Geekshow

Probably should have posted this here first. Feel free to delete the other post if you want.

The Kindle or other reading devices. I have been seriously considering getting one, but I want to hear from someone who already has one. I have rheumatoid arthritis and I'm finding that holding books is getting to be too painful (seems to be why I've had no motivation to read for months now – thanks to hubby for figuring it out). He is all ready to jump into getting one for me, but I'm still hesitant. Still attached to the old school paper, I guess. And it's a lot of money to spend. Ive done some research, but I'd like to hear from someone first-hand. So, are they worth it? How do you like it? Are they as light as they are reported to be?

Kindle vs. Sony – which do you prefer?

I briefly looked at the Sony device and found the contrast resolution inadequate.  I have monovision as a result of Lasik surgery.  I have 20/15 distance vision in one eye and perfect reading vision without glasses in the other -it really pretty amazing.  

But if the contrast is low on what I'm reading, my distance eye tries to dominate.  As a result, I could not read the dark gray text on light gray background on the Sony.  So I haven't really checked out the Kindle.  Hopefully a friend buys one so I can test it out.

LOL Nice! Yeah, I've been in the wait-and-see mode as well. Thanks to everyone for their input so far! Especially about the Sony. Poor contrast is disappointing, and headache induced reading is never cool. Score 1 for the Kindle. :)

Yeah, and that's where my cheap side would come in. If I do get one, I would probably get a used gen 1 model. They way my hubby figured it, after 20 new releases (books I usually don't buy because I can't hold them, then forget about them by the time they hit paperback) I would have basically found my value from it.

I just wish that I could buy books directly from the Kindle iPhone app… 

Saberj said:

From an objective point of view, the whole issue seems to come down to whether or not you are ok with the fact that anything you put on the Kindle has to come from Amazon. Even if you want to put your own files on the Kindle, it has to be converted by Amazon software. So that is apparently the advantage the Sony ereader has.

I checked out the prices on Amazon verses the prices of the ebooks Sony offers and Amazon is much cheaper. Not to mention Amazon has a huge selection. A reviewer on Amazon said that to get another ebook not from Amazon on your kindle, you have to email it to yourself.

What I want to know is, does the ebook become available when the actual hard cover is released? Chances are if it's one I need immediately, like A Memory of Light, I will buy the hardcover anyway to go with the rest of my set. For other books though I would probably just get the ebook. Less waste for the environment, and less books to try and find room for. I gave away boxes of books about 10 years ago, and I really wish I didn't. Eventually though you run out of room. That's why I love the ebook idea. I hate reading on my laptop thogh, and I used a converter to put them on my mp3 player (or phone), but it's too much of a pain (not the converting, it's reading it on a 3″ screen that is annoying to me). The Kindle looks much more user friendly I guess you'd say.

Has anybody heard anything about the Read To Me feature? This interests me since I get migraines and instead of putting the book down I could just turn this on. Also, I have both book versions and audiobook versions of my favorite books. I wouldn't have to have multiple versions of the same book. Besides, when I'm reading the actual book and I want to listen to the audiobook, it's hard to find the spot I left off at in the book.

I think I would definitley get a Kindle 2, but I will have to wait till it's available in Canada. I thought maybe I could just order it anyway, but I'm no sure if I could get the books downloaded to the kindle here. I think they need to set up wireless access here in Canada first. Probably by the time it's here the price will be way down and Amazon will have released the Kindle 4!

Text to speach is only supported on the Kindle on a small amount of books. Most new books that are released through Amazon for the Kindle come out at the same time as the phisical copy is released to bookstores. Battery Life was the biggest point to me when choosing between the Kindle and other e-reraders. It's Month long battery life makes it so I havn't even considered switching over to a tablet and just running the Kindle app. For running 3rd party books not sold through amazon you have a few options. The kindle does support pdf but you'll find your eyes strained if you can even read what a pdf file says when shrunk down to the 6 inch screen on the standard kindle. It also supports .mobi which while dated compared to .epub is still easy to convert files into; you just have to manuallly put them onto the kindle via USB from your computer and they arn't supported for such things as Wispersync. The non support for .epub is my only major complaint about the kindle.