It’s close to a replacement for print, but the Kindle 2 still doesn’t cut it. Mainly because there is no color. If you remember monochrome monitors, you’ll know why the world is not going back to B&W unless there is no choice. Heck, at the current price point, Dell will sell you a laptop computer that’s more useful AND has color.

I also have doubts about the ergonomics. Thinness is cool, but have you ever tried holding a piece of cardstock in your hands for a couple hours? That’s an uncomfortable feeling, not like a book or magazine. I bet someone will sell some form of high-density foam handgrips that would be much more comfortable.

As an owner of both the original Kindle and the current model, I have to say it has become one of my favorite things. Reading on it is a complete pleasure. There are tons of free e-books available (both classics and contemporary) and Amazon makes it easy to keep a wishlist of Kindle books so you can sort by price…. I have a list of over 50 I am interested in, and I will buy them in order by price as I need a new book.

The worst part about the Kindle (and the iPod, and any other gadget that stores and plays/displays electronic media) is that once you have “bought” a book, you cannot sell it, or trade it, or borrow it, or loan it out, or give it away.

If I buy a book, I can easily sell it to someone else when I am finished with it (assuming there is a demand for it). I could also give it to a friend if I wanted to. With the e-book, once I’ve bought it, I am stuck with it. I cannot swap it with someone else for a new e-book. The library cannot loan me a copy. And so on.

Yes, the convenience of not having to store the physical book is nice, but realize it comes at the cost of transfer of ownership.

I am surprised that this is not a larger concern to the general public. But I suppose everyone is happy to “buy” e-music and e-books without truly owning them.

I’m surprised to see so much resistance for ebook readers (besides price at least). I’ve recently discovered the world of ebooks and I’m very, very excited. My dream is to have a library at home, but I don’t have the space for that right now (or for many years probably, since I’m into simple living and all that), so ebooks are a God send.

As pidgeon92 said, lots of classics are available for free, and those are the ones I wanted to buy as a start anyway. So that’s easily 100 books I get for free (and to keep) after the initial investment in a reader. And for the enterprising souls out there, there are ways of getting free books, which I won’t get into here of course. 😉

It’s also quite possible to strip the DRM of the books you have purchased and legally own, so you can safely backup and transfer to other devices if needed.

Oh, and the reason an ebook reader is better than a laptop (for reading books that is), is not just the handy size, but the very display. Someone mentioned it’s lack of color, but novels are not in color either so I don’t see that as a huge problem. But the real benefit of the E-ink display is its readability – it’s very much like a real book (no flicker) and much easier on the eyes than a ‘real’ computer display. And as a bonus, it doesn’t use energy to show the page as it just ‘stays there’ and isn’t continually updated. That way it only uses energy when you flip the page, so a device lasts many days/weeks on a single charge (some 7500 page flips which is a quite a few books).

Personally I can’t wait to finish school so I can purchase one. Thousands of books in the palm of my hand – for me it’s the ultimate combination of simple living and book mania.

ROTFLMAO!! Yes, indeed, the Vitamix COULD blend your books! And if you save up some more money you could get a NEW Vitamix, at Costco – at the Roadshow – end of July.

I know the discussion is about methods of reading but I’ve been a huge fan of audiobooks – esp since I don’t own a car and take the bus everywhere, esp on my hour work commute. In addition to books on CD, more libraries are offering audiobooks via Overdrive a downloadable program. You can download books for free to your computer, listen from there, or then download to an mp3 player.

As an avid reader, I too was mesmerized by the kindle/sony reader products. To see if I would actually read electronic books, I bought a used palm off craigs list for $20. I have since upgraded to a more expensive used palm with a larger screen(because I accidentally broke the other one) but no where near the kindle/sony price. As other people have mentioned, there are so many free books now – I especially like the old school pulp classics. Take a look at manybooks.net.

Jacob,

Have you broken down and bought the vitamix blender yet? My current blender literally blew up (blue sparks and smoke) while I was making hummus and I think I will save up for a vita mix after reading several reviews and your take on raw foods.

Dave

Just bought kindle 3 three days ago. It’s gonna be worth its price if it lasts at least two years. It’s much cheaper now then when the post was written.

I have the first kindle version and I like it a lot. I’ve read it on planes and there’s never been a problem. Of course you should read it offline and not have the internet connection if you’re on a plane.
The two things I don’t like are :
– the titles are mainly in English. So I can’t read books in my mother tongue (which is Dutch).
– if you have a book with pictures or graphs, the kindle doesn’t display them. That’s really a nuisance and I don’t know why that would be a problem since the ‘opening page’ of a Kindle is always a picture.

I don’t mind too much that I can’t re-sell the books. The purchase price is also cheaper in the kindle-version so that compensates somewhat.