San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

davelj,
Smart thinking, save some trees. But realize that the Kindle isn't the only ereader out there. The Sony Reader is an arguably better, if less known competitor. I have a geek pal who has one of both (I said he was a geek) and he said the Sony Reader wins hands down. Check out the online reviews.
FYI: Sony is coming out with a new version, the PRS-500, in December which has wireless downloads & touchscreen. Might be a nice christmas present to yourself :-)

TB

...but lose your eyesight. Sorry, but I squint enough all day on a few computer terminals..The last thing I'd want is to squint on a e-book. I had an e-book from a company a long time ago for which amazon decided to rip off the idea from. While the resolution has gotten a lot lot better, fundamentally staring at an LCD screen for me just puts enough strain on my eyes to the point of discomfort.

I don't have a Kindle, but I've had Sony PRS-505 for more than a year. It's a nice toy. Two things I primarily dislike about it: limited book availability and small screen size.

Kindle's book availability is similar to Sony, and it depends a lot on what you read. If you mostly read mainstream stuff, you'll find latest John Grishams and Dan Browns available online same day they show up in bookstores (though there are exceptions: for example, Harry Potter books are to this day completely unavailable on either Kindle or Sony Reader). Secondly, (almost) all books printed in the United States before 1924 are public domain. There's a good selection of cheap formatted public domain books in Sony Store, and you can always download free stuff from Gutenberg online library.

On the other hand, less mainstream authors, say, Tad Williams (or even Robert Jordan), are often still unavailable on either platform, and paper is the only option. Same with textbooks.

As for the screen size, 6" screen diagonal is just too small, and books are often formatted to leave a lot of margin space. You'll have to flip pages often. I've been eyeing Kindle DX, but it's still too expensive. Maybe some nice new models will come to the market in 2010.

I don't really care for touchscreen and wireless connectivity, USB is good enough for me. Besides, I heard some scare stories about people screwing with your wi-fi enabled Kindle remotely.

I have a Kindle. I think it is a great product if you enjoy reading. The screen is almost like paper not like a computer screen). Only drawback is it is black and white only. They have a new one out that has a larger screen. The reason Amazon will win the book reader war is because they have a huge selection and instant download (no computer necessary). English is not my only language and support is minimal at best for other languages. (I have a Gen1 so this might have improved with newer versions).

friend of mine has one and likes it. it allows him opportunity to read more books at more unexpected time since he doesn't have to remember to take a specific book to read.

Only issue is the screen but kindle's screen is not like the computer screen.

And you can't ebay off that book later but that may not be your concern.

From what I know, 2010 will be the year of the e-reader. They'll be more players & e-readers on the market. The competition will be fierce.

If you wait a few months, you'll have better selections & prices.

My new current favorite (as a non-buyer) is the Nook. It's also the device that convinced me to wait (unless I can sucker one out of somebody) as I have to agree with gn--more features, better selection and lower prices all coming to you shortly after the 2009 holiday season.

I'd been eye-balling e-book readers for my wife and finally cracked this year. She reads something like 100-150 pages an hour and the mess of old paperbacks was getting annoying. I got her a Kindle 2 after reading some much-improved reviews on the major 2nd-gen readers. 2 things tipped me towards the Kindle over the Sony reader.

1) Kindle is ready out-of-the-box. Wifey punched in her amazon account info and that was that. The Sony Reader requires a software installation and about an hours worth (plus or minus depending on computer savvy, of course) of configuring before it is in a usable state.

2) Kindle has free 3g wireless connectivity, limited to Amazon's book store, but otherwise no strings attached. If you never want to plug the thing into a computer, you don't have to. She is able to purchase and download books from anywhere that has wireless coverage.

Flu: The eye strain from reading “electronic ink” e-book readers is no different that of reading a normal hard copy. The display is not backlit, which is what causes eye strain when viewing an LCD for extended periods of time. You’ll need a well-lit area just the same as when you read a normal book. The trade-off for always needing an external light source is that the device uses barely any power and lasts for weeks without needing a recharge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_...

In simple terms, think Etch-a-scetch.

One other detail that doesn’t get much attention is that the Kindle 2 reads just about any format you can throw at it, and the ones it doesn’t read by default, Amazon has a free, automated system setup that will convert them for you via e-mail. Txt, pdf, whatever, and it doesn’t care what the source is. It behaves like a thumb drive: plug it in, copy the file, and then start reading. I can’t speak for the Sony Reader in that regard, but format compatibility was my main requirement before I’d consider reaching for my wallet.

Hi Davelj,

I have one, I bought my sister one, my brother in law use one everyday while driving the subway.

Wonderful tool. It is amazing how many trees you save after a short time using it. It's like a book but so convenient. And if your eyes are as bad as mine, you can adjust the font to read comfortably.

I read lots of newspapers, I avoided lots of paper wasting using this machine.

The only thing is you don't get the color and nice pictures as magazines, so you can rule out Playboy (there, a note of warning for TG).

Get the nook! Parts were developed here in Temecula by a fellow Pigg!

An hour is a major exagerration. If you already have Java on your PC, it takes 10 minutes to install software and set up an account

There's a big caveat. Kindle and Sony Reader read txt and pdf natively. But pdf's are normally formatted for 8x11 inch paper and they are virtually unreadable on a 3.5"x5" screen. Built-in zoom does not help much. Especially true for double-column pdf's. For Sony, there are third-party freeware programs that allow you to convert pdf's into readable form, by removing margins, cutting pages in an appropriate way, and adjusting fonts.

I've thought about purchasing a kindle and made a pro/con list.
Pros:
- Better for the environment
- Easier to carry when traveling
- Keyword search

Cons:
- Not supporting my local scifi/fantasy bookstore (Mysterious Galaxy), who gives me excellent recommendations on things to read
- Difficult to share books with my husband and my brother-in-law (unless we share the kindle)
- Can't donate them to my local library or sell them, etc.

Right now the cons are winning out and I am kindle-free. BTW, if any of you want to borrow our Robert Jordan or Tad Williams series, let me know. And if that's your genre, I'll also loan you Jim Butcher and Joe Abercrombie (both came highly recommended at Mysterious Galaxy). You wouldn't kill any more trees and wouldn't have to spend a dime.

@Stradivarius:

I second that recommendation for Mysterious Galaxy. I even have them special order non-fiction books for me just because I want to support them.

I also recommend paperbackswap.com for churning the library...pay for shipping your books out, but you know someone actually wants it!

I'm wondering whether the Kindle can be used to read the old books available at google books or can they just be used on books you buy?

BTW: I just responded in the counter top thread and got held up for sending suspected spam which is kind of annoying because I limited myself to talking about 3/4 inch granite counter tops.

Pertinazzio, the spam filter message asked you to email me so I could release the message, but as it turns out the software is totally buggy so I have uninstalled it. Unfortunately your message was deleted by aforementioned buggy software -- sorry about that. We are now back to the normal (and unfortunately, spam-ful) operation of the site.

Rich