

A year with an Amazon Kindle - bdfh42
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AYearWithAnAmazonKindleAndNewKindleCases.aspx

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lallysingh
I've had my kindle for about the same amt of time (ordered Dec 2007, got it
January-ish, (feb? I forget) 2008).

It just doesn't work for technical books (why that's probably a good thing --
I'll cover in a minute). No monospace font, but also, you read tech books a
lot faster than normal text. Pages fly by when they've got code in them (most
code in these books are API/language based, which means you usually just care
about identifiers), and that hits one of the big weaknesses of the kindle:

Page flip time.

When you're reading a novel or other all-human-text book, the page flip time
is barely noticeable, as your eyes are moving to the top-left at the same
time. However, if you're scanning a book for a specific section or mention of
an identifier, it'll kill you with its slowness.

However, if you're like me and read a lot of technical books, this isn't such
a bad thing. The kindle's a great way to get in on reading nontech books,
which adds a good dimension to a geek's life. There are mailing lists where
publishers give you a new ebook a month, to get you into new authors/genres of
sci-fi.

Plenty of 'regular books': novels, biographies, newspapers, etc. It's a
wonderful way to richen your life, with amazon's recommendation engine & a
good selection of books.

My friend has a sony eReader, and his device is a much nicer piece of
hardware. But I win in selection, hands-down. He mostly just reads PDFs on his
now, usually datasheets or the like.

As for cases, the original works decently for me. I also just don't care that
much about cases -- anything to protect the hardware sufficiently without
getting in my way is fine. If you play with the case a bit (a little physical-
world hacking), you can make it stay on the device pretty well.

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kaens
I had been considering getting a kindle when I got some spare cash, but hadn't
taken the time to really research them yet (waiting until I could afford one -
plus there will probably be better options by that time).

I'm afraid that the lack of a monospace font on the kindle means that I will
absolutely _not_ be buying one, as a lot of the books I would want to carry on
it would be technical reference type of stuff.

~~~
gcheong
I heard that Amazon is coming out with a version aimed at students that will
be geared more towards reading textbooks. If that's true, maybe that version
will fix these problems.

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anuraggoel
FWIW, technical books in Kindle's native format (DRMd mobi) are quite readable
because Amazon's custom conversion process takes care of the fonts. For
example, Dive Into Python is available on the Kindle, and all the code
fragments are just as they would appear on screen. But they seem to be images,
because a search for a keyword does not show the relevant code fragment in the
results. The good part is that you can download a sample of any book from the
Kindle store before you buy it, so you know in advance if it works for you.

Disclaimer: I haven't bought a single book from the Kindle store since I've
bought the device (around 6 months). The primary reason I got it was to reduce
eye-strain. Most of what I read on the Kindle is technical PDFs converted
using Mobipocket's free software. But it doesn't produce the same results. The
Sony Reader can display native PDFs, but because most PDFs aren't built for a
small screen, it's almost as inconvenient.

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zacharypinter
I'm really looking forward to reading the first reviews of the Foxit eSlick
(<http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/>). If it works well with Pragmatic
Programmer PDF's, I'm grabbing it.

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glymor
Actually this is mostly about the authors continuing quest to find the perfect
man bag for his Kindle.

I use the Sony Reader which is a lot slimmer with better build quality than
the Kindle. I heard good things about the iLiad which would be better if you
want a bigger device, keyboard etc.

The real mark against the Kindle is the DRM. It's basically the iTunes choice
all over again except worse as the device can't play anything not bought from
there. If your not technically literate you might want to trade control for
ease of use but if your on Hackers News your really should be buying the
device you can hack.

~~~
almost
Can the Kindle not read PDFs then? The text of that article (and the Kindle
formatted I've seen available for download) would suggest that it can (or at
least some un-DRMed or optional-DRMed format)

I agree about the Sony Reader though, much prettier. Although I don't actually
use mine at all, too much effort to find and format free books and the real
thing is so easy to get and very convenient.

I'm in the UK though, if I was in the US the wireless book store thing on the
Kindle would probably interest me.

~~~
glymor
I'm probably wrong about that (I'm not really up to date on the Kindle). NH
wont let me edit the comment but consider this a retraction.

I'm more interested on whether Amazon having a monopoly on the
hardware/distribution could allow them to dictate the payment model for
example they could continue pay-per-book whereas customers normally prefer
subscription based models.

This is already a fairly dysfunctional market where the vast majority of books
are out-of-print and will never enter the public domain. There's also some
question about what happens to public libraries.

About the sony reader did you use libprs500 (now called calibre) to do the
conversion for you? It works on Linux and autoconverts everything I've thrown
at it.

Personally I use it for reading trashy SF that I wouldn't otherwise buy (I'd
feel like I was wasting paper if nothing else). BAEN is a practically
unlimited source of the stuff.

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kitallis
SOB :(

