Thoughts on Kindle?

[Xowie]

I am thinking about buying a kindle (probably voyage, maybe paperwhite) but I am not sure if it is worth it since I already have an ipad mini. Does anyone own (use?) both? I find that the ipad is OK for reading academic papers and terrible for reading books. How is the kindle for reading academic papers?

[demik]

i like mine.

i like the super long battery. and the fact it just has one purpose. i've tried reading with my ipad and my ADD kicks in and next thing i know it's 6 hrs of youtube videos because i got out of the book to find the definition of a word that i read.

[tp4tissue]

I regret every experience with every tablet EVER..


Why?     You gotta bend your neck..  gotta shrug shoulders to hold up the tablet..    It more convenient than a book,   but oVERALL  it has ALL the problems of a book..


Read when you get home on your 60 inch TV..   That's How I roll...    PDF.... 

[rm-rf]

I regret every experience with every tablet EVER..


Why?     You gotta bend your neck..  gotta shrug shoulders to hold up the tablet..    It more convenient than a book,   but oVERALL  it has ALL the problems of a book..


Read when you get home on your 60 inch TV..   That's How I roll...    PDF....

what he said.

but if you have your mind set on it anyways. be sure to get one that has no back lighting.
get the one with the paper screen, because the back lit ones flicker horribly.

[Xowie]

I regret every experience with every tablet EVER..


Why?     You gotta bend your neck..  gotta shrug shoulders to hold up the tablet..    It more convenient than a book,   but oVERALL  it has ALL the problems of a book..


Read when you get home on your 60 inch TV..   That's How I roll...    PDF....

One of the reasons I like to read in the evening is because I stare at a computer monitor an obscene amount of time most days.

[tp4tissue]

I regret every experience with every tablet EVER..


Why?     You gotta bend your neck..  gotta shrug shoulders to hold up the tablet..    It more convenient than a book,   but oVERALL  it has ALL the problems of a book..


Read when you get home on your 60 inch TV..   That's How I roll...    PDF....

One of the reasons I like to read in the evening is because I stare at a computer monitor an obscene amount of time most days.

What you need to do,  Is turn gamma and brightness all the way down,  then turn up the contrast enough to make out the letters.


The colors won't be accurate, but it will approximate the eye feel of paper,  giving you a pale-white-yellow background  and black text, 

assuming you're reading black on white ..



If you're more adventurous,  you can use color substitution and change all text to  GRAY txt on black background..

[jdcarpe]

i like mine.

i like the super long battery. and the fact it just has one purpose. i've tried reading with my ipad and my ADD kicks in and next thing i know it's 6 hrs of youtube videos because i got out of the book to find the definition of a word that i read.

Yeah, exactly this. I try to read on my iPad mini, and end up getting distracted.

With the Kindle, I'm purely focused on reading, as I would be with a physical book.


My Kindle Paperwhite was stolen last Halloween, so I just placed my preorder yesterday for the new model with the 300 ppi display.

[baldgye]

i like mine.

i like the super long battery. and the fact it just has one purpose. i've tried reading with my ipad and my ADD kicks in and next thing i know it's 6 hrs of youtube videos because i got out of the book to find the definition of a word that i read.

+1

The only thing I dislike about it is the effort required to put random PDF's on the bastard thing

[jamster]

I've owned ebook readers by Amazon, Sony and Kobo. The Kobo Aura HD is imo the best for reading (unless the field has changed in the last year). For 3 reasons:

1. Bigger screen than the standard Kindle (there was the DX, but not sure if it's still in production, and if it is, it's bloody huge)

2. Choice of fonts. For some reason, this does make a difference to me and I use different fonts for different books. I know this doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, but I notice it.

3. The HD now comes in a waterproof version. Which is incredibly cool- you can use it in the bathtub or by a pool.

For academic papers, if you are reading PDF, ebook readers suck though. The screens are too small (the DX was regarded as okay) and don't update quickly enough to scroll around on when zoomed into a PDF page. If you're reading a proper ebook file, they are fine. But you can't easily annotate if that's what you need to do. I imagine annotating on a tablet is much easier.

I also have an iPad and a Mini. I don't use either for reading anything beyond online news articles. Tablets suck ass for extended reading sessions.

[jdcarpe]

2. Choice of fonts. For some reason, this does make a difference to me and I use different fonts for different books. I know this doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, but I notice it.

The new Kindle Paperwhite (2015) has a new, redesigned font choice called Bookerly, and a new typesetting engine. It also has a 300 ppi display, compared to the Kobo Aura HD at 265 ppi (both VERY impressive). The Kindle has a 6" screen, while the Aura HD has a 6.8" screen. The Aura HD has the storage advantage with 4GB versus the Kindle's 2GB, and includes a microSD card slot, while the Kindle has no expandable storage.

One thing that I find very useful for the Kindle is the ease of loading content wirelessly. You assign your Kindle it's own email address, and you can email content to the device. Amazon will even convert some documents for you to a more Kindle-friendly format.

And the Paperwhite is $119, while the Aura HD is $169.

[baldgye]

2. Choice of fonts. For some reason, this does make a difference to me and I use different fonts for different books. I know this doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, but I notice it.

The new Kindle Paperwhite (2015) has a new, redesigned font choice called Bookerly, and a new typesetting engine. It also has a 300 ppi display, compared to the Kobo Aura HD at 265 ppi (both VERY impressive). The Kindle has a 6" screen, while the Aura HD has a 6.8" screen. The Aura HD has the storage advantage with 4GB versus the Kindle's 2GB, and includes a microSD card slot, while the Kindle has no expandable storage.

One thing that I find very useful for the Kindle is the ease of loading content wirelessly. You assign your Kindle it's own email address, and you can email content to the device. Amazon will even convert some documents for you to a more Kindle-friendly format.

And the Paperwhite is $119, while the Aura HD is $169.

wait really?? What attachments can you send and have them work?

[jdcarpe]

wait really?? What attachments can you send and have them work?

Yes, I've used it since I got my first Kindle device (3rd Generation).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200767340


Supported File Types for Kindle Personal Documents Service

Kindle Personal Documents Service supports the following file types.

• Microsoft Word (.DOC, .DOCX)
• HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
• RTF (.RTF)
• Text (.TXT)
• JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
• Kindle Format (.MOBI, .AZW)
• GIF (.GIF)
• PNG (.PNG)
• BMP (.BMP)
• PDF (.PDF)

No ePub support at all, but you can always convert them to .mobi at online-convert.com...

[baldgye]

wait really?? What attachments can you send and have them work?

Yes, I've used it since I got my first Kindle device (3rd Generation).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200767340


Supported File Types for Kindle Personal Documents Service

Kindle Personal Documents Service supports the following file types.

• Microsoft Word (.DOC, .DOCX)
• HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
• RTF (.RTF)
• Text (.TXT)
• JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
• Kindle Format (.MOBI, .AZW)
• GIF (.GIF)
• PNG (.PNG)
• BMP (.BMP)
• PDF (.PDF)

No ePub support at all, but you can always convert them to .mobi at online-convert.com...

wicked, cheers!

[cmadrid]

I can't recommend the Kindle highly enough.. I have an older one, my wife has the paperwhite model.  The paperwhite seems very nice, but she rarely lets go of it long enough for me to check it out

[Xowie]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. The new kindle paperwhite looks too tempting to pass up.

[HoffmanMyster]

i like mine.

i like the super long battery. and the fact it just has one purpose. i've tried reading with my ipad and my ADD kicks in and next thing i know it's 6 hrs of youtube videos because i got out of the book to find the definition of a word that i read.

+1

It's a very enjoyable experience to read on an e-ink screen, and feels very natural.  Way better than on an iPad or other tablet.  The only downside is that it's no good for comic books, so in terms of "reading" it can't quite do it all.

[absyrd]

I couldn't live without mine. e-ink is true to the hype; it does not strain my eyes under any condition.

[KeypressGraphics]

I bought a Kobo Aura H20 earlier in the year and have been fairly happy with it. Thought not identical to the kindle you might find my impressions useful.

The e-ink display is noticeably easier on the eye than a typical LCD monitor and the text is much sharper, the backlight is configurable from completely off while reading all the way up to a setting brighter than I'd ever require, the size is fairly large (slightly smaller than a paperback) and I've only had to charge the battery once since owning it.

Downsides are that it takes a very long time for pages to change when I'm viewing an image-heavy PDF (presumably due to the slow processor) the graduations between font sizes are a little harsher than I'd like, it doesn't allow you to alter the top & bottom margins independently from the sides nor can you remove the book title from being displayed at the top of the screen while reading, and lastly when held it doesn't feel as physically or psychologically comfortable as a paperback.

All in all its a nice device and a very good compromise between reading on a monitor versus a book. There is so much free literature available on the internet it will pay for itself in no time but I do still find myself missing the feeling of a real book. Using the Kobo is a bearable experience though, no question.

[katushkin]

I've owned five Kindles and broken them all...

Whichever one you get, I would recommend getting a case for it.