Why I recommend the Amazon Kindle

[pdurrant]

There are good and bad points about the hardware and software in the Amazon Kindle compared to other e-ink based ebook readers.

However, it shares one thing with all current e-ink based ebook readers. The e-ink screen is built on a fragile glass substrate, and that can break, rendering the reader unusable.

And so I recommend the Amzon Kindle. Because, in general, Kindle customer service will replace a Kindle with a broken screen.

This just recently happened in my family. We got the children* a Kindle each for Christmas 2010. Last week my eldest's Kindle got broken. Today the replacement arrived from Amazon, and the old one is being picked up tomorrow.

It doesn't hurt that the Kindle is about the cheapest e-ink based ebook reader out there, and uses the best screen currently available.


* 'children'. Not for much longer! The youngest is 15 already...

[booklover6]

I think its the best reader, too, and the price is great!

[Pomtroll]

I don't think it is the best e-reader available, but that is a personal call. BUT I do agree Amazon customer service is probably the best from what I read. I never had to use them for my Kindle3 but I'm glad they are so accommodating if I should need to.

[Davidpf]

I'm partial to the Kindle myself. I was an early adopter and loved it from the start

[tubemonkey]

Have to agree; and pricing is great if you get the special offer versions.

KSO WiFi = $114 ----- KSO 3G = $139

And this week only, Best Buy is giving away a free $30 Best Buy gift card with any in-store purchase of either Kindle 3G model (regular or special offers). That effectively gives you the latest gen 3G Kindle for only $110 ( $139.99 - $30).

[Grayle]

It's great if you live in the States and only read English books, but in Europe it's all (mostly) ePub. But if the Kindle 4 supports ePub I'll be right there with ya buddy. It's cheap and gets the job done well enough.

[lestatar]

^ For non-DRM'd ePub, calibre is your [and your Kindle's] best friend.

[ProfCrash]

I love Calibre. I did my three month book dump last night. It does make life easier.

I love my Kindle and think that it is great but I have a feeling that most of the e-readers out today will make people happy. Amazon's Customer Service is top notch and I am very comfortbale owning Kindles knowing that they are well covered.

[Ditchleyportrait]

if i was entering the market now, i'd probably go kindle. especially at the price tubemonkey mentioned here.

i may have went iriver story hd, though. native support for google ebooks is amazing, and the hd has the best screen on the market.

a rational and realistic choice is kindle because they offer battery replacements at a good price. that doesn't matter to most people as tech is ever-changing, and the pricing of ereaders is the only market i've seen so competitive. imagine if college tuition was as competitively priced as ereaders! kids could afford to learn! instead of paying exuberant amounts of money for a less than quality education. modern serfs and peasants.

anyway, if you think ereaders will stay cheap it won't matter to you to get a battery replacement down the line (you'll buy a new one), the iriver story hd is the best ereader on the market.

google ebooks is the reason IMO

[booklover6]

What is it that you like about google ebooks? I haven't really looked at the site.

[readingglasses]

Doesn't anyone here have a political or social conscience? Amazon? Really? Must be more of a consumerist right wing board than I realized. Cool, in a way.

That said, the kindle is probably the most enlightening and democratic (greatest support for foreign languages, most encryption/security that YOU CAN USE FOR PRIVACY AND WIFI ACCESS, not just drm, of any device). Just that goshdarn ugly keyboard instead of a touch screen. But some people like keyboards.

[Ditchleyportrait]

Originally Posted by booklover6

What is it that you like about google ebooks? I haven't really looked at the site.

they carry obscure titles that no one else has for sale. and they are good quality too. if you ever research a subject you'll find google ebooks have the most selection of niche titles.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by readingglasses

Doesn't anyone here have a political or social conscience? Amazon? Really? Must be more of a consumerist right wing board than I realized. Cool, in a way.

How are Amazon's business practices and/or political affiliations more "right wing" than those of B&N or Sony, and what does lacking a "political or social conscience" have to do with buying a Kindle? Are you talking about DRM-wrapped mobipocket and Amazon's recent R&D toward making it impossible to strip, or, say, anti-labor machinations on the level of Walmart's Walton brothers? If so, links, please.

That said, the kindle is probably the most enlightening and democratic (greatest support for foreign languages. . . .

Sony Reader users in other countries might take exception to that idea. So might PocketBook and Bookeen owners.

[readingglasses]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

How are Amazon's business practices and/or political affiliations more "right wing" than those of B&N or Sony, and what does lacking a "political or social conscience" have to do with buying a Kindle? Are you talking about DRM-wrapped mobipocket and Amazon's recent R&D toward making it impossible to strip, or, say, anti-labor machinations on the level of Walmart's Walton brothers? If so, links, please.

Your right, no links. But I assumed people on here are informed enough not to require an executive report for common knowledge, without it falling to the level of rumor and innuendo. You certainly seem to have an idea.
Buy a kindle, means to support amazon. If you don't their cut throat bargain basement pricing and all the things you mentioned (although the labor machinations I'm not aware of...yet), not to mention others like the whole cutting wikileaks from their server service (not that anyone is obliged to take one side or another on that matter but whatever side they take would be a "political preference"). yada-yada-yada.

Sony Reader users in other countries might take exception to that idea. So might PocketBook and Bookeen owners.

Well, you know, that's really too bad. Although I recognize those brands for the unique and powerful built-in internationalization they offer as soon as you power them on, amazon appears to be even better in that you can load mobipocket dictionaries on amazon and they will work as in-book lookups. Amazon also sells dictionaries from publishers which will likewise work as apps on the kindle, not mere ebooks. In more languages than those devices you named offer.
Further, I did mention that the higher level encryption on kindle both of wifi and of storage hdd device itself gives people more choices for access points to the net (say, on university campuses and at businesses that require the max authentication for wifi) as well as protecting user's document security should you lose your device or have it stolen.

This is an arguable valuation of amazon as "more personally empowering" as the openness to other formats and the ease of working without drm has until very recently been awful on kindle compared to other devices. I was, in fact, trying to be generous to amazon, for the sake of self moderation. A wildly overpraised virtue these days.

The sense of people who buy amazon as being right wing is a logical consequence, not a conscious decision on their part, who may identify as absolutely anything in the political spectrum (some of my best friends are liberals who buy on amazon):

support a "corporatist" organization, means you either love it and its corporatism or don't really care because you have more in your life to look after than petty "vote with your dollars" politics but you are also an apolitical consumerist sucker, who wants what you want and be damned everyone else. A typically "right wing" attitude.

I could just as easily describe myself as "right wing/neoliberal" by those very standards. We all are, these days, to some extent. It was a stretch for the purpose of humor, which seems to have passed you by in your quest for the truth and journalistic-integrity-in-forum-posting.

More power to you, however! If you care enough to worry then there's hope even on tech forums. Which is more than I can say for myself.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by readingglasses

tl:dr

I just went an bought a book at Amazon for my Kindle.