Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
The advantage that buttons give you, though, is that you can do things by feel.
I don't know if other readers offer this, but he Kindle 3's offer text to speech in the menus, which might be helpful. Apple makes very accessible devices, too, so I wouldn't be surprised if an iPad had the same capability.
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I agree with this.
I'm not old, and don't have macular degeneration, but I have another illness that often... well, makes me see and act like my 85 yr old grandpa.
My vision gets blotchy, and I get very weak and shaky.
Of course, that's when we most need to "read" a book, to escape and pass the time.
I have a Sony (touch screen) and while I like it a lot of the time, it's virtually useless when I'm under the weather. I can't reliably touch or stroke the place or way I need to, am constantly touching where I don't mean to, and when I do get the page up, I can't see it well enough to read without fatigue.
And no, you can't zoom in on anything except the text of the books.
But the Kindle3 is a godsend. I can feel the buttons, they give good feedback, and while the D-pad can be hard to press right sometimes, I can have it speak the menu items aloud to me, so I know I have it right; so you don't need to zoom in on the book lists or menus on a kindle.
Best of all, i can turn on the text to speech and let it turn the pages for me, and read out loud to me, if I turn the volume up.
The Kindle's text is also the easiest to read, because of the font types and variety of sizes and spacing.
So for your mother, I'd definitely suggest the Kindle 3, or something like it, over any touch screen I've tried.
The Kindle DX Graphite would be good, because it's bigger, and uses a joystick instead of a DPad, but I don't think it reads the menus out loud. It does have the nice pearl screen and TTS.
Good luck with whatever you choose. I'm sure your mother will bless you for it.
