Watch out when you read negative reviews...

[TadW]

The Technology Review had a rather negative review of the Kindle recently. But here is an interesting reader comment appearing in the current TR issue:

It is a little strange to see an assessment of Amazon's Kindle book reader ("What's Wrong with the Kindle," March/April 2008) by Jason Epstein, the purveyor of a rival technology, On Demand Books. It is no surprise that Epstein downplays the Kindle.

Indeed, he may well be correct that people of my age (77) are unlikely to abandon the tactile pleasures of traditional books for e-books. But that is irrelevant. My grandchildren and their cohort will surely embrace a technology that is in its infancy and can only improve with time.

[Ervserver]

Thats the only really negative review of the Kindles I've seen

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by Ervserver

Thats the only really negative review of the Kindles I've seen

Oh, I've seen a few. Of course, I read through all the Kindle reviews on Amazon for the first few days, and there were *bunches* of negative reviews by people who thought it was ugly, or cost too much, and had never laid a finger on one. They finally got buried by being marked "unhelpful" which I thought was fair enough; I could observe the pictures as well as anyone else, and the price was clearly marked; I wanted to hear from people who had *used* it.

I've seen negative reviews on tech websites and newspaper websites too; Stephen Mossberg was really unhappy with the battery life, I remember, and someone else wanted to throw it in the fire (playing on the name).

But then, while I was trying to decide whether to ask for one for Christmas I read everything I could find on Google about them, and later, when it was apparent I wouldn't be getting one because they were out of stock, but I was hankering after one in a pretty serious way, I'd go through Google again every couple of days.

When I finally bought, it was a well-researched purchase ;-) But then, it was a lot more money than I usually spend on entertainment.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by TadW

The Technology Review had a rather negative review of the Kindle recently. But here is an interesting reader comment appearing in the current TR issue:

It is a little strange to see an assessment of Amazon's Kindle book reader ("What's Wrong with the Kindle," March/April 2008) by Jason Epstein, the purveyor of a rival technology, On Demand Books. It is no surprise that Epstein downplays the Kindle.

Indeed, he may well be correct that people of my age (77) are unlikely to abandon the tactile pleasures of traditional books for e-books. But that is irrelevant. My grandchildren and their cohort will surely embrace a technology that is in its infancy and can only improve with time.

Well, that's just silly. I'm going to see about getting one for a neighbor of mine. She's 80 and has no interest in computers, but she loves to read, and she can't believe that she'll be able to just push a button and buy a new book. I think that and the larger type options would sell the Kindle on a lot of that generation.

[desertgrandma]

"E-book for Dummies" Because, folks, I am not the brightest bulb in the box. I've had mine now since last Thursday, and I gotta tell you, I have actually managed to figure out most of what I need to know in downloading free books. Buying from Amazon, of course, is the easiest way.....no brainer there. However, after spending the $359 plus an extra battery 'just in case', I figured I'd better get as much on there for free as I could. Through this forum and the amazon kindle forum, and lots of experimentation and a few battery recharges, I now have the feedbook catalog on my kindle home page....and www.mnybks.net on the kindle browser......and finally realized I had to download the mobibook reader to my laptop before I could download any books to the laptop.....that took me a while to figure out......then when I tried sending the books I had downloaded to my laptop to my kindle, even tho it said "sent to your kindle" I didn't realize I had to go to my e drive and email from there to my kindle account.........Normally, I would just search the manybooks.com site, write down the download numbers, and then download those directly thru the kindle....but wanted to know about different ways I had heard...whew! A big thank you to all the help I've found on here and other places. And to Rick, thanks for your offer!

[desertgrandma]

Guess I pressed that "thank you" emoticon a few too many times, eh?

[catsittingstill]

Welcome to the forum. Don't worry about the extra emoticons; I'm sure you are neither the first nor the last to press the button a bit more than you intended.

Good job on figuring out the free books; I think that's one of the best parts about the Kindle.

I hope the Kindle works out well for you. I've been loving mine so far.