Who has a Kindle...

I bought my wife a Kindle last year and she loved it. Used it almost every day on our hour-each-way commute to London. The screen is excellent and the battery life is amazing. There's even a colour version available only in the USofA.

Then she saw a friend's iPad. She now has an iPad3 and I have inherited a Kindle. Isn't life weird?? When I was a kid, I used to get my dad's hand-me-downs (golf clubs, the odd camera, books, etc.) and now I'm getting my wife's cast offs. Still, mustn't grumble; it's a great little piece of kit.

Roger - do you have any friends / family in the UK? Why not ask someone to buy it for you and send it to you....??
 
I travel so much I'd be lost without my Kindle. The days of lugging five or six books around so I have something to read in English are well behind me...
 
I was looking into this Kindle mullarkey yesterday. I think I will get one. It seems to me, however, that when getting something which represents a new departure, one needs to identify a precise role for it. I intend to use it for buying paperbacks which I know I would be unlikely to read a second time and therefore do not want on my bookshelves and for having a look at new authors. I will continue to buy books which I treasure as hardbacks and they will stay on my shelves. The other thing I really like about it is that one can subscribe to newspapers and have access to them e.g. while on a train journey in a foreign country.
 
I have an early model. Pictures are rubbish but the product otherwise is great.
Mine is WiFi only which I do not find to be any problem.

If you buy one, pony up for the leather case that has a built in light, they are great for late night reading without disrupting anyone else in your bed or wherever (airplane, train etc) . The light is run from the Kindle itself yet it still lasts a good few weeks before you need to recharge it.

The coolest feature by far is that you can download a sample of any book before you buy it. I love that and use it all the time. If you like it, you can opt to buy the book directly from your Kindle when you finish the sample.

Like all dedicated devices, it far outperforms multi use items (Ipads, smartphones) at what it does best. Apparently not too hard to find lots of free books to read too ;-)

I love mine and thoroughly recommend it.

I have recently started using audiobooks whilst commuting though and my smartphone is the tool for that.
 
Just picked myself up a Fire for convience instead of sitting at the computer. Lovin' it so far, only issue is I'm so used to the 3G/WiFi battery life this is going to have to take some getting used to.
 
I bought a Kindle Keyboard 3G model about 3 months ago. I was not sure I would like it but it turns out I'm loving the silly thing. The physical size is much easier to handle than some hardbacks and the ability to adjust the type size is user friendly to my aging eyes. What finally pushed me into buying the Kindle came when my wife and I started cleaning out the attic and discovered all the forgotten boxed-up books we had no place to store and never intended to read again. We donated a large quantity of books to a local university to sell during their annual fund raiser. Now we're engaging in an anti-clutter campaign around the house.

While there is a multitude of free classic books available, it's really not so cheap to buy more recent e-books. And new releases are about the same price as a discounted hardback because publishers have bypassed the discount booksellers.

I'll continue to buy tactile paper books when it comes to photography although the home bookcases are pretty full of those already. I don't think I could ever get used to only seeing photographs on a screen. Photographs--real photographs--need to be on paper. For general reading, I prefer the Kindle.
 
Yes, as a computer junkie, I hate the iPad (love the macbook airs though). But the Kindle is fantastic for reading books. Easy on the eyes. I like that it only does one thing. Like my phone, which I use only as... a phone.
 
I have a traditional Kindle, but I also have around one hundred books, which I take to be decent for a 22-year-old (And no, they're not Harry Potter, but there's some C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein).

I've bought several books for reading on the Kindle, mainly e-books by politicians since I'm into political journalism. But I also just bought a used book on "The City in Modern Africa" which was printed in 1967, the year of my father's birth. It can be nice to read a book with the information and viewpoints that were prevalent during that time period, rather than whatever you'll find on Wikipedia today – especially since Wikipedia has seemingly displaced Encyclopaedia Britannica.
 
I have a Sony PRS-1 reader to replace an older Sony 505 and use with Calibre on the Mac and Linux laptops.

Love it a lot with the greater flexibility on where to buy books.
I considered a Kindle but after Amazon reached into machines remotely deleted a book, ironically 1984 by Orwell, because they released it a week ahead of time, I decided to stay away.
 
Bit late coming to this thread. Mine is basically my portable paperback mostly, but equally suffices for places where toting the physical book is a pain. All in all, kinda like a compact camera, you can take it with you everywhere, with minimal thought/ preparation. It has its weaknesses alright, prime amongst them being its unsuitability for reference material and also photography books. Converting mixed pdf's (text & images) can be a bit hit and miss, unless you are prepared to put in time to do so, so not a casual endeavour. Pdf's that are mainly text convert easily enough. Likewise, converting other ebook formats to kindle (.mobi) format, can also be a bit hit and miss, as although the kindle format is widespread enough, there are times when there are only epub/ other versions, and one must convert. Won't replace the paper back for me, nor would I want it to, but is a great solution for otherwise disposable books or ones I am uncertain about plunking down the cash for.
 
Murchu said:
Bit late coming to this thread. Mine is basically my portable paperback mostly, but equally suffices for places where toting the physical book is a pain. All in all, kinda like a compact camera, you can take it with you everywhere, with minimal thought/ preparation. It has its weaknesses alright, prime amongst them being its unsuitability for reference material and also photography books. Converting mixed pdf's (text & images) can be a bit hit and miss, unless you are prepared to put in time to do so, so not a casual endeavour. Pdf's that are mainly text convert easily enough. Likewise, converting other ebook formats to kindle (.mobi) format, can also be a bit hit and miss, as although the kindle format is widespread enough, there are times when there are only epub/ other versions, and one must convert. Won't replace the paper back for me, nor would I want it to, but is a great solution for otherwise disposable books or ones I am uncertain about plunking down the cash for.
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Dear Damien,

Thanks for the thoughts. I think there may also be quite a Kindle market for travel books --the sort you carry with you. What do you think?

Cheers,

R.
 
lxmike said:
I must admit I have a kindle and absolutely love it
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Thanks for the comment. Certainly, I've not met anyone yet whose attitude is unqualified disapproval. I certainly like mine far more than I expected. But is this because those who REALLY hate them are ashamed to admit they've made a mistake?

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Thanks for the comment. Certainly, I've not met anyone yet whose attitude is unqualified disapproval. I certainly like mine far more than I expected. But is this because those who REALLY hate them are ashamed to admit they've made a mistake?
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Nah. If there were Kindle haters out there, there would be posts on forums about it by now. (Maybe there are - I don't care enough to actually go looking.) My anecdotal experience is the same as yours - the Kindle (or the e-reader in general) is, like digital watches, a pretty neat idea.
 
Nomad Z said:
Nah. If there were Kindle haters out there, there would be posts on forums about it by now. (Maybe there are - I don't care enough to actually go looking.) My anecdotal experience is the same as yours - the Kindle (or the e-reader in general) is, like digital watches, a pretty neat idea.
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Good point! Not just posts: whole forums.

Thanks,

R.
 
No kindle here, but a nook simple touch instead. I like the form factor and the fact that with an android install I can read just about any format. I now have my nose in a book way more often than in recent years.
 
Kindle

Kindle

I use the older Kindle and I love it. I can carry hundreds of volumes in one small folder shaped kindle. I have picked up several photo books but since my Kindle has no color so it is obviously better for black and white discussion then for color books.
 
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