I moved a couple of off-topic posts to iPad Enthusiasm. Let’s try to stick to the respective advantages and disadvantages of the iPad and Kindle lines for reading.
After about three months, I have to say my original assessment of my own usage remains as anticipated—perhaps even more tilted toward the Kindle than I suspected. I had anticipated that some light reading and keeping up with the news would shift over to the iPad, in favour of the better Web browsing experience. However I find that I still prefer to enjoy the news in a more static, less “burst-oriented” form, delivered as “newspapers” every morning to the Kindle. The one area that has remained as speculated is technical PDFs. For that it’s still pretty good. The iPad in a dock set up next to the computer is a nice way to have a reference PDF available while working on whatever requires that reference. In this way it functions as a second monitor. It isn’t quite as useful as just having a larger monitor so a PDF viewer can be shown on the screen at the same time of course, though. I suspect once I’m off my 15" laptop screen again, the iPad as an e-Book reference reader usage will fade.
As for reading, actual reading, I still spend three or four hours every day with my “nose buried in a Kindle”. It’s nothing flashy, but it does precisely what it sets out to do very well. I’m still not 100% what I’m supposed to be doing with my iPad. This appears to be equal parts Apple’s problem and a lack of mature software (for which nobody can be blamed after only three months).
I’m not the only one. Everyone made triumphant declarations that the “ugly old looking Kindle” would die a nasty death thanks to the iPad. Hasn’t happened. In fact, Kindle sales have tripled since the iPad’s release, and Amazon is now selling nearly double the number of e-Books in comparison with hard-covers.
The question, it seems, remains very open to debate.
i don’t have an ipad, so i can’t made a direct comparison, but i can say that the kindle has been a happy purchase, one that i would certainly make again. the important thing for me is that i can actually read with the kindle for hours at time and not be afflicted with blurry eyes and headaches afterwards. it has allowed me to go back to reading the way i used to read … voraciously.
i read somewhere that you shouldn’t buy the kindle if you read ten book or less/year. since i read well over ten books/month, i guess that makes me a member of kindle’s target market.
that said, i think i understand the draw of the ipad as an entertainment device. but if you have eyes that conk out on you or you find yourself clutching the aspirin bottle after few hours’ staring at your computer screen, i think you owe it to yourself to at least give the kindle consideration as a reading device.
Speaking strictly from a financial standpoint, I’d agree with that statement. The average person probably saves around $5–$7 per book if they buy a mix of paper and hardback. At 10 books a year, the device will pay for itself in about two and a half years. Given the durability of its design, unless there are flaws that have not yet come to light, the device strikes me as the sort that could be around for a decade or more before needing to be replaced.
But, I don’t really agree with that statement. I think there are aspects of owning a Kindle that even a casual reader would benefit from, even if it takes them five years to “pay off” the device. The positive impact on the environment; the convenience and ability to keep abreast of new titles or buy classics for dirt cheap (or even free); the diminished need to get rid of books you no longer want, or have to pack up into heavy boxes whenever you move; the ability to carry your library around with you wherever you go. There are a lot of benefits of becoming an electronic book reader, even if you don’t read a ton.
I agree, but positive effect on the environment isn’t necessarily one of them.
Books are actually a very environmentally friendly technology. Trees are a renewable resource, and sequester CO2 as an added bonus. Most books are printed in plants that are decades old, using mature technologies – that means that the only incremental impact is the energy consumed by the paper and printing plants, not the construction of the plants themselves.
Each ebook reader, in contrast, uses lots of plastic – a non-renewable petroleum product – and silicon, the most highly refined material on earth. The leading edge manufacturing techniques that make it possible require substantial equipment upgrades every few years. It represents a huge expenditure of energy and its manufacture generates an enormous amount of waste materials. Since we’re early in the ebook era, it’s not clear what the replacement cycle will be, but I doubt that I’ll keep my iPad as long as some of the books in my library.
(Sorry to be a pedant, but lifecycle analysis is something that almost all discussions of environmental issues – on either side – get wrong.)
(In a search, I found some writers reaching the opposite conclusion. I thought their analysis was flawed because they didn’t look at the ebook manufacturing chain. The most thorough look I found was csc.kth.se/sustain/publicati … pdated.pdf)
Been reading on my Kindle 3 (Wi-Fi edition) for the last few days, and I love the experience
It downloaded 140 of my books pretty darn fast.
The b&w screen feels very much like the page of a paperback, with the benefits of being able to adjust typeface, line spacing, and words per line. There’s a text-to-speech option and of course screen rotation. The words and images are very sharp – reading is a pleasure!
Can’t read in the dark, of course. If I must read in the dark I use my iPod Touch
I don’t have an iPad (and don’t intend to get one!), so I can’t compare the experience
Any particular reason to buy the 3G Kindle over the wi-fi version if you live in one of those pale-colored areas of rural America, where the whispernet coverage comes with a may-be-slow caveat? Besides, of course, the $50 price difference?
I apparently need a Kindle, at any rate, because I recently decided I needed to real the complete works of an obscure author, of whose 40-something books I own exactly five, and found that fleshing out my library, even with used paperbacks, cost more than a Kindle plus all his collected works (they were $4.99 from Mobi).
Ahab, welcome back from your last long voyage, or wherever you’ve been.
If your wi-fi is good, and you are mainly going to read in the vicinity of wi-fi, I see no need to add the 3G. It would only be effective if you ventured forth from your charming village by the sea to a metropolis; and are you spending much time reading on such trips?
Anyway, we will take the wi-fi model, if we actually decide to buy a Kindle. In another thread, opinions favor iPad over Kindle as a reader, in part because you may also use iPad for surfing, e-mail, and writing (contra Keith, who uses it for a doorstop).
And we bought the wi-fi iPad, which for us has been just fine. A true road warrior might well prefer the added 3g service.
I was going to buy both, actually, because that way I’d have at least a 50/50 chance of getting my hands on one of them, what with there being two of us, and both obsessive readers. I was planning to use the Kindle reader on the iPad (though I’m waiting until 2011 for the iPad, just in case there’s an interesting 2.0 in the works) for convenience, because, apparently, you can stop in midsentence on one device with Kindle reader and continue on another.
As for the presence of wifi . . . Well, of course, I’d plan to stuff a device full here in the wifi-equipped office before leaving on a trip, but my trips rarely go near urban areas; they mostly involve trees and water, with no wifi and no cell, either, for the most part.
On those trips, my nose is pretty much stuffed in a book every evening, and on long trips–say, a month-long couch-surfing expedition to the UK–I might burn through a dozen books. That’s a lot to lug aboard the Caledonian Express.
So I guess the question is, can you be periodically, but utterly, untethered with either device, and still read?
My experience on the matter is that I could myself have gone totally without the 3G stuff if I had the choice. In the years that I’ve been reading on a Kindle, there have been maybe two or three times when I used the 3G feature in a place where there would have been no other way to acquire more reading material (I’m not counting the first few months where the whole “wow I can do this anywhere!” novelty was still in effect and I was constantly playing with the cellular link just for kicks—at that point in my life, I had never even owned a cellular phone, so the whole concept was rather radical).
As for reading on the thing untethered, absolutely. 99% of the time I have the 3G antenna disabled to optimise power consumption. I can get about 3 weeks of reading on a single charge with the antenna off, and maybe 3 days with it on. So you most certainly do not need to be connected to anything to read, in fact you could even get by without WiFi, too. It’s possible to plug the Kindle into your computer and drag your purchased books onto the device like you would a USB flash drive. When I go on trips, I usually make sure it is loaded up and don’t even bother bringing the charger cable.
Thanks, Ioa. I’ll order one when I come back from the trip du jour, and then stuff it so full of Balzac it squeaks. That should keep me reading for a year or so.
I think there are aspects of owning a Kindle that even a casual reader would benefit from, even if it takes them five years to “pay off” the device. The positive impact on the environment; the convenience and ability to keep abreast of new titles or buy classics for dirt cheap (or even free); the diminished need to get rid of books you no longer want, or have to pack up into heavy boxes whenever you move; the ability to carry your library around with you wherever you go. There are a lot of benefits of becoming an electronic book reader, even if you don’t read a ton.
