

Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device - sdfx
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00154JDAI

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ja2ke
Does Amazon offer any sort of "buy the book get the ebook for less" type
deals? As someone who likes the convenience of downloadable goods but also
likes both the aesthetics and security of a physical hardcopy, that sort of
deal often strongly appeals to me (and is decently common in music and video
games, especially with indie and sold-direct-from-artist situations).

I don't know how much it would appeal to most people, or how much of a weirdo
it makes me, but I would love to be able to purchase a book and have it
shipped to me, and also simultaneously get the instant-read "disposable"
Kindle copy downloaded immediately while I wait for the shipment to make its
way to my home.

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lallysingh
Nope. The big question seems to be what forward protection we have against
potential obsolescence/abandonment of the format/platform.

OTOH, the basic format is just HTML3 shoved into an old-school Palm database
(.pdb) format (!). There's some sort of encryption/DRM/whatever on top of
that.

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ja2ke
That's one reason I'd like to get a hardcopy as well as the digital -- the
unlikeliness that the digital copy would be remotely portable without cracking
the foramt.

That said, I don't entirely care about that aspect. I doubt I'll lug my Kindle
library around from ebook reader to ebook reader, but I'd probably be more
likely to buy a Kindle here and now if it would initially piggie-back on top
of my current reading/buying habits, instead of trying to change my whole
chain of expectations and behaviors in one fell swoop..

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pierrefar
Sadly, not available outside the USA. What an utter miserable oversight.

And, I wonder what would happen if the Kindle supports music. Might be a very
worthy competitor to Apple.

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Zev
Well, one of the kindles strongest features is that it can connect to a cell
network and receive documents really quickly online. Amazon has to negotiate a
similar deal with an _evdo_ carrier everywhere else for it to be available
everywhere else. Not a small task i imagine.

And Kindle vs iPhone isn't a real competition. The iPhone may be a very nice
generalized device, but it can't replace the kindle for reading.
Specialization and focus still wins out.

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terpua
I would think adding wifi will be good enough for most international users.

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Zev
Right now, Amazon has an incredible way to market the kindle. It doesn't
require a computer or _anything_ from the owner (beyond an outlet to charge
once or twice a week if you have EVDO on OR once or twice a _month_ if you
dont).

This is something that very few, if any other companies can claim. Not even
cell phone companies can claim this - Verizon needs AT&T or Sprint or whoever
in order to allow people to talk to everyone else.

Adding wifi support removes this claim - you're now dependent on the person's
ISP (internet connection), router manufacturer (provides the wifi) as well as
a few other misc things. That takes away from the simplicity of the device.

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anewaccountname
As far as I know, to buy a kindle you have to log on to amazon.com with a
computer (or iphone =P).

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dominik
Are all the books tied to Amazon DRM? That makes me wary of getting a Kindle
as what happens if Amazon goes under (unlikely as that may be)...

Does Amazon provide any guarantee books for Kindle1 and Kindle2 will continue
to work on all future versions of Kindle? I don't want to get stranded having
to upgrade book media in 10 or 15 years.

It doesn't seem there's a way to "borrow" books from friends (or a local
library) on the Kindle... is that right?

I guess I'm trying to answer "What problem does the Kindle solve that merit
using it over books?"

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ghshephard
I picked up a Kindle, and have pre-ordered the K2. I've read about 30 books,
most of them $25+ versions for $10, so I consider my initial investment almost
recouped.

Amazon does DRM the right way - instead of taking away value with their DRM,
they _add_ value. Unlike Apple, which lets me download my content _once_, (and
if my hard drive on one of the half dozen devices that I've downloaded content
and have still to sync back up to my NAS crashed, results in me losing it
forever), Amazon has this concept of content that I _own_ - and may or may not
be on the device in my hand. A situation which can be rectified in a few
minutes with whispernet (their EVDO solution) by copying (as many times as I
want) from Amazon onto my current device (presumably now my K2 as well as my
K1).

You cannot borrow books from a friend - the content is tied to you, which is
why can save close to $15/book.

I love the fact that I walk around with my entire library. I like to travel
light, both when moving at home and when on vacation, and not having to deal
with a bookshelf of light fiction, and taking books to the library when done,
(or going through hassle of selling them on Amazon for 1/3 price) has been a
HUGE win for me. (That's one problem that kindle solves). Not having to worry
about losing my content, and having Amazon track it for me is another problem.
And the book is amazingly easy on the eyes, _particularly_ in very bright
light, I find it much easier than paper. (Third problem solved - no glare from
paper).

I find it funny when people suggest that the iPhone might be used for reading
books - it's as unlikely an idea as people buying a Kindle to listen to music.
Wrong Form Factor. Battery life alone would kill you. Not to mention screen
size.

With all that said - The kindle sucks as a replacement for technical books. I
purchased a couple and was frustrated to no end. Page turning is too slow. The
Kindle doesn't have a good metaphor for flipping between random pages.
Resolution was poor for technical diagrams. Screen was too small. Rumor has it
that Amazon is going to come out with a larger version for textbooks - we'll
see. Until then, I continue to buy my technical books on paper. But for
fiction which basically is linear page flipping of text - it's great.

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DannoHung
Darn. I was hoping that the Kindle would be good for technical books. It'd be
awful nice to carry around a bunch of references on one of those.

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dominik
How jarring is having the entire screen briefly turn black on each page turn?

E.g. See this video: [http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/09/video-kindle-2-as-
slow-...](http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/09/video-kindle-2-as-slow-as-the-
original/)

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nathos
It's not very noticeable while reading. I'd say it's not any more jarring than
flipping a physical page.

Much like a real book, Kindle really does seem to disappear while you're
reading from it.

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unalone
Seconding this. The first few times it stands out, then it becomes
unconscious.

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showerst
I've heard a number of complaints that the kindle 1's conversion service fails
on PDF's with tables and graphs. Anyone know if this is still an issue?

My main purchase point would be for reading PDF papers/textbooks, so it's a
bit of a deal breaker.

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jm4
The PDF conversion is pretty mediocre for some things. It's not really a
problem with the conversion service but rather with the PDF format itself.

I converted my PDF copy of Programming Clojure. It's mostly readable, but the
code examples are not indented properly. Things like that are pretty much a
show stopper for a programming book, but other books may work well enough. A
fairly plain text document without many images or diagrams should work fine.

Not all PDF documents can be converted, though. If the document is a scan then
you're out of luck. Text in images won't work either.

The bottom line is PDF is excellent for when you want a digital copy that will
look the same as a print copy, but it is an absolutely terrible format for
ebooks. The problem is the format and not the Kindle or the conversion
service. Trying to use PDF on an ebook reader instead of one of the ebook
formats is akin to littering the web with Word docs.

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dominik
Thanks for the explanation.

It's a shame though.

As MP3's were to the iPod, free ebooks in PDF could be to the Kindle.

For example, Google Books has plenty of full content PDFs for out-of-copyright
works.

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Anon84
Heh... Still waiting for _REAL_ PDF support... Even DRM king Apple allows for
arbitrary MP3s to be played on the iPod/iPhone. Until then the kindle is
relatively useless (to me).

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mrkurt
PDF really isn't that "compatible" with eBooks. Text needs to be able to
reflow, arbitrarily break for pages, and not rely much on specific
presentation. PDF is designed to look the same on screen as it will when you
print out it, so it's at odds with the desirable eBook features.

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Anon84
The kindle is roughly the size of a paperback... I can't imagine there would
be much difficulty in making a pdf display in that size (and I routinely print
pdfs at 2 pages per page side).

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wmf
Many PDFs are made in letter size, so they would get scaled down to the point
of unreadability on the Kindle screen. I don't think it's fair to compare the
Kindle screen to 2-up paper, since printers have much higher resolution.

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anuraggoel
As a Kindle 1 owner, the only major improvement I see in Kindle 2 is TTS. I am
assuming they have new dedicated hardware support for this, otherwise it would
just be a software update. No SD card slot though, just increased memory. No
folder support, no native PDF viewing, no third party apps. Case not included
in the base package anymore. I don't think I'm going to upgrade.

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kbrower
In one of the promo videos they demonstrated the TTS. The quality of the audio
was robotic, so this feature does not really appeal to me.

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bonaldi
I find it interesting that there's no clamour for any sort of back or
frontlighting on eReaders. I know paper doesn't have it, but even back in the
Newton days I knew that was a killer feature.

(Even though the Newton's backlight buzz made it just as irritating to a
snoozing bed-partner as having the light on would be)

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jli
I really want to get one, but it doesn't meet my basic needs. I need to be
able to properly display technical books and the other problem is it doesn't
support Chinese fonts, so I can't read chinese on it. What I like is that I
don't need to carry tons of books with me. When I moved to China last year, I
brought a whole suitcase of technical books, a pain to carry around.

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gcheong
Anyone have any experience trying to view the books through the O'Reilly
Safari site on the Kindle browser? Any better or worse than on the screen?

