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Originally Posted by Robotech_Master
Why should the iPhone be worse than the old Palm? The screens are about the same size, and the same resolution (for the newer Palms, or twice that of the older ones).
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Sizewise and resolution wise, the ipods win. Ease of use is a tossup (with older palms, slight edge over newer ones in some ways). Battery life goes to the palm (non-phone - easily a week, same as a kindle, plus it did a lot more). Newer palms are actually smaller than the older ones and are now backlit, which puts them into the same eyestrain (even if you think you don't feel it) category as other backlit systems - and makes them and the ipod touch/iphone essentially useless outside. The iphone would even be nearly impossible to make a phone call with under some outdoor conditions (luckly, my htc mogul has a keyboard, as it suffers from the same outdoor screen problems). But I bought those books a LONG time ago - the palm that read them had a large screen, same as the iphone, no backlight and a week battery life. The battery life on the iphone isn't as good as the ipod touch, from what I have found (but at least turning off phone mode has greatly improved it - it seems with the iphone, that is also the switch to turn off the wireless (my hTc has separate settings for phone and wireless and bluetooth and if the iphone has them, I haven't found them).
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I've not noticed excessive battery problems in my reading on my iPod Touch. Turn the backlight down to about 30%, turn WiFi and the telephone network connections off (they take up power even when you're not using them, just trying to connect), and you can read for hours. The Fictionwise people did experiments on an iPod Touch at various light levels and found that with reasonable battery precautions you can read for more than 10-12 hours on a full battery charge.
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I doubt my eyes would last that long - but I did just that for 2-4 days in a row, twice in the last three weeks on the Kindle. And the battery easily lasted two full days (before I remembered I had an inverter to charge the battery, since I didn't have a car charger with me). And if you think the Kindle buttons are easy to hit wrong, try it on an iphone while traveling down some of our nations poorer highways (assuming you can see the screen in the bright daylight).
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I suspect that we only ever hear from loud advocates on both ends—people like you who don't like reading on small screens, or people like me who do. Most people who like reading probably aren't that loud. I think there are more iPhone/iPod readers than you might think.
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Owners are there. Those who download free apps are there (and their free books, since they are already paid for - what are they going to do, read them all again?). But readers (at least of novel length items) are yet to be proven I've already seen complaints about even a $10 or $15 charge for reader software. Using your iphone or touch this way on some methods of public transport is probably just asking for them to be stolen - these are already hot items, with organized groups watching for them there and in airports. Somehow, though, I don't see the resell value of a Kindle being as high (even though Amazon, like the phone companies and Apple, will no doubt let stolen ones be re-registered). Of those who do "read" (full length novels), most will no doubt use that as one method and switch to another once at home (or the office). I do find it useful for internet access (as much as I hate safari on the PC and Apple's insistence that I download it), it works better than IE on the hTc (which, with very cheap sprint cell access, wins on when it can be used). But new browsers are coming out, as well as specific apps that do maps or rss well (and unlike Apple, no one cares much what I install on my hTc phone and no one will decide to ban an app and remove it without notice - at least on the internet side).
The main thing I end up using the iphone (as a touch) for is to listen to music (just in basic shuffle, usually), podcasts and I've tried a few audio books on it. It does that better than the Kindle (and has a better speaker system I plug it into at the office), at least for now.