I have just taken delivery of a Kindle and I am mighty impressed. The amount of content out there is pretty mind boggling too. When I first bought an ipod I thought that I would never download music - I would just burn my cd collection and that would be that. Now I download more soft copies than I but hard copies. With the Kindle I am currently saying I will just use to access the free content and continue to buy when the book is not out of copyright (usually 2nd hand) - but how long before buying a book becomes out dated?

Do I owe it to my local independent second hand bookstore to continue buying books - is buying it, browsing for it half the fun. Hmmm.

Anyhow, anyone out there taken the plunge?

As a free source of ebooks do people use Amazon or somewhere else?

I am pretty taken with project Gutenberg (.org) as a concept and have downloaded a couple of samples of their free books - seems a great site.

Amazon are plugging this a lot.

What's it like to read off ? Easier than a book ?

Mechanically there are no issues for me yet e.g. difficulty in seeing, glare or "tired" eyes (that you might get with a PC).

The on page ink is so good I was looking to peel the sticker off the front when I took it out the box but it was actually already working.

I guess I miss the physical aspects of the book - perhaps will miss differing fonts, thicknesses and the fact you can drop it and not worry. And of course the fit studenty type won't be impressed when she sees me reading a difficult classic in a slightly angsty way on the tube.

But it's all a bit vinyl -v- CD's - nostalgia -v- the way forward.

Its small, well made, easy to read, weighs the same as a paperback and stores 3,500 books. Battery life 40 days. Wi fi works well - surfing the web is straightforward. Downloads a book in maybe 1-2 seconds?

I'm sorely tempted by one but think I nee to dent my hard copy collection first.

Like you say, it will be the future, like it or not.

Apparently you can download the morning paper of your choice, too? The posh ones I think.

Yep many of the papers + quite a few magazines (a la the Independent rather than the Sun, the economist rather than Loaded). At a price though and the reviews re content etc are not great on these, nor are they that cheap - at the moment - probably give those a swerve.

Had a go on one of these at the weekend. Very, very impressed with the screen and with some of the free books available it would probably encourage me to read more if I get one. May wait and see if they drop in the sales and take another look after Christmas.

How much better for reading is it than something like the iPad which has a Kindle app and so, presumably, access to the same number of books etc.

Only negative I've heard is if you take it on holiday and want to read whilst sun bathing, you can get some horrific glare from the screen - plus not great for the machine to be in hot weather. Ultimately though, sure you can buy a few paperbacks to take on holiday with you instead

Erm, I thought the whole point was that it doesn't get glare like certain other screens

I know it was the snowy north when I saw the Kindle screen, but it looked just like paper and I can't see there being a problem with glare. In fact, the owner took it to Egypt this year and had no problems. The iPad, iPhone screen is very, very glary.

I got a kindle from Santa. Three days on and I can't see myself doing without it. The reading experience is superb, the click to turn the page becomes second nature and you soon forget that you are not reading a 'real' book. There should be no glare from direct sunlight due to the way the tecnology works and all reviews I've read confirm this. Living in, not so sunny in December, Scotland, I've not been able to put this to the test yet .
The dictionary is a great feature once you change the default dictionary from the factory set American one to the (also included) Oxford Dictionary of English. Put you cursor in front of any word and the dictionary definition is displayed at the top or bottom of the screen. This is great for those words that you don't understand and never get round to looking up when reading a 'real' book.
I tend to inadvertanrly turn the page back from time to time by laying my finger agaist what would be the spine of the book but I'm sur I'll get out of this habit.
I think as a research or study tool it will prove to be real asset. You can search words or phrases within the book you are reading or with in collections of books or all your books or even the web. You can make notes and annotations in you books and highlight words or passages. You cam make clippings and crate collections of clippings.
And it looks great, just like the real thing, even better, perhaps so with all the added functionality I think it's great product.

This is one piece of new technology I just don't get.
What was so difficult about reading a book?

Dropped my paperback in the bath the other night. Nuff said

That is my fear. I do seem to half drop off and feel my hands dropping waterwards. Have occassionally touched down!

The bath's a no go area for mem and my kindle and I do like a good old soak with a book but it doesn't have to be a total replacement for books, nothing says when you buy a kindle you must stop reading 'real' books and the bath is a perfect example.
It's not for you then stanley.

I tend to only read one book at a time and don't really want a "bath book" and an "elsewhere book"

It's not for you then murf.

Took to South Africa recently even in the harshest light there was no significant glare.

I don't see the kindle as a book replacement no more than I see my ipod as a substitute for my vinyl or CD's - but as an avid reader (and commuter) it's a truly great thing. It is the way forward.

The advantage is space, 1,000's and 1,000's of books in one space. The ability to search for key words and phrases through all those books in seconds is a researcher's dream.

Having just given away a beautiful 62 volume Wildlife Encyclopedia (to a p!ss-taking neighbour ) due to the fact that my laptop / Internet combo simply blew it away, I must say I'm looking forward to considering one of these for myself, someday (if I pass Sorbiegunner's suitability criteria - which I'm trying to with this post! ).

I'm all for progress and if it means me giving away all my books, so be it. From Sorbie's reviews:

1) Though I own a dictionary, I very rarely ever consult it and it's probably used more when I'm checking what I'm writing (in those formal letter moments) than reading anyway. Though many advocate "working out" what words mean from their context, I've never been comfortable doing that (though I tend to guess away, regardless); the included OED tool therefore sounds quite wonderful.

It could do the very opposite of what spellcheckers do ie. improve people's language skills (how I hate spellcheckers - they just seem to encourage poor spelling through a reliance on technology ). Any and every word you're not sure about could be checked in seconds, as often as the word crops up. As long as it takes to commit the word to your own user vocabulary. Sounds good to me.

2) As I was never interested in my English lit course I took as a nipper, I never got into the habit of underlining key stuff in books I was supposed to be studying. (I didn't really want pencil marks on random pages that I'd most likely never return to.) Now I've grown up to appreciate literature much more, the ability to highlight text on a kindle (and presumably remove highlights), sounds like another major plus to me.

3) Regards glare / tired eyes, I must say I've never really had any problems on my laptop, 23 hrs a day (I've only ever owned one pc - and an Amiga 1200 - years ago), and most laptop screens seem "glare-friendly" to me. The vision's not quite 20-20 but I think I'll put glasses off for at least one more decade. So I'm guessing glare even on the sunniest of days is hardly going to nip in the bud this love affair of mine with the gadget, before it even begins to blossom.

How much do they cost? Around £70?

Next time I feel the urge to buy a book, guess I'll be buying one of these then, first.



Ps. Can you get Wikipedia on it?

Ha Ha, but it wasn't me that declared the unsuitability of the kindle in the two cases above it was stanley and murf themselves, I merely pointed it out.
As for the research/study advantages of the kindle, a look at the kindle page on Amazon gives much better details link I know they are selling the thing so "they would say that wouldn't they" but so far I have found that it does exactly what it says on the tin.

If they just make it waterproof and with leaf like pages we'll all be happy and they'll sell 300% more

Is there any sort of 'library' system where you can hire (free?) titles as time-expiring files?

Sort this and make the downloads cheaper than 'hard copies' (as MP3s usually are cf CDs) then even I might buy one

I like the idea of the kindle. The convenience of carrying lots of 'books' around and the small size is appealing. I reckon I could even rig it up on the turbo so I can read whilst winter training.

However, I do like having books around, so I'm not 100% convinced yet. Mind you, I've pretty much dispensed with CD's / Albums now, so I'm sure I'd get used to it.