Has anyone ordered a Kindle?

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Has anyone ordered a Kindle?

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1mpramanik
Nov. 20, 2007, 12:58 am

I am sorely tempted, but i want to wait and read some reviews first from people that have actually used the product.

2chamekke
Bearbeitet: Nov. 20, 2007, 1:47 am

Not yet, but my husband is audibly drooling at the moment ... he's watching the Kindle's creator on Charlie Rose and commenting on how fantastic it all sounds.

And since hubby is notoriously hard to buy gifts for, I think I may at least have a solution for this year's Christmas prezzie :-)

Edited to add: What was I thinking. I'm in Canada. There are evidently no plans to release the Kindle in Canada at this point (cf. TIVO, iTunes movies and TV shows, etc). Grrr....

3mpramanik
Nov. 20, 2007, 3:26 pm

I was looking into it a little more, and I noticed that none of the european history books that are on my list of books to read are offered for the Kindle, although a lot of fiction out of print books are.

4AngelaB86
Nov. 20, 2007, 3:40 pm

I really love the idea, but the price is going to have to come down quite a bit before I can get one. I don't think it will take long, it wasn't too long after the release of the iPhone that it went from $600 to $300. Hopefully by this summer (when I'll be spending several days on a train) I'll be able to afford one.

5arethusarose
Nov. 21, 2007, 1:59 am

I don't think I'll order one; it's expensive, and I really like reading paper. Reading on the computer screen is not comfortable for a long time, and somehow I don't believe that the Kindle is that much better.

Also, I don't want to pay 9.99 to download a book I have not seen. If I am in a bookstore I tend to read a bit before I buy most books. Maybe I might consider one when it's cheaper, and when it allows loading of books from other digital sources. Right now it just does not seem worth the money and trouble. I would want it to read whatever I wanted to read, not just what Amazon wants to supply.

6AngelaB86
Bearbeitet: Nov. 21, 2007, 9:19 am

Areth, the Kindle product page said you can download for free the first chapter of a book to see if you really want to read it. But I understand not wanting one, I'm not rushing out to get one. I'm hoping that by this summer they'll have tweaked whatever problems are bound to come up (along with that price cut *fingers crossed*)

ETA: they'll also have a wider book selection by then. I did a few searches in their store and my reaction was only lukewarm.

7inkdrinker
Bearbeitet: Nov. 21, 2007, 10:00 am

I don't want one until the price drops considerably and until it will allow me to read books I can get from Project Gutenberg. If it did that I would probably be willing to pay a bit more for it, but until it does (or a competitor has one that will) I'll stick with my paper books. (Heck, $399.00 will buy an awful lot of used books.)

8citygirl
Nov. 25, 2007, 9:23 am

I wants one! But I too will wait for the price to come down. At first I wasn't sure, but within about 90 seconds of reading the features I was sold.

9mpramanik
Nov. 28, 2007, 12:44 am

I heard they sold out. That does not bode well for the price dropping quickly, BUT it may indicate a further expansion of titles. At least I am hoping it will.

10HeavyG Erste Nachricht
Nov. 28, 2007, 8:58 pm

I have a Kindle - had it for just over a week now. I'll be glad to answer any questions anyone might pose.

To respond to a couple of comments I see in this thread:

The display used on the Kindle is called e-ink and it is unlike other computer displays. It is just like looking at paper and very easy to read.

You can read books from Project Gutenberg or Mobipocket unlocked prc or mobi files very easily. You can also convert Word, HTML and PDF files to display on the Kindle.

The Kindle user manual is available in pdf format on the amazon Kindle site which would explain a lot of things.

Anyway, if you all have any questions fire away and I'll try to answer them.

11vpfluke
Nov. 29, 2007, 10:52 am

HeavyG

What kind of cost is there for Project Gutenberg books?

How easy is the bookmarking? Can you bookmark more than two pages?

I am wondering whether books on Amazon which allow one to search inside are the same books available for the Kindle?

Thanks

12readafew
Nov. 29, 2007, 10:54 am

I thought Project Gutenberg books were down loadable for free

13vpfluke
Nov. 29, 2007, 1:07 pm

So for Project Gutenberg, there is no portal cost with the Kindle?

One book I did look up on Amazon, that would be convenient on a Kindle was Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours : prayers for autumn and wintertime". If you follow the divine office, this is a daily read (actually, if you keep up, four times a day). It was listed at $9.99, the hardback is $19 something.

14HeavyG
Nov. 29, 2007, 9:47 pm

Books from Project Gutenberg are free and you have a few ways to get them into the Kindle.

1. You can use the Kindle browser to go to the Gutenberg site and find the book you want and if you select the plain text version it will download and be readable directly by the Kindle since it will handle text files without any conversion. However, I have found that to be rather cumbersome and the books have a lot of extra linefeeds that makes the formatting of the book not easy to read.

2. You can email a text or html version of a Gutenberg book file to your Kindle email address and you can have amazon convert the file to Kindle format. If you want them to send it directly to your Kindle they charge ten cents per book for that process.

If you don't want to pay ten cents you can opt to have them send it to your pc and then you can use the USB connection to drag/drop the file(s) onto your Kindle.

What I suggest doing is if you want a book from Gutenberg is to go to mobipocket.com first and see if it is available in their free book section. Most of the free books available at the mobipocket site are probably Gutenberg files that have been converted into the prc file format that the Kindle directly supports. The books I have gotten there seem to have better formatting on the Kindle.

Since the Kindle directly supports prc files that do not have any DRM you can either get them directly via the Kindle browser or download them to your pc and then use the USB connection to drag/drop onto the Kindle.

I usually grab a bunch at a time from mobipocket and use the USB connection as that is easier than using the Kindle browser and/or sending them to amazon for conversion.

Bookmarking - is easy (takes about two seconds) and you can have as many bookmarks as you want (or at least I have not run into any limit yet). Rather than me try to explain how to make a bookmark I suggest reading the Kindle User Manual which is available on the amazon Kindle site in pdf format. With the manual you can see illustrations of what is involved.

As to your last question about searchable books on the amazon site also being available as Kindle books I have seen books available for the Kindle that were not searchable so I doubt there is a direct correlation.

15Enraptured
Dez. 14, 2007, 2:06 pm

I'm intrigued by the Kindle, but also skeptical. Does it use a proprietary file format? That would be my biggest problem with it, and I haven't been able to find out whether it does or not.

16mpramanik
Dez. 14, 2007, 11:33 pm

I dont know about a prietary file format but there is DRM (digital rights management).

17historydoctor
Jan. 5, 2008, 2:10 pm

No. Even my techno-geek wife prefers paper books.