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Kindle
It's pretty good.
The worst part: On day one the screen froze and it wouldn't even turn off. Natasha had to read the instructions and press on a battery point with a pin to reboot it. What if that happened to me on an airplane? Must I now always carry around a small, sharp pin?
The best part: For fiction -- that is fiction I'm actually going to read -- I would rather use this screen than a traditional book. It is somehow easier to have a more focused appreciation of the words without being distracted by the book as a whole.
The actual worst part: For non-fiction it is not fast enough for real scrolling, flipping through, browsing and reading. The machine is best for linear, sequential consumption of the text.
I'm not sure if this entry should go under the "Books" or the "Web/Tech" category.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 16, 2008 at 07:02 AM | Permalink
Comments
TypePad allows you to give posts multiple categories for just these kind of situations!
Posted by: Jacqueline at Apr 16, 2008 7:27:49 AM
Why not put it under both categories?
Posted by: Daniel at Apr 16, 2008 7:28:01 AM
There's something about having an actual book or newspaper in your hand.....I suppose it gives one a better sense of perspective.
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Apr 16, 2008 7:36:53 AM
Can't you physically remove and replace the battery to reboot it if a pin is not available? I have to do that on occasion with my Treo.
Posted by: Dylan at Apr 16, 2008 7:42:14 AM
iz nawt uuser tuchable, dylan.
and, given tyler's professed reading speed, I take it that "the actual worst part" will not affect mere mortals.
Posted by: shawn at Apr 16, 2008 8:09:08 AM
No, you must always travel with Natasha.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Apr 16, 2008 8:09:22 AM
What if that happened to me on an airplane? Must I now always carry around a small, sharp pin?
What do you think the odds are that the TSA (our government at work) would act to keep you from doing just that? Not to mention all those who believe economists and sharp objects should be kept far apart from one another....
Posted by: Ironman at Apr 16, 2008 8:40:15 AM
Must I now always carry around a small, sharp pin?
Would a paper clip work? Those things can be handy for other things too!
Posted by: ck at Apr 16, 2008 9:18:09 AM
You might try a paperclip instead of a sharp pin, if it's thin enough.
For me, physical books have a signal advantage: no digital rights management. Suppose Amazon doesn't make enough of a profit on the Kindle and decides to stop selling it. Or suppose the Kindle becomes obsolete and a new, incompatible platform comes to dominate the market. Then your Kindle breaks. Might you not be stuck with a lot of books you've paid for but cannot read?
Posted by: Russell Hanneken at Apr 16, 2008 9:28:18 AM
Have you tried using bookmarks to handle the cross-referencing and browsing in your non-fiction books?
Posted by: Daniel Norton at Apr 16, 2008 9:40:29 AM
T: If that performance is "pretty good" I'd hate to see what "bad" performance might be!
Posted by: angus at Apr 16, 2008 9:42:08 AM
"It is somehow easier to have a more focused appreciation of the words without being distracted by the book as a whole."
I have no idea what that means. You are holding a physical object in either case.
Posted by: Anthony at Apr 16, 2008 9:54:15 AM
how is the wireless access? How is the web on the Kindle compared to the iPhone?
Posted by: chug at Apr 16, 2008 9:55:56 AM
russell: sure, that may be a problem, until the DRM gets hacked. and, if this thing really is selling as well as the wait-times seem to indicate, be sure that it *will* get hacked. see: jhymn
anthony: for me, that means not having to deal with the page you're not reading...as in, keeping the book "open". There are several times, especially when reading at a diner, that having a paperback is a pain because I have to keep something propped on the book to keep it open (or tuck the bottom of the book under the plate). Similarly, a pain to read while tread-milling.
Posted by: shawn at Apr 16, 2008 10:06:02 AM
I had my Kindle completely freeze up yesterday, for the first time in the five months I've had it. I was at lunch and nothing I had with me would press the reset button, so I pulled the battery -- which is possible without any tools, paperclips, pins, or anything else.
The failure mode is strange. If you pull the battery from your laptop or phone, it immediately and obviously turns off. Because the Kindle's screen will keep displaying whatever it's displaying until power is applied to change it, turning the Kindle off while it's crashed, or pulling the battery, does not result in any obvious visual difference. The screen keeps displaying whatever was on it when it crashed until the software reboots and clears the screen.
The very best thing about the Kindle *is* the fact that it's easier to handle than a real book. I didn't consider this before buying the thing, but it's now one of my favorite features. It sits there on the table with no need for a bookweight or anything, and you can turn the page with a single stab of a finger. It's great for reading while eating.
Posted by: Tino at Apr 16, 2008 10:58:52 AM
i really wish someone local had one that i could play with. anyone in the orlando area that is kindled on here?
Posted by: shawn at Apr 16, 2008 11:21:10 AM
I've heard that the Kindle lacks support for footnotes and the like. Many of the books I read (even the non-fiction) include footnotes. Have you had any experience with this yet?
Posted by: Tracy at Apr 16, 2008 12:20:41 PM
My girlfriend and I got a Kindle almost immediately after they came out. We've both read multi-thousand page books on the Kindle and the earlier Sony Reader.
We both like the electronic readers -- not having to carry around "Sacred Games" was fantastic, and we found that ourselves getting through books faster due to the shorter pages.
We wrote a longer article a few months ago here:
http://lifetinker.com/?p=25
Posted by: Toby Segaran at Apr 16, 2008 1:12:45 PM
I sincerely hope you don't encounter the real worst part: the darn thing breaks easily. One drop on hard concrete and my 400$ toy was dead. Paper books just don't do that.
Also the next/previous page buttons on the sides are very easy to click accidentally.
On the positive side, DRM has already been hacked:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hacks/kindle-drm-hacked-that-was-easy-333415.php
http://igorsk.blogspot.com/
In the process hackers have discovered a hidden easter egg - pressing Alt+Shit+M on the home page which pops up a version of Minesweeper game.
Posted by: Oleg at Apr 16, 2008 2:36:22 PM
You just need to pierce your ears. Wearing studs means you always have something to get those obnoxious little holes with.
Aside from my general objection to buying DRM-encumbered anything, your actual worst part would kill the appeal for me.
Posted by: Kat at Apr 16, 2008 3:38:32 PM
Does the "kindle" come with a free copy of Fahrenheit 451?
Posted by: Anthony at Apr 16, 2008 4:09:52 PM
Its a good product, but it has some downsides that some people hate; specifically the page-turning buttons and how hard it is to hold the damn thing without hitting them.
I for one hope Amazon licenses their network and technology so other vendors can make Kindle-compatible products. While nice, its just too damn expensive for most people, and no "closed standard" lasts that long. Doubtlessly, consumers would prefer a range of choices in wireless, Amazon-compatible reading devices.
Posted by: Grant at Apr 16, 2008 4:37:35 PM
"The actual worst part: For non-fiction it is not fast enough for real scrolling, flipping through, browsing and reading. The machine is best for linear, sequential consumption of the text."
Can't you search through purchased material with the Kindle? Also, aren't the book indexes (indices?) linked? think these could give it a nice edge over traditional non-fiction books. I could see using a kindle for purchased technical books to quickly pull up sections on a topic I'm working on...
Posted by: Mike at Apr 16, 2008 10:31:07 PM
Oleg, unless I'm missing something, the pages to which you linked don't say that the Kindle's DRM has been cracked. They just say someone figured out a way to *add* Kindle DRM to files of a certain type in order to make them readable on the Kindle.
Perhaps someone will eventually crack the Kindle's DRM. Amazon, of course, will respond by revising their DRM scheme--and maybe have the hacker(s) prosecuted under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
I think I'll stick with physical books. I can always be certain I'll be able to read them.
Posted by: Russell Hanneken at Apr 17, 2008 10:07:30 AM
as far as non-fiction goes, the kindle is great for reading/browsing the 100+ per month ssrn & jstor pdf(s) that i go through . . . . . . much easier than printing 'em out & flipping pages on a subway or in a taxi; just emaill the pdf to your kindle the kindle's indexing & annotation abilities come in handy here too
Posted by: TonyC at Apr 18, 2008 10:53:23 AM
Okay the only thing holding me back on buying a Kindle (besides there not being any to buy at the moment) is that PDF support appears to be problematic.
I have a lot of ebooks in PDF format (by the way Cory Doctorows stuff is great and free on his site)
How has the PDF support been? How about for academic articles?
Posted by: cameron at Apr 18, 2008 7:00:34 PM
Just email a PDF to the kindle . . . sometimes the graphics get a little screwed up, and equations tend to run down the page instead of across [actually, what happens is that the first time you hit a lower case greek symbol, the font size goes blewy and the equation runs down the page, but the normal ''paragraphed'' text recovers at the end of the equation]
but the Doctrow PDFs look great
Posted by: TonyC at Apr 19, 2008 5:34:06 AM
Just email a PDF to the kindle . . . sometimes the graphics get a little screwed up, and equations tend to run down the page instead of across [actually, what happens is that the first time you hit a lower case greek symbol, the font size goes blewy and the equation runs down the page, but the normal ''paragraphed'' text recovers at the end of the equation]
but the Doctrow PDFs look great
Posted by: TonyC at Apr 19, 2008 5:36:40 AM
Put it under "Web/Tech". "Books" would refer to specific books or their content?
Posted by: Jordan at May 7, 2008 7:15:36 PM
