Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Has Anyone Heard About The Kindle


I did not think I would think about buying a Kindle. I am seriously thinking about it now. I went on to Amazon.com and it looks impressive. I would like to hear back from anyone who owns one. Please tell me what you think. To buy one is $359.00.

What I am worried about is the price of the digital book. The price for one ranges for classics as no charge. The hot sellers go for $ 9.99, and other books for $14.99. But what happens when the kindle catches on are the publishers and Amazon raising the price??


I like the idea, of storing many books on this small thin device. It is has computer capabilities.

Just not sure if I would get use to not having the physical book and having a digital one. I saw a few comments from readers that loved it.

I would love to hear from others what their thoughts are on the Kindle. Please let me know.

6 comments:

Molly said...

I was given a Kindle for my birthday in November and I truly do love it. It has not replaced my hard copy books - but I see them coexisting side by side.

If interested, you can read my blog entry here: http://mycozybooknook.blogspot.com/2009/02/kindle-review.html

I also know that Jenners posted her initial review of the Kindle 2 here: http://findyournextbookhere.blogspot.com/2009/03/kindle-2-my-initial-thoughts.html

Hope this helps you make an informed decision :)

bermudaonion said...

I actually won a Kindle this week and it should come tomorrow. I'll be posting about it after I've used it for a little while.

Ann Kingman said...

Hi there! I have a SonyReader, which is an e-reader simiar to the Kindle, with a few differences. Still, I do know a bit about the Kindle as well, and have used one briefly.

First, the reading experience. It feels different at first. I still prefer the physical book. HOwever, I notice that if the book is really good, after 20 or so pages, I forget that I'm reading on a device -- it just feels like reading. There are some things that bug me -- you know how sometimes you want to go back and check out who that character is (because you've forgotten), or double-check a detail? In an electronic file, there are no visual clues to help you find your way. I often know that what I'm looking for is about 1/3 of the way through the book on the top half of the left pages. You can't find that on an e-reader. It's interesting, I never knew how much I relied on visual clues in my reading before.

Pros - obviously, you can carry hundreds of books with you at once. No huge toppling piles on your nightstand.

Pro #2: With the Kindle, which is wireless, you can download a book at the press of a button, and have it automatically charged to your account.

Pro #3: For the Kindle, pricing is a "pro" right now -- Amazon wants to sell these readers, so they are pricing many e-books at lower than the price that they pay the publisher. Most popular books are $9.99 or $14.99, even if they are new hardcovers in the stores.

Cons: Remember my pricing comment above? Well, as I said, Amazon is subsidizing those books right now. They are free to change their mind. So if you buy thinking that you're going to make your money back on the reader by saving it on the books, that may or may not happen.

Con #2: DRM. Digital Rights Management. Most of the books have a type of copy-protection on them. This means that you can only read them on your e-reader (or if you have a Kindle, you can read them on your Kindle or your iPhone, but only those belonging to you). When you are done, you can't send the file to someone else like you would hand them a book.

Con #3: Data portability: Right now Kindle is a proprietary format. You can't read Kindle bookso n a Sony Reader. And the Sony Reader only supports a few formats, and I don't think Kindle format is one of them. So if you buy a Kindle today and it breaks, and you decide you later want a newer reader, you likely won't be able to redownload your books in the different format. If you want that book, you'd have to buy it all over again in the other format.

Con #4: If you buy a Kindle, you can only buy books through Amazon. There are a few e-stores that support buying books for Sony Readers. But if you prefer to support your independent bookstore or even now chain bookstore, you can't buy books for either the Sony Reader or the Kindle there.

This is just a brief overview, but I hope it helpful. Let us know what you decide to do.

Anonymous said...

I am a leader of a book club as well and just purchased the Kindle 2, with our new book club pick. I really do like it, however I agree with Molly, it will not replace all of my hard copy books, maybe just keep my numbers down on how many I buy.

Another point of note, Amazon doesn't carry every title and every author, while it has many choices, some popular ones aren't available and there is no way of knowing when they "might" become available.

I plan on showing it off to my bookclub next month, even if it reduces my carbon foot-print a little, I think it is worth it.

Hope this helps!

Lisa said...

I don't own one and really don't plan on buying one. But, as for the price, I think it'll actually go down in the future as does most technology after the initial release. My only thought would be to possibly wait for the price reduction and for all the bugs to be worked out. They've already come out with the Kindle 2. I'm sure the 3 isn't far behind.

Bonnie said...

I don't own one but am fascinated by them and would love to have one...especially if I won one or got one as a gift! Bermudaonion is very lucky to have won one! There are some blogs geared towards the Kindle and posts so you could also do a google search. Molly wrote a great post. I haven't read Jenners but will have to do that now!