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Sparkle (0)
If you don't know what Kindle is you are neither a technogeek nor a regular visitor of Amazon.com. Launched in November the Kindle is Amazon's take on the e-book reader. If I believe what I read the Kindle is handy because you can connect wirelessly to Amazon and order a book with will appear on your device almost instantaneously. It also has electronic paper display. Don't know what that means? Good. Me neither. But apparently I should be impressed by it.
I will freely confess that I am not an e-book fan. Between using the computer for work and using the computer for play (because really, I can't imagine a day without blogs) the last thing that I want to do when I shut down is stare at the screen of an e-book reader while I lie in bed at the end of the day. I'm far more likely to want to curl up with a sideways book than an electronic device. It doesn't help that I have this whole conception of e-books as "disposable" books. With the way technology progresses at the speed of lightening (or so it seems) will that e-book stay with me forever? Not likely. Will the format and software become ancient all too soon? I've just never embraced the whole electronic book thing. Because I love books. I just don't love to read them but I love the feel of a book in my hands. The way the paper feels under my fingers - how a page can be sturdy with rough edges or as delicate as tracing paper and edged in gold. I'm probably not the ideal customer for this product am I?
But clearly others are snapping it up. As I sit here and type it's out of stock and orders are being shipped on a first come first served basis. But what do the bloggers say? Because you know we can count on them for an opinion.
Who else would you expect to review such a device but Scoble? He gave it a one week, two book test. I think he made some really good points about what we expect from devices. If it's on the net we expect social networking. If it connects to Amazon why can't we also order (paper) books to be sent to our home? How come we can't sent e-books to others with Kindle? His final verdict:
Would I buy it? Yes, but I’m a geek. I can’t really recommend this to other people yet. Sorry.
On the flip side, Mary at the LibraryLaw Blog loves hers.
Delightful to read the newspaper, magazines, books, your own documents. You can read for hours comfortably. In fact, I believe that in many scenarios, I'd PREFER this, yes you read that right, I'd prefer the KINDLE to a real book or magazine. That surprises me, even though I was looking for the convenience of an ebook reader (dozens or hundreds of titles), I always expected to say, "of course the paper book is a better reading experience." That may be changing. This not only rivals the paper experience, it surpasses it in many ways. It's EASIER to hold than a hardback, easier to turn pages with one hand than a paperback or newspaper, and that's all before the extra features.
Mary's post has Nicole almost wanting one:
Sounds like a pretty darn cool toy - my only problem is the price - I’m not sure I want to pay $400 for a tool to allow me to read books and then buy the book as well - when I could just buy the book for $15 … in short, this is a technology I’m going to keep my eyes on and will probably give in to once its price lowers just a bit.
Kassia at Booksquare suggests that it could be a positive tool for the education system:
It’s really kind of sad, watching today’s students as they trudge to and fro. They look like sad turtles, what with all those heavy books and lack of on-campus storage (what we used to call “lockers”). Plus, it seems like you always need your book for homework. We are raising a generation of serious back problems.
Hmm now there's an idea that could almost sell me on it. Not so much for children because although I do hate that they have to carry around so many books, most kids I know would end up dropping, stepping on or losing their device. And
