these days... I'd sure prefer to have an easy-on-the-eyes electronic reader for those than having to print them out (I can't stand reading on the monitor for extended periods).

It'll take some time for this technology to really develop. Sure not jumping in with this one - far too expensive and oriented to actually buying books off Amazon rather than using your own digital media.

[Reaves]

YOu can read a novel on a screen, it hurts your eyes afterawhile. I'd also find it very hard to find a comfortable reading position with one.


And it'll ensure book stores go bankrupt meaning less variety in the books you might purchase. There is nothing like looking through shelves of books for a title, it's not the same as scrolling through pages....

[TarJak]

Got to agree with you there Neal. My wife gave me a boxed set of the Aubrey/Maturin novels containing hardbacked omnibus editions of all 21 books in the series. Beautiful binding, tissue thin high grade paper and a built in ribbon book mark in each of the volumes. The sheer joy of holding it opening it, reading and turning those pages just adds enourmously to the pleasure of sitting down for a couple of hours (minutes usually for me these days), to read in a comfortable chair.

e-Books meh! I do enough electronic reading on the net!

I can see a use in relation to technical manuals say for airline pilots who normally have to carry huge breifcases around of paper manuals, but I'm sure there are pilots who would say the same and wouldn't want them in this format either.

Maybe for another generation...

[Rotary Crewman]

Just as I started Das Boot for the first time this technology got rolled out. I thought about how if Das Boot was available through this would I have done it. And unlike Neal I think my answer would have been yes. At first I thought this was a news story about Amazon selling e-books which in themselves are nothing new. So I thought about the pros and cons of having e-books over actual books. Actual books won by miles. But now we have something that is portable and available for purchase I might consider switching to this sort of style. Just spent a while overseas and to take a few books hit my luggage allowence on the way out, plus on a tight passenger jet the book is quite large. This little PDA device will certainly help us forces boys out.

I don't think this will be the end of books as a whole as some people prefer to carry a book and have the ability to read it where they like. But imagine having a whole library in your pocket and being able to just select any book you want (As long as you have purchased it ).

[Rotary Crewman]

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2...he-book-p1.php

Very apt for this thread. New technology taking over old

No one likes change

[Onkel Neal]

Some people do like change, just not this one. Let me know when you've actually bought one of these things.

[Rotary Crewman]

I do plan to buy one. Not just yet though. Little too expensive and with a wedding coming up my money will be going into that one.

Looking forward to using it when I'm in Iraq.

[Skybird]

I'll stick with books, and nothing is gonna make that change until I die. I just dumbed my second hightech-super-wonder-electronic-telephone with thousands of gimmicks and number storage memory RAM - and connected an old-fashioned telephone without everything again, using a small booklet to keep my numbers. Different to electrionic devices, I never need to write those numbers again when changing the telephone. Most of my kitchen devices I buy with an eye on keeping electronic out as much as possible. It is fun to handle things manually while cooking, and manual devices usually have a far greater longevity. Where I do not accept compromise is - a sharp cooking knife.

And as Neal said: no laptop, no plate-screen, no Tricorder and no Apple handy ever can compare to sit in a gemütlich corner in the evening, having a glass of wine and comfortable light and read a good book - actually holding it in your hands, smell the paper if it is old, and enjoying the sensation of feeling the thing when turning the pages.

The market goes crazy, and brings too much stuff that nobody really needs. the craving for it must be artificially created in order to get ot sold. That is crazy! Living on hype.

Becoming older seem to be the remedy for that - At the price of feeling shaken off, at times. Buying a TV was easy ten years ago. Today, it is an odyssey with lots of traps and dead ends, and much more money at stake, and probably shorter longevity. But hey, all it still is about is just a damn single TV! So why the big show?

Modern life is in desperate need for some very substantial deceleration.

[Tchocky]

Agreeing with CCIP here. Most evenings my eyes are raw from reading JSTOR or some badly scanned journal, so anything with readability superior to a monitor would help.
Re: modern technology in general, there's a difference between buying to have and buying to use/need.

[AVGWarhawk]

Neat idea. Save tree or two in the process, etc. I'm a book fan....period. I read in bed or in the bathroom. No fear of the book fizzling out if I drop it in the toilet.

I pride myself on the collection of books I have and enjoy reading them again after a year of the first initial reading. Besides, the price of fossil fuels might lead me into using them to keep the house warm

[Rotary Crewman]

Not in a 'Haha, told you so way' It will be intereting to see this thread in around 2-3 years time. Only because, like my sceptic self when ebooks first arrived, if peoples opinions have changed.

I'm not saying no to books, but this is something very very useful for people like me.

[mookiemookie]

I agree with the other posters who say that in a technical sense this could be a great idea. But reading for pleasure for me is all about the feel of opening a book, the smell of the paper, the bindings, the gentle crack it makes when you open a new one for the first time, and the shelves upon shelves of books I own...it's like the bigger my collection is, the more proud I am. I love being able to answer yes when people see my bookshelves and ask me "You've read all of those?" For me, no electronic reader can hope to replace real books read for pleasure.

[RickC Sniper]

A useful tool for the severely disabled who have much difficulty turning pages, etc.
For others....an eye killer, I would think.

I prefer a real book, which I can manage sitting up, but I have difficulty as stated above when I want to read while in bed. I don't own one, but am considering it for that purpose.

Rick C