Has the Samsung Galaxy S5 made all the Kindles obsolete?

[tubemonkey]

...and they all lived happily ever after.

The End

[Antoinekamel]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Technology is forcing the consumer to spend more and more money for new eReaders every year. I sometimes long for the simplicity of the old print books.

Simplicity is not in the world, it comes from inside, just like happiness.

And, for the purpose, simplicity and happiness are deeply connected.

[Stringer]

Originally Posted by Antoinekamel

And, for the purpose, simplicity and happiness are deeply connected.

Yea, as long as we remember that it is not simple if it cannot do what you want.

Anyway, I hate paper books. They are heavy, require constant unergonomic holding and lose the reading point once you close them. Or require additional equipment or damaging the pages in order to do the last. And they eat space or require heavy lifting to recylcing (they areny worth selling). Oh and at least in this country they are such pain to acquire in the first place. Local stores have only few most popular books available.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Antoinekamel

[S]implicity and happiness are deeply connected.

For some of us, apparent complexity and happiness spoon like anatomically grotesque pretzels within our blissed-out skulls.

The other day, I happened to see someone I know in the pantry using a coffee machine that spits a three-line readout of everything it's doing and at what temperature. "I hate seeing all that," my friend said.

She is such a compulsive Apple user that she has never used a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop that ran anything but OSX or iOS. Even her router is by Apple. She is not only a believer in the simple UI; she is actively intolerant of everything else.

"I actually love seeing all that," I said, pointing to the coffee maker's screen. "It's fun to know about the things around us and the depth of their operations."

(She gave me narrowed sideeye, of course.)

That's one reason we install rockbox and various ingenous hacks on our many devices. A factory-fresh Clip Zip is fun, but the rockboxed version feeds you options and details as baroque and layered as miniature hors d'oeuvre. I love that, which is why readout-intensive widgets on my S4 are allowed to chew on its battery.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

That's one reason we install rockbox and various ingenous hacks on our many devices. A factory-fresh Clip Zip is fun, but the rockboxed version feeds you options and details as baroque and layered as miniature hors d'oeuvre. I love that, which is why readout-intensive widgets on my S4 are allowed to chew on its battery.

I've never rockboxed any of my Clip Zips. I heart my banana sheltered world.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I've never rockboxed any of my Clip Zips. I heart my banana sheltered world.

Since you own more than one Clip Zip, why not experiment, Monk? You can still dual-boot into the standard firmware, but Rockbox's themes, custom settings and sound options are too nice to give up. You can boost individual frequencies using a five-band EQ, add DBs to the treble or bass, use prefab presets if you choose, increase stereo width, mix both channels into mono or even switch them (if, for example, you're wearing headphones with the cord on an inconvenient side). You can also apply a compressor-limitor that normalizes the volume so that you can hear soft passages without going deaf when the loud sections play. You can also time-stretch and pitch-shift recordings. You can play more kinds of files, too. And you can use dithering (which I haven't wanted to do myself).

Rockbox also corrects the pitch of the recordings, which is slightly off if you use SanDisk's original firmware. It also improves battery life -- particularly if you listen to FLAC files.

The Audiobook options are interesting as well. It's nice to be able to scrub to the back of a book should you ever lose your place.

Rockbox for the Clip Zip is so feature-rich that, if you care to crack it, the manual is 180 pages. This open-sourced firmware has changed my teensy device into a sonic amusement park.

(Have you ever longed to be a giant who owned an original Game Boy Color? Well, now you can experience giantlike scale using the Zip's wee controls and screen to play Pong and Doom. The text looks like this, only jaggy.)

[whitearrow]

Nope. I carry my Paperwhite 2, my 8" Galaxy Tab 3, and my Galaxy S4 phone (though not all of them all the time!) I do different things with each, they serve different purposes, and they live just fine together. No backlit screen is anywhere close to replacing an e-ink screen as my primary reading device.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is really the Kindle Fire HDX with the ability to place it in one's pants pocket, make and receive telephone calls and messages.

Two comments ...

1) You must have bigger pockets than I do -- maybe I could shove an S5 in my pants pocket, but I sure couldn't walk very normally if I did.

2) I don't want a Kindle Fire HDX for reading. I want an E-Ink display.

So the S5, a great (expensive) cell phone I'm sure (my wife loves her Note 2 -- she carries it in her purse), but definitely not about to make any E-Ink Kindle "obsolete" in my world.

[Josieb1]

Why anyone who 'reads' would consider a 5 inch tablet/cell phone equal to a dedicated e-ink ereader is beyond me. For the casual reader maybe but not for a true reader. I have an iPad mini which I love to read on but only whilst out and about. At home I use a Kindle or my Kobo.

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Why anyone who 'reads' would consider a 5 inch tablet/cell phone equal to a dedicated e-ink ereader is beyond me. For the casual reader maybe but not for a true reader. I have an iPad mini which love to read on but only whilst our and about. At home I use a Kindle or my Kobo.

And therein lies the key, I think we can all safely say that Simaru is in NO way anything but a casual reader. According to what he has previously posted, most of us have read more this year then he has in his entire life.

But I agree with you and the other posters, us avid readers use either a dedicated eink reader or a minimum of the 7" tablets.

I gave up on him and his assumptions some time ago. Yes I have the paperwhite, the 7" Fire, a 10" Tab and my 5" Note 3. And not one of them is selected based on replacing any of the others. Each of my devices serves a specific function or two. While most can replace something in a pinch, they will never take over the others duties. and I've never selected a device based on it fitting in my pocket. Being a female that is really a moot point, but still. Now I will say, I have purchases based on their side pockets for my gadgets. Does that count??

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by nynaevelan

And therein lies the key, I think we can all safely say that Simaru is in NO way anything but a casual reader. According to what he has previously posted, most of us have read more this year then he has in his entire life. . . . I gave up on him and his assumptions some time ago.

Not to single you out in particular, but I don't understand the animosity toward MR members whose mode of expression is a tad hyperbolic. JSWolf was like that as well and I never took umbrage at what he said because I knew that his boolean loathing was someone else's mild displeasure. Similarly, Simaru's effusions are someone else's mild approval. Adjust your emotional intensity limiter and the comments aren't that extreme. "The Galaxy S5 makes everything else obsolete" = "I'm really enjoying my Galaxy S5 and haven't wanted to use any of my other gadgets for the past few weeks."

Personally, I'm happy for anyone whose smartphone can make them feel that good. "If it had a few extra ports, I'd never have discovered the opposite sex."

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Why anyone who 'reads' would consider a 5 inch tablet/cell phone equal to a dedicated e-ink ereader is beyond me. For the casual reader maybe but not for a true reader. I have an iPad mini which I love to read on but only whilst out and about. At home I use a Kindle or my Kobo.

Where as I've pretty much stopped using my eInk devices except for certain things in favor of a high ppi tablet where I can customize things better, manage my entire library better and with the brightness set properly can read with joy for hours at a time. To each their own I say.

I am curious as to what makes one a "true reader". I know one guy in my old office building who reads about 50 books a year on his tiny iPhone 4s screen. Not something I could do, but it doesn't make him less of a reader. I know many here read more than 50 books a year, I do, but I think anyone who reads that much is not a casual reader.

[FacebookVirus]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Not to single you out in particular...

What you said, the entire post.

While I may or may not agree with an OP, when they phrase their statements in terms of personal preferences then there is really nothing else to say except by way of comparison.

Simaru's opinions in particular are dismissed by some here because he doesn't read the magic number of books per year required by those who are far more concerned about the number of books they read than by learning anything from them.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Personally, I'm happy for anyone whose smartphone can make them feel that good. "If it had a few extra ports, I'd never have discovered the opposite sex."

I know what you're saying -- and I'm happy for him -- but it kind of goes both ways. Others have tried to show why the Galaxy S5 doesn't make a Kindle obsolete. I'm guessing -- somewhere -- there are still folks reading books on a Palm Treo. Most of us would consider that "obsolete," but if they're happy reading books that way, what difference does it make?

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I know what you're saying -- and I'm happy for him -- but it kind of goes both ways. Others have tried to show why the Galaxy S5 doesn't make a Kindle obsolete. I'm guessing -- somewhere -- there are still folks reading books on a Palm Treo. Most of us would consider that "obsolete," but if they're happy reading books that way, what difference does it make?

These two phrases are significant and I like them: "It kind of goes both ways" and "What difference does it make?"

Professing disproportionate pleasure and overreacting to an expression of pleasure are similar acts. What I appreciate about Simaru's posts is this: he hasn't insulted anyone else while expressing himself.

I agree that it doesn't make a difference whether someone is happiest with a Galaxy S5 or a Treo. What might make a difference is being secure enough with our own choices to listen to someone else's -- however fervently expressed -- without feeling compelled to discredit them.

Yes, obsolete is an odd word for someone to use in a discussion about their own preferences and habits. Even so, a word can mean different things to different people, and it's clear that what's being communicated is not consumer tech prophecy but personal enjoyment.

In the cold Trailways bus depot of life, the occasional misfire doesn't seem terribly important to me. I don't know about you, but I'm fine with impassioned endorsements. There's no lockdown on emotional content; disillusionment will always get enough air time.