Tuesday December 04, 2007 Amazon Kindle
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The new Amazon Kindle wireless reading device has been out for about a week now. |
I was tracking the reviews before it came out. At that time about 300 had reviewed it, and over 100 of those people had given it a one-star review without even having tried it. Apparently several hadn't read the specifications in detail, because they vented on problems that aren't really problems or can easily be worked around (such as lack of PDF support).
A friend pointed out that Robert Scoble has panned it. His video is well worth watching if you are considering buying this device, and he makes several excellent points. But this is version 1.0 of the Kindle, no doubt rushed to market just in time for Christmas. There is plenty of opportunity to fix some of these problems in the future.
I'd like to try it before I make a judgment, and this is where Amazon apparently has a real disadvantage over other retailers that have bricks-n-mortar stores. I would have to buy one from them, then return it if I didn't like it. Or find somebody who has already got one and play with theirs.
From just reviewing the specs on their web page and watching Robert's video, it looks clunky. It's also more than I want to pay for such a machine.
I think I'd sooner get one of those ASUS Eee PC 4G Notebook PC's and read my eBooks with that. The price is the same. And at least I can also use it like a normal (albeit smaller and slower) PC, for other things like reading email, browsing the web and running OpenOffice apps (just to name a few).
I bet it wouldn't be too hard to write something that would allow you hold the PC the other way around with the screen length-ways on one side and the keyboard on the other. You know. Sort of like holding a book, albeit with just one "page" displaying text. In fact, not much bigger than a hardback book. I wonder what the reading experience would be like then.
Overall though, I guess I'm still old-school. I still prefer the feel of a paper book. The ability to easily and quickly view other pages. It'll be a while before I do my reading-for-pleasure electronically.
[Technorati Tag: Amazon Kindle]
( Dec 04 2007, 09:35:44 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [12]
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The Eee actually comes with FBReader, which is a pretty darn good open source e-book reader program. It has built in support for screen rotation so you could read length-wise, though I think that would probably be awkward.
For mobile e-book reading, I prefer the Nokia Internet Tablet devices. The recent release of the N810 will probably continue to push down the price of the older N800, which can already be purchased for less than $250. I've read many books on my N800 in the past year.
Posted by Ryan Paul on December 04, 2007 at 10:24 AM PST #
Thanks Ryan. The more I read about the Eee, the
closer I am to getting one. As you can put
Ubuntu on it, I'm almost at the tipping point.
(Length-wise was a wish to be able to see a
complete page's worth on the screen at one
time).
Posted by Rich Burridge on December 04, 2007 at 10:36 AM PST #
I own the N800 and love it -- but not for long term reading as the screen is too small. Plus I agree with Rich: When it comes to books I much prefer paper. Were ASUS to create a Tablet-PC-style Eee, however, I might be persuaded to rethink my old-school ways. :-)
Posted by joanie on December 04, 2007 at 10:36 AM PST #
>I bet it wouldn't be too hard to write something that would allow you hold the PC the other way around with the screen length-ways on one side and the keyboard on the other.
It's already possible - just Google "fbreader" - I added their repo to my Ubuntu install and *wow* it's a very customizable reader with 90 degree text flipping, adjustable font size, line spacing (good), and so on. A little confusing to use at first, but once you learn what the icons do, it looks very clean and natural. This is very good software for reading on my laptop. Give it a non-white background color for easier reading.
On the subject of ebook hardware, I thought about the Eee PC but it was just too expensive for my tastes. I mean, they're just ebooks. Since my old tank of an HP Jornada has died (thank you for your 500-book life), I found a used Dell PDA on eBay for $80 which came with wifi, a storage card, office software, and best of all, a hard aluminum case. My favorite feature is the rocker switch on the side for turning pages. Not a Linux device but there are so many .lit books out there, it's nice to be able to run MS reader. uBook is another fine ebook reader on that platform.
One of my "core values" is squeezing money out of the picture when it comes to technology, so I was pretty proud of the new $80 ebook reader and immediately headed over to manybooks.net for more reading. And as always, the gutenberg.org new books RSS feed is exciting to look through daily.
I actively avoid PDF though, because I don't think it's a good reading format (unless formatted specifically for a set of devices). Especially PDFs with multiple columns of text.
Also, I heard the Nokia 770 is very good for ebook reading.
Posted by Martin Bishop on December 04, 2007 at 10:38 AM PST #
> It's already possible - just Google "fbreader"
> - I added their repo to my Ubuntu install and
> *wow* it's a very customizable reader with 90
> degree text flipping, adjustable font size,
> line spacing (good), and so on
I just did the same, and I agree. *wow*.
Here's the link if others are interested:
http://www.fbreader.org/desktop/debian.php
I can see an Eee in my future.
Dang. Just what I (don't) need. Another PC. ;-)
Thanks Martin (and Ryan).
Posted by Rich Burridge on December 04, 2007 at 10:54 AM PST #
Rich:
Hi there -- I always enjoy reading your posts (the ones that get to planet.gnome, at any rate), and am surprized you don't mention the OLPC laptop (the XO), since it would be physically impossible for you to be unaware of it ;) Is there a special reason you ruled it out?
Reading eBooks is not my thing, generally, but that's specifically about *reading ebooks on (typical) computers.* Desktop or laptop, they're so far from built for it that the contrast is constantly painfully apparent between books (high-contrast, lit by surrounding light, no keyboard to avoid, can be moved along with me to a different chair, etc) and either laptop or desktop computers. I actually did read quite a bit on my old Handspring Visor, before it was stolen. However, I ordered an XO in part because it looks like an actually pleasant way to read books!
There are three ways in which I think it beats the EEE, even though I like the EEE for some other things (like a better keyboard):
1) Tabletesque screen. Can't write on it, but can read it without the awkwardness of a normal "open laptop" shape, which I hate, esp. when I try to read it in awkward places. No way am I opening a laptop on a Philadelphia subway! :) It's not as compact as either the Sony reader or the Kindle, but looks quite graspable. I think the slightly larger size is OK, given all the additional capabilities compared to those things.
2) High resolution (200 dpi in the mono mode), which leads in to ...
3) daylight readable. I have not seen the screen in person, so I hope it lives up to the hype, but just from pictures and a layman's understanding of the technology, I'm sure it will be much more readable than an EEE in many lighting circumstances.
Esp. in daylight mode, the battery life should also be far ahead of an EEE, though I'm more hopeful than certain by exactly how much.
You might find the video in this story (http://www.olpcnews.com/content/ebooks/internet_archive_laptop_ebook.html) interesting, w/ Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive praising the XO as an e-book reader.
Cheers,
timothy
Posted by T.Lord on December 04, 2007 at 12:55 PM PST #
Hi Timothy. Thanks for your comments.
Yes, I've played with the OLPC at CSUN this
year. See:
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/back_from_csun_2007
I failed the "how does this open?" test. I need
to try it for a longer period though.
I've also player with the XO Sugar emulator on my
Ubuntu system. To me, it's not an intuitive
interface. But that's probably just me.
But the main reason, is that the OLPC doesn't
have a "full accessibility stack" at the moment.
So I can't run Orca on it.
If/when that changes, I might reconsider it.
Posted by Rich Burridge on December 04, 2007 at 02:56 PM PST #
I love my kindle. I've already read 3 books on it, several New York Times issues, and I've happily purchased a bunch more for the queue.
Ignore all the cursory reviews. Amazon nailed the two most important things: reading is engrossing, and buying content is absurdly easy. The latter makes the Kindle a hands down winner when compared to other readers.
As an ebook junkie, I'm hopeful that Amazon has the considerable clout needed to convince big publishers to release and re-release all their titles digitally.
Posted by Alex Graveley on December 04, 2007 at 04:01 PM PST #
Thanks Alex.
The "instant gratification" aspect of the Kindle
and that swag of Amazon content (i.e. immediately
being able to download and start reading such
a wide selection of books) is very appealing to
me.
I haven't given up on this yet.
Hopefully somebody I know (who lives in the
Bay Area) will buy one and I give it a good
workout.
Posted by Rich Burridge on December 04, 2007 at 04:32 PM PST #
Rich: Thanks for the response. I wonder if you could clarify what you say about the main reason for ruling out the OLPC as an e-book reader:
"But the main reason, is that the OLPC doesn't
have a "full accessibility stack" at the moment.
So I can't run Orca on it."
I'll admit I hadn't paid much attention to what Orca is (my guess was in the right half of the stadium, but not exact) -- but does Orca have anything to do with (for instance) the Kindle? And from a quick scan of the Orca web page, it seems closely linked to Gnome, which the EEE by default won't be running (though I am glad to see that some people have it running Ubuntu already).
Not worth more of your time than you think it is worth, but now I'm very curious :)
Cheers,
timothy
Posted by T.Lord on December 04, 2007 at 05:50 PM PST #
Orca is nothing to do with eBooks at all.
It's a screen reader for Linux/Solaris. You can
find out more at http://live.gnome.org/Orca
I'm one of the Orca developers, so I'd really
like a computer that can run it.
Orca works with applications and toolkits that
support the assistive technology service provider
interface (AT-SPI)
AT-SPI in turn uses Bonobo (activation framework)
which in turn uses ORBit2. These last technologies
are not currently present on the OLPC.
Posted by Rich Burridge on December 04, 2007 at 07:10 PM PST #
According to Engadget, Fresno students will be given Eee PCs for classroom use: http://tinyurl.com/355un3
Posted by joanie on December 05, 2007 at 04:33 PM PST #