Video Head to Head of Kindle and Reader

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Completely useless.

I agree. It is useless to review the 500 vs. the Kindle. At least review the 505 vs. the Kindle then we'll get a fairer comparison.

[JSWolf]

I've posted a comment which is now under review. We'll see if it ever makes it to the light of day. I know I was kind of harsh. But they did deserve it.

[PHugger]

Originally Posted by Alisa

I hardly ever play with the network features. I read. I like being able to look stuff up on the fly or get a new book right away. That's all I use the Internet connectivity for. The vast majority of the time, the wireless is off.........

I think those features are pretty cool. I just don't need or want them when I'm reading. Maybe I'm old school, but I seem to approach reading as a separate activity from surfing the net, shopping or researching something. When I'm reading, I never think about those things. Just now I have several dozen books loaded that I'm interested in reading - I can shop for new reading material at my leisure. Sync'ing with a PC is a comfortable paradigm for me as a long time PDA user and Podcast listener. I recognize the difference between PDA functionality and reading. Between my PDA, Blackberry, and laptop, I already run circles around what a Kindle offers as non-reading functions. I simply prefer separate devices that do their 'things' really well.



PCH

[Kingston]

Thanks to PHugger for the link to the Gibson/Laporte podcast. Here's the transcript of the part of that discussion centering on ereaders:



Leo: So I got my Kindle about a week ago, and I traveled with it. You
know, I was gone to New Haven for five days, and it was a really good
time to try it. And my initial reaction is, if you're going to buy an
eBook reader, it's certainly the one to get. There's just - there's no
question. It's easy, it's actually, because of their choice of fonts,
it's much easier to read.

Steve: Yes, the fonts are much better, aren't they.

Leo: Yeah. And you can get the font size bigger, which as a person
over 40 I appreciate. And the wireless, as we've talked about, the
wireless really does make it so much easier to put stuff on it. I
haven't ever hooked it up to a computer. I get a number of newspapers.
And so for that reason alone the hundred dollars differential between
that and the Sony is, I think, well worth it. But I think that there
are also lots of people, a great many people, probably the vast
majority of people who will never buy an eBook reader, at least not
until the eInk technology improves and is crisper and so forth. Those
people aren't going to like it anymore than they'd like the Sony. But
I think it's certainly true, if you're going to choose between a Sony
and the Kindle, that the Kindle is far superior.

Steve: I agree. I think certainly people who own prior generation
eBooks, I mean, if somebody already has a Sony, they'll probably be
inclined to continue purchasing Sony eBook content, even though Sony
has only about a quarter of the...

Leo: Much more limited, much more expensive, and much more difficult
to put on. You need Windows; you need a USB connection. I just, you
know - for instance, I was looking for a book on Egypt. I wanted to do
some reading before we go to Egypt. I went, I searched, found several
hundred volumes on Egypt, available through the Kindle store. You can
search online. And I bought a book. Wasn't cheap. Now, it's funny,
they have very expensive books on Egypt, I guess. And it was 35 bucks,
which was still cheaper than the hardcover.

Steve: The pyramids are those pointy things, Leo.

Leo: Yeah. See, that's the problem, is most of the books -oh, another
thing I want to say that I love that you can't do in the Sony store is
you can get samples. And so instead of buying kind of sight unseen, I
was able to get - I got samples of the top five books I was interested
in, read one, and it was just so bad, I was able to reject it. So I
was able to pick the right one. And that saved me a lot of money right
there. And if you're into the bestsellers, you could before you go on
a trip get samples of all of them, read them on the plane, and pick
the ones you want to finish.

Steve: I think also you are able to have multiple Kindles associated
with the same account.

Leo: Oh, that's interesting.

Steve: Yes. And so you're able to buy a book once and read it on
multiple Kindles.

Leo: Now, why would you do that?

Steve: Well, husband and wife might. I know a lot of couples who,
like, hand books to each other. It's like, okay, I'm done with this,
you want to read it? And so you're unable to do that with the
periodical content. You have to individually associate those with
individual readers because they don't want that to be shared. But book
content you explicitly can share among multiple Kindles.

Leo: That's interesting. And that is one of the complaints, and I
think rightly so, although it's inevitable, that people have is the
copy protection on the Kindle. But there's no way a publisher is -
that's not an Amazon issue, that's a publisher issue.

Steve: Exactly. That's not going to go away. And the point I made in
my review was that I've already got copy-protected content spread
around. I was an early adopter of the Mobipocket format, which of
course Amazon ended up buying as part of their move into eBooks. And
then Palm, and then Sony, and finally now Amazon. And my feeling is,
okay, sure, this feels like the first-generation device. The screen's
going to get better. The UI is going to get better. There will be lots
of things about it that improve over time. I mean, that's been the
history of eBooks, rocky as it's been. But if I'm going to be
investing now in a format, it seems to me Amazon's going to win this.

Leo: Yeah, I agree.

Steve: Already, right out of the gate, this is the best eBook reader
there is.

Leo: You know, the paperback is not going away. And I will still buy
books. So it's going to be more the stuff that I read once and I don't
want to have a copy of it. So I'm not really too worried about whether
I'm going to be transferring stuff over to a new Kindle. I have to say
the cover stinks. They've got to get a better cover.

Steve: Yeah, the cover's not good.

Leo: The Sony cover is, in fact, in general the Sony design is much
more elegant all around.

Steve: I was thinking that I was forgiving the fact that there was a
keyboard there because you end up holding it down...

Leo: You have to.

Steve: ...in the keyboard area.

Leo: There's nowhere else to hold it.

Steve: Exactly, because if you hold it anywhere else it changes pages
on you. But then I'm like, I've never used the keyboard. Well, maybe
once or twice. But it's the most underused aspect of it for...

Leo: I've used it because I've searched for books and purchased books
that way. So you need, you have to have it. Although I guess you could
have some sort of strange selection technique. But I think you have to
have it. And it is where you hold the darn thing.

Steve: We ought to say, though, Leo, that the comment you made early
on, the reason that you made the decision to purchase was the fact
that you subscribe to a bunch of newspapers. And for me, I think the
connectivity is very cool because the content is just there in the
morning when you go off to coffee, and you've got your newspapers and
magazines and things.

Leo: One thing that is really cool that wireless allows. So I'm
reading along in a book, and the guy says, "No more 'mute inglorious
Milton,'" in quotes. And I'm going, boy, I know that quote, "mute
inglorious." Where could that be? You scroll to that part of this
thing, you click the button, you search for it, it says Search on
Wikipedia, Search on Google. I searched on Google, immediately found
Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Graveyard" ["Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard"], which is - that's the poem it's from. Got the
full text of the poem and was able to read it. And that is a very
interesting addition to a reader. You can look up words. It's got a
built-in dictionary. But you can also go on the 'Net and look it up on
Wikipedia, or even do a general Google search. And that kind of
changes how I read. I mean, I think that's really great. Something you
can't do unless you're at home with your reference library.

Steve: Yeah, it truly is connected.

[astra]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've posted a comment which is now under review. We'll see if it ever makes it to the light of day. I know I was kind of harsh. But they did deserve it.

Could you post a link for your comments please?

[Kingston]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Could you post a link for your comments please?

Jon got a comment back to his comment on that board:

http://www.gottabemobile.com/Comment...x#commentstart

[snookums]

I haven't received my Kindle yet so I may change my opinions once I have it in hand. So what I say is not qualified by experience but by what I know about the device.

To me the wireless isn't something that you should be using all the time. It's one of those seamless things that you don't have to think about. The ability to just pick up the Kindle, read a preview chapter, decide on it, pay for the the book, and have it downloaded in less than an instant no matter where I am is the feature that made me want to buy the Kindle. I liken it to my experience with mp3 players. It's cool on the first day because I'll rip a bunch of my cds and transfer them over by cable. After a few it starts seeming like a hassle to find that special cable, the one that will of course be different from every other data cable I have, and sit down to buy new content and transfer it over. After a few weeks, I'm not sure where the cable is. Maybe it's fallen down in the seat cushions of my couch. Maybe the cat has knocked it off of the table, and I don't want to have to pull it out to search. And I never seem to remember all of those cool songs that I wanted to download when I'm sitting down at home. So I start trying to write the names of the songs down right after I hear them so I won't forget. Of course that never works because I always lose the scrap of paper that I've written them on. Eventually I just stop buying songs because I don't want to go through the hassle of organizing and maintaining my collection. Every now and then I may hunt down the cable and buy some new songs to transfer, but I mainly end up listening to the same songs over and over. I get bored with them, and it ends up on a shelf collecting dust.

This is why I gave my iPod to my sister. Now they have the iPod Touch that allows you to buy songs right from the player. I might end up back in the fold eventually. My point is that there are different types of people who want different types of eBook readers. Up until now, the devices have been slanted toward the hardcore audience, people who like to have their entire book collection alphabetized and laid out in rows like soldiers on the battle field. Those are the people who research their books and plan on buying them well in advance. To those people, I have nothing but love. I on the other hand am casual hardcore. By that I mean that I'm a avid reader. I've probably read just as many books as any individual here. I'm just more explorer like in my reading. I've been known to walk into a book store and buy a hardback bases solely on a blurb and the cover. Sometimes I'm disappointed. Sometimes I find something new and exciting. With the Kindle I can indulge myself, and that is what an eBook reader is - an indulgence. I can skip wildly through a field of bare bosomed books available to me from anywhere. I can rip open their tight bodices and preview to my hearts delight.

[JSWolf]

The problem however is that if you use the wifi o the Kindle too much, you end up with a flat battery. So unless you have access to a place to charge it before it goes flat or don't want to be reading after it does go flat till you get to charge it, then you'll want to use the wifi sparingly.

That said, I posted another comment that has yet to be approved...

The interface on the 505 is actually a little bit different. Easier to manage content. That makes a difference once you have content onboard. I do not know how it compares to managing content on the Kindle. But the 505 is easier to use in that way then the 500. And the ergonomics of the 505 are better then the 500.

I know you can serf the internet with the Kindle. Right now it is free to do so. But given Sprint's recent layoffs, I would guess that it won't be free for much longer.

No, you cannot search eBook on the 505. But you can read your eBooks on your computer and use the computer to search. The 505 does have a direct page jump feature. So if you wanted to go to page 365, you can very easily by tying in the page number and hitting enter.

Yes, I know they are here to give opinions. But the opinions given are based on an old model. All they know of for sure is that the screen of the 505 is the same as the Kindle. They don't actually know of the software changes to to 505 which can influence the opinions of how the 505 compares to the Kindle. So basically (in IMHO) the review is flawed. Too flawed to be of any use.

As I have said, they cannot do a proper comparison of the two units without having a 505. And while the wifi is nice, that's not all there is to either unit. And if someone doesn't want or care for the wifi, then they should know about how the Kindle and 505 work excluding the wifi. These reviewers should never have done their review if they could not properly do such.

[astra]

Originally Posted by Kingston

Jon got a comment back to his comment on that board:

http://www.gottabemobile.com/Comment...x#commentstart

Thanks.

Nice post JSWolf.

[JSWolf]

It's like reviewing the Kindle and the original Cybook. That would not work well at all.

[Kingston]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Thanks.

Nice post JSWolf.

Glad to be of help.

Jon was busy serfing the net.

[Alisa]

Without the EVDO you drag and drop things over the usb, same as the Sony. So I don't see where the Sony possibly comes out ahead in that regard. It's a toss up, not a point of differentiation.

[Nomad83]

JSWolf,

I understand where you are coming from and the argument you are presenting, however I believe your disdain for the 'review' and the following comments regarding are damaging to your point and this site.

I have been a long time tablet pc user, and for a lively forum with lots of answers and discussion, gottabemobile.com is a good resource, just like mobileread.com is for my recently purchased Sony Reader.

For those who would criticize the design of the site, lets first look in the mirror here. Neither site is trying to be a C|net or arstechnica...but rather a community. Resources are limited and they can't purhase every device.

The community here should really be behind any positive attention being paid to eReaders as a whole, as more attention leads to more sales, more devices, more competition and overall a better marketplace for our fun little devices. The current marketplace is too small for fanboyism and namecalling.

I applaud the Inkshow and side by side video. It was good to see some of the kindle features in action by REAL users. Rob and Sierra are doing more to get the word out about eReaders than most of you who've commented on this thread.

Nomad

[JSWolf]

They said nothing about eReader which no eink device supports (wiith DRM).

But they took a new Kindle and reviewed it vs and old 500. That is irresponsible. In order to do a proper review, they'd need to use a 505 vs the Kindle. Would a review of the first Cybook vs the gen3 be of any use? I think not. That's basically what we got. A review of an old model no longer in production vs a new model very much in production. It's not a valid comparison.

[Alisa]

If you look at all the features they covered in the Kindle, are there any of them that exist in the 505? They mentioned that the screens are now equal. What features do you think they should've put head to head with the Kindle in the video? The review centered mostly on the ease of getting content over Whispernet versus through the store and USB. Has that changed? If you were to go through that video and cover all the features they did but use the 505 instead of the 500, what specifically would you say? I think that would be a more convincing argument that they were negligent than just "but there's a new one now".