do you love Kindle?

SpeedFreak · 26 Apr 2012 at 20:00

Arnie said:
Commodity fetishism fad along with iPads.

Strongly disagree. If I want a book to read tonight I can buy it now and have it immediately. That isn't a fad it's extremely convenient.

Woden · 26 Apr 2012 at 20:36

SpeedFreak said:
Strongly disagree. If I want a book to read tonight I can buy it now and have it immediately. That isn't a fad it's extremely convenient.

That and you can carry far more books around with you with a kindle than you can with ordinary books. They are easier to hold for many with arthritis, newspaper subscriptions are cheaper and earlier than your local newsagents, you lose your copy and you don't *actually* lose it, just re-download, the books are far less likely to go out of print, fb/twitter sharing is built in, many of the classics are 100% cheaper as ebooks, customizable font size and spacing ... need I go on?

Vonhelmet · 26 Apr 2012 at 20:41

I'm not entirely sold on it being oh so great to be able to carry oodles of books around with you. It makes sense with music, because people flick between tracks on a whim. It doesn't make as much sense with books, because you don't randomly decide to read 6 pages of a book and then swap for a different one and so on.

OK, so if you're going on holiday and you're going to do nothing but read, then that's great, but outside of those sorts of cases I don't think they key point of convenience is the multiple books in one package thing.

Woden · 26 Apr 2012 at 23:02

Vonhelmet said:
I'm not entirely sold on it being oh so great to be able to carry oodles of books around with you. It makes sense with music, because people flick between tracks on a whim. It doesn't make as much sense with books, because you don't randomly decide to read 6 pages of a book and then swap for a different one and so on.

OK, so if you're going on holiday and you're going to do nothing but read, then that's great, but outside of those sorts of cases I don't think they key point of convenience is the multiple books in one package thing.

Not all books are novels.

Vonhelmet · 26 Apr 2012 at 23:17

Woden said:
Not all books are novels.

Oranges are not the only fruit.

Sorry, what are we doing here?

remy87 · 26 Apr 2012 at 23:33

^ Comics! 10 volumes = 150mb!
Just bought the light from Tesco and it is awesome!
It's not facing that way anymore but is further up now so I can access both next page buttons.

Ev0 · 26 Apr 2012 at 23:42

Vonhelmet said:
I'm not entirely sold on it being oh so great to be able to carry oodles of books around with you. It makes sense with music, because people flick between tracks on a whim. It doesn't make as much sense with books, because you don't randomly decide to read 6 pages of a book and then swap for a different one and so on.

OK, so if you're going on holiday and you're going to do nothing but read, then that's great, but outside of those sorts of cases I don't think they key point of convenience is the multiple books in one package thing.

I got one recently and one big benefit is not having to store the physical book somewhere as even just keeping a few for future reading they soon mount up.

Tom0 · 26 Apr 2012 at 23:45

I use the kindle app when out and about which is great. Otherwise I prefer a book

Woden · 26 Apr 2012 at 23:48

Vonhelmet said:
Oranges are not the only fruit.

Sorry, what are we doing here?

Comics, text books, newspapers, dictionary.

Castiel · 26 Apr 2012 at 23:51

I have one, and a Sony reader, but now I just use my iPad.

Vonhelmet · 27 Apr 2012 at 00:03

Ev0 said:
I got one recently and one big benefit is not having to store the physical book somewhere as even just keeping a few for future reading they soon mount up.

Now that I'll grant you.

Van Hellseek · 27 Apr 2012 at 00:34

remy87 said:
Just bought the light from Tesco and it is awesome!

I bought a bulb from wilkinsons. It lights up the whole room, it's great!

Rich_L · 27 Apr 2012 at 19:07

Kindle is amazing especially for series of books that are a right PITA to read (and transport) normally and also so you can intersperse with some light reading

i.e. currently on the 3rd of the Prince of Nothing trilogy, it can be a little hard on the brain at times keeping up with things so it was great to be able to flit around to something like Asimov's Foundation series to lighten things up a little

Tribune · 27 Apr 2012 at 22:56

I have been a book fan since a wonderful teacher taught me to use words that meant the same as the words I used to stutter over. She used to make me read anything I could get my hands on to learn more and more words. I've been hooked ever since.

I've got something like 20 packing crates in the loft and cupboards stuffed with books. Some 3000 plus. I always said that I'd never use a kindle as I loved physically having a book in my hands. But, I found out about the refurbished ones from this forum and treated myself to one for my birthday last year. It's been a revelation.

20 packing crates worth now sit on a flash drive half the size of a fag. I don't have to carry a honking great heavy hardback about with me, but something the size of an exercise book. I can load new books on or unload them at the press of a button. In short, I love it. The only thing I'm not keen on is the front menu when trying to find a new book to start. I've taken to only loading a dozen or so on and replacing these as I go.

Ev0 · 27 Apr 2012 at 23:15

Tribune said:
The only thing I'm not keen on is the front menu when trying to find a new book to start. I've taken to only loading a dozen or so on and replacing these as I go.

I find using the categories and having the home screen sort by them an easier way to sort/find things.

pepp77 · 27 Apr 2012 at 23:22

Ev0 said:
I find using the categories and having the home screen sort by them an easier way to sort/find things.

This ^^

Try using - http://www.colegate.net/KindleCollectionManager/ - to organise your books on the kindle into collections.

HangTime · 28 Apr 2012 at 18:25

I bought (postman did the bringing) one for my wife, she likes it but doesn't use it excessively, maybe a couple of times a week or when travelling.

Tummy · 28 Apr 2012 at 18:38

Van Hellseek said:
But to paraphrase; eBooks are a rip off because they are usually roughly the same price as a physical copy, yet you are only receiving a digital copy. Which of course has absolutely no manufacturing costs, thus it should realistically be a fraction of the price of a physical object.

While, some ebooks are of a similar price to paper back copies, many are on sale or priced cheaper then the paper back copies.

uchuff · 29 Apr 2012 at 11:36

Don't have a Kindle but love the Kindle app on my iPad and iPhone. Love the convenience of being able to buy a book immediately, or to whip out my phone on the train or tube and carry on from the location I got up to on my iPad.

I also tend to buy technical books in ebook format, they are often hefty and take up a lot of shelf space, also - unlike fiction - they tend to be around half the price of a dead tree copy.

memyselfandi · 29 Apr 2012 at 14:59

Having a Kindle is also great if you want to read whilst commuting but don't want your books to get scuffed or damaged in the process. I can drop a series onto mine and be covered for my commutes for a couple of weeks and not have to worry about space in my bag even if the actually copy of the book I have physically is a hardback several times larger than the Kindle.

It's not to say that I don't think that they could make improvements to the way it works ... creating collections is a bit monotonous unless you use third part software (like that mentions a few posts up or the collection plugin for Calibre). I also really think that they should give other options for listing books within collections as title, author and when added are a bit cumbersome ... listing by series (including place in the series) would be very useful as would being able to lock the order (both within the collections and at the top level).