Kindle and holidays, woo!
Aug. 30th, 2010 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayGuilty confession time: I've ordered a Kindle. In fact, I ordered it last week. Went for the basic wi-fi only model, because there is rarely a time when I am without wi-fi access of some kind and I cannot justify paying an extra $50 for the 3G connection when I will rarely need it.
I've been wishing that I had something like this for a long time (since around 2001), but until now the price of the eReaders has made it hard to justify one. Although I know that I can put the Kindle app onto an iPod Touch, it's not something that's really set up to be an ereader for anything but the most causal, five-minute reads. The size of the screen is what's putting me off using a Touch as my main ereader when I get one, so a dedicated ereader seems the way to go.
Living up in Canada, my choice came down to Kindle, Kobo or Sony. My mum's got a Sony and, while it's a nice piece of kit, it's not exactly seamless to buy and load up books. We've got it sorted now, but you can't buy books directly on the device and the selection of ebooks at our library doesn't thrill me. Nor is the contrast particularly good on the Sony, an important factor I feel. Having to hook up to the master computer to load it up with new things would also be pretty restrictive. The Kobo is coming out second-best to both the Kindle and the Nook in all the reviews and the attraction of using the library on it isn't enough to overcome its negatives.
The new Kindles are lighter, smaller (without sacrificing screen size), have the best contrast of all the E-ink readers and Amazon's selection is the widest of all the ebook stores. It's the one that has the most book-like reading experience of them all, if the reviews are to be believed.
So, Kindle it is. Now I just have to wait (im)patiently for it to ship. If only I'd been looking at this a month ago - I could have been one of the lucky folks receiving theirs this weekend! The status when I placed the order indicated that it will be dispatched on or before Sept 17th, so we'll see where that takes us.
I'm not planning to use it for books that I would be devastated to lose. Those will still be bought in dead tree format. I suspect that cheap or free classics are going to form a lot of what I put on it, plus some older (i.e. not best-selling) books that I've been meaning to read but never quite got around to. Books that I doubt I'll want to re-read will also be good fodder for the Kindle and books where the size/weight would normally mean that I couldn't carry it with me. I might finally get around to reading American Gods, which is one I know that I'd need to read in one big go but the size of it means that I can't carry it comfortably in my purse. Anything that I buy on the Kindle and end up loving so much that I need to own a paper copy will get put onto my wishlist or just bought when it's too long until a birthday. It's not going to stop the bookshelves expanding, although it might slow me down :-) It will make sure that I've always got something to read with me and never need to take two books somewhere because I've nearly finished one.
Also, I can buy the Independent on the Kindle. I won't be getting a subscription, but I can buy individual issues when I want to and I miss reading the Indie on lazy weekends or holidays. The local paper just doesn't quite measure up.
Hopefully I'll have my Kindle here and ready to go before my mini-break in October, so I don't end up packing half a dozen books with me. Mum and I booked our accommodation yesterday (http://www.lunenburginn.com/): twin room with a private walk out onto a deck overlooking picturesque parts of a lovely old harbour town. I'll admit, the Bradt guide's (insert link) discussion of gourmet breakfasts might have won us over. We also get an LCD TV with DVD in our room, so we can go out exploring during the day and spend the evenings with silly movies. What space we save on books will probably be used for DVDs. It's going to be a brilliant break and I'm really going to need it!
I've been wishing that I had something like this for a long time (since around 2001), but until now the price of the eReaders has made it hard to justify one. Although I know that I can put the Kindle app onto an iPod Touch, it's not something that's really set up to be an ereader for anything but the most causal, five-minute reads. The size of the screen is what's putting me off using a Touch as my main ereader when I get one, so a dedicated ereader seems the way to go.
Living up in Canada, my choice came down to Kindle, Kobo or Sony. My mum's got a Sony and, while it's a nice piece of kit, it's not exactly seamless to buy and load up books. We've got it sorted now, but you can't buy books directly on the device and the selection of ebooks at our library doesn't thrill me. Nor is the contrast particularly good on the Sony, an important factor I feel. Having to hook up to the master computer to load it up with new things would also be pretty restrictive. The Kobo is coming out second-best to both the Kindle and the Nook in all the reviews and the attraction of using the library on it isn't enough to overcome its negatives.
The new Kindles are lighter, smaller (without sacrificing screen size), have the best contrast of all the E-ink readers and Amazon's selection is the widest of all the ebook stores. It's the one that has the most book-like reading experience of them all, if the reviews are to be believed.
So, Kindle it is. Now I just have to wait (im)patiently for it to ship. If only I'd been looking at this a month ago - I could have been one of the lucky folks receiving theirs this weekend! The status when I placed the order indicated that it will be dispatched on or before Sept 17th, so we'll see where that takes us.
I'm not planning to use it for books that I would be devastated to lose. Those will still be bought in dead tree format. I suspect that cheap or free classics are going to form a lot of what I put on it, plus some older (i.e. not best-selling) books that I've been meaning to read but never quite got around to. Books that I doubt I'll want to re-read will also be good fodder for the Kindle and books where the size/weight would normally mean that I couldn't carry it with me. I might finally get around to reading American Gods, which is one I know that I'd need to read in one big go but the size of it means that I can't carry it comfortably in my purse. Anything that I buy on the Kindle and end up loving so much that I need to own a paper copy will get put onto my wishlist or just bought when it's too long until a birthday. It's not going to stop the bookshelves expanding, although it might slow me down :-) It will make sure that I've always got something to read with me and never need to take two books somewhere because I've nearly finished one.
Also, I can buy the Independent on the Kindle. I won't be getting a subscription, but I can buy individual issues when I want to and I miss reading the Indie on lazy weekends or holidays. The local paper just doesn't quite measure up.
Hopefully I'll have my Kindle here and ready to go before my mini-break in October, so I don't end up packing half a dozen books with me. Mum and I booked our accommodation yesterday (http://www.lunenburginn.com/): twin room with a private walk out onto a deck overlooking picturesque parts of a lovely old harbour town. I'll admit, the Bradt guide's (insert link) discussion of gourmet breakfasts might have won us over. We also get an LCD TV with DVD in our room, so we can go out exploring during the day and spend the evenings with silly movies. What space we save on books will probably be used for DVDs. It's going to be a brilliant break and I'm really going to need it!
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Date: 2010-09-04 12:15 am (UTC)I shall be sqeeing like mad when it arrived and probably trying to convert everyone. I've played with the Sony and been totally underwhelmed. The specs for the new ones just came out, but I'm still underwhelmed by the lack of storage, lack of wi-fi, and lack of improvement to much of anything apart from better contrast.
I impatiently prodding the order page every day in hopes that the my Kindle order magically gets ahead of everyone else's.