5 ms·

Kindle 3: e-book readers come of age

20 points by rkwz 16y ago

electromagnetic 16y ago
I love books for more than just reading. However I have no problem reading on my Kindle, if anything I find it more convenient as I don't have to hassle with bookmarks (although I have to get into the habit of exiting my ebook when done as the kindle has a habit of restarting on power up and losing the last read).
- jonhendry 16y ago
  One thing I really don't like about printed books is when the paper is glossy, making it tricky to get lighting that doesn't glare off the page. Also, bookstands. Has a truly good one ever been made? Finally, trying to work with a hardcover book, a laptop, and a paper notebook takes up a lot of space on a desk.
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    > Also, bookstands. Has a truly good one ever been made? The best I've ever used was actually mini-drafting table. It was the perfect size for a hardcover book and, depending on the type of binding, it either sat on the lower wooden ledge or the hardback could actually be forced behind the rule (with the lie-flat books). It's ironic that a thing made to hold books completely sucks at the task, but a thing made to hold only a few pieces of paper (at most) is ideal. I also have to agree, that a good 95% of non-fiction books are on the horrible glossy paper. I remember detesting them in college as florescent lights were the worst as instead of a glare you'd see an aura from the entire tube.
    - jonhendry 16y ago
      I have a Levenger "editor's desk", which is close to a mini-drafting table that sits on top of your desk. It gets a little iffy, though, at the start or end of a book, where the "thin side" of the open book doesn't have enough mass to hold itself down. What I found that helped with that were the giant rubber bands you can get at art supply stores, that are typically used to hold things to a drawing board. Two of them around the editor's desk do a fine job of holding a book open, bands stretched across the top and bottom margins.
bradleyjoyce 16y ago
"When people ditched their CDs, they lost album art and liner notes, but those were never a part of the actual listening experience. The music bursting from headphone and speakers was still music, was the same whether it came from a disc or a download. When the liner notes vanished, the songs remained the same." and all the people who are hardcore about audio cringe at the notion that music sounds the same regardless of origin or equipment used to reproduce it... these also happen to be the same people who cherished the album, who saw insights into the music from the artwork on the cover, and read the lyrics over and over. I'm a geek. I owned a Kindle and read books regularly on my iPad and iPhone. I love the technology. However, it drives me crazy when people make say that the details in the "antiquated" and analog versions aren't/weren't important. There is truly much being lost.
- Qz 16y ago
  I'd say you lose a lot more from trying to play real music on crappy iPod earphones rather than real speakers, than is lost in the transition from analog to digital. (This coming from someone who only buys CDs and never digital downloads.)
bayareaguy 16y ago
For those who prefer all on one page: http://jottit.com/txq4v/ http://jottit.com/txq4v/
waterlesscloud 16y ago
Got one of these a few weeks ago. It's very much a single-purpose device, but it's excellent at what it does. I have about 3000ish books in my small apartment, so I'm a fan of the paper book. But I'm certain that the majority of my future book purchases will be kindle books.
yread 16y ago
Do you guys have it? Is it usable for other formats than just PDF? I have a large collection of ebooks from "various" sources and they are in all kinds of formats (djvu, chm, pdb) and I was wondering if it is actually better to get a Kindle or one of the other ones which support those formats natively (like Bebook One 2010 which is almost twice the price). It would be probably quite inconvenient having to email all those books (I have like 50GB of them)
- jonhendry 16y ago
  The kindle supports a number of formats natively (.doc, .rtf, .html, pdf, .mobi, .prc, jpg) but not the ones you list. The little kindle isn't great for PDF - it's just too small.
- drtse4 16y ago
  Not really great for PDFs, they are shown with a border bigger than the one of regular ebooks and the zoom options are only 100% 150% 200%... Even 150% is too big to fit on the screen. It doesn't support many formats natively, only mobi,pdf and not much else, conversion is offered by amazon via mail but there is Calibre (win,lnx,osx?) that can easily convert from nearly every format (e.g. epub). You could simply convert what you want to read and transfer via usb.
  - smackfu 16y ago
    Yeah, and e-ink has a poor refresh rate for something like scrolling around a page. Fine for page-flipping, but not for scrolling.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    The fix for the margins is to open the PDF in something like Preview.app and crop it so there are no fat margins. The kindle will honor the crop box. So the margins can go away, and the text can be rendered larger. That helps on the DX. But the small kindle is just too small. The kindle 3 offers contrast adjustment on PDFs, which also helps with the small fonts.
wccrawford 16y ago
I'm not saying that the DRM isn't horrible... I'm just saying that you don't have to buy DRM'd books. Don't buy from Amazon! Buy from other sellers who provide DRM-free ebooks instead. One of my favorites is Baen. They have a massive free library, and I've bought quite a few books from them as well. Project Gutenberg is another great source, of course.
smackfu 16y ago
"Yes, there's DRM on Kindle books, and yes, it's annoying." Like all these things, I suppose it depends on how you use it. I buy books on the Amazon store, I read them on my Kindle. I don't find the DRM annoying, or even visible. It's pretty much the same as the old iTunes DRM. Yes, it was there, but if you bought on the iTunes store and played on your iPod, you didn't even notice it. The fact that download are now DRM-free is not even noticeable, except that you get better quality and pay 30% more.

20 points by rkwz 16y ago

I love books for more than just reading. However I have no problem reading on my Kindle, if anything I find it more convenient as I don't have to hassle with bookmarks (although I have to get into the habit of exiting my ebook when done as the kindle has a habit of restarting on power up and losing the last read).

jonhendry 16y ago
One thing I really don't like about printed books is when the paper is glossy, making it tricky to get lighting that doesn't glare off the page. Also, bookstands. Has a truly good one ever been made? Finally, trying to work with a hardcover book, a laptop, and a paper notebook takes up a lot of space on a desk.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  > Also, bookstands. Has a truly good one ever been made? The best I've ever used was actually mini-drafting table. It was the perfect size for a hardcover book and, depending on the type of binding, it either sat on the lower wooden ledge or the hardback could actually be forced behind the rule (with the lie-flat books). It's ironic that a thing made to hold books completely sucks at the task, but a thing made to hold only a few pieces of paper (at most) is ideal. I also have to agree, that a good 95% of non-fiction books are on the horrible glossy paper. I remember detesting them in college as florescent lights were the worst as instead of a glare you'd see an aura from the entire tube.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    I have a Levenger "editor's desk", which is close to a mini-drafting table that sits on top of your desk. It gets a little iffy, though, at the start or end of a book, where the "thin side" of the open book doesn't have enough mass to hold itself down. What I found that helped with that were the giant rubber bands you can get at art supply stores, that are typically used to hold things to a drawing board. Two of them around the editor's desk do a fine job of holding a book open, bands stretched across the top and bottom margins.

bradleyjoyce 16y ago

"When people ditched their CDs, they lost album art and liner notes, but those were never a part of the actual listening experience. The music bursting from headphone and speakers was still music, was the same whether it came from a disc or a download. When the liner notes vanished, the songs remained the same." and all the people who are hardcore about audio cringe at the notion that music sounds the same regardless of origin or equipment used to reproduce it... these also happen to be the same people who cherished the album, who saw insights into the music from the artwork on the cover, and read the lyrics over and over. I'm a geek. I owned a Kindle and read books regularly on my iPad and iPhone. I love the technology. However, it drives me crazy when people make say that the details in the "antiquated" and analog versions aren't/weren't important. There is truly much being lost.

Qz 16y ago
I'd say you lose a lot more from trying to play real music on crappy iPod earphones rather than real speakers, than is lost in the transition from analog to digital. (This coming from someone who only buys CDs and never digital downloads.)

bayareaguy 16y ago

For those who prefer all on one page: http://jottit.com/txq4v/ http://jottit.com/txq4v/

waterlesscloud 16y ago

Got one of these a few weeks ago. It's very much a single-purpose device, but it's excellent at what it does. I have about 3000ish books in my small apartment, so I'm a fan of the paper book. But I'm certain that the majority of my future book purchases will be kindle books.

yread 16y ago

Do you guys have it? Is it usable for other formats than just PDF? I have a large collection of ebooks from "various" sources and they are in all kinds of formats (djvu, chm, pdb) and I was wondering if it is actually better to get a Kindle or one of the other ones which support those formats natively (like Bebook One 2010 which is almost twice the price). It would be probably quite inconvenient having to email all those books (I have like 50GB of them)

jonhendry 16y ago
The kindle supports a number of formats natively (.doc, .rtf, .html, pdf, .mobi, .prc, jpg) but not the ones you list. The little kindle isn't great for PDF - it's just too small.
drtse4 16y ago
Not really great for PDFs, they are shown with a border bigger than the one of regular ebooks and the zoom options are only 100% 150% 200%... Even 150% is too big to fit on the screen. It doesn't support many formats natively, only mobi,pdf and not much else, conversion is offered by amazon via mail but there is Calibre (win,lnx,osx?) that can easily convert from nearly every format (e.g. epub). You could simply convert what you want to read and transfer via usb.
- smackfu 16y ago
  Yeah, and e-ink has a poor refresh rate for something like scrolling around a page. Fine for page-flipping, but not for scrolling.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  The fix for the margins is to open the PDF in something like Preview.app and crop it so there are no fat margins. The kindle will honor the crop box. So the margins can go away, and the text can be rendered larger. That helps on the DX. But the small kindle is just too small. The kindle 3 offers contrast adjustment on PDFs, which also helps with the small fonts.

wccrawford 16y ago

I'm not saying that the DRM isn't horrible... I'm just saying that you don't have to buy DRM'd books. Don't buy from Amazon! Buy from other sellers who provide DRM-free ebooks instead. One of my favorites is Baen. They have a massive free library, and I've bought quite a few books from them as well. Project Gutenberg is another great source, of course.

smackfu 16y ago

"Yes, there's DRM on Kindle books, and yes, it's annoying." Like all these things, I suppose it depends on how you use it. I buy books on the Amazon store, I read them on my Kindle. I don't find the DRM annoying, or even visible. It's pretty much the same as the old iTunes DRM. Yes, it was there, but if you bought on the iTunes store and played on your iPod, you didn't even notice it. The fact that download are now DRM-free is not even noticeable, except that you get better quality and pay 30% more.