Monday, May 5 Martha Stewart Show » Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

I know you can write notes on the iLiad--but can you search for particular occurrences of words or phrases? I had thought that was unique to the Kindle at the moment.

No, you can't. It's unique to eInk devices, but of course there are a lot of devices on which one can read a book which do have "search" facilities - Pocket PC, Palm, etc.

[montsnmags]

Just a note in regards to "revolutionary" and "new".

Being "new" is not a prerequisite of a "revolution". Arguably, the iPod & iTunes were revolutionary within their particular area, though certainly neither were the first mp3 player nor online music store. The Model T wasn't the first car. The first steam engine didn't start the Industrial Revolution.

So, while the technology or concept of the Kindle might not be new, either in part or whole, it doesn't mean the device cannot be revolutionary.

Personally, I'll wait a bit before making that decision but I certainly acknowledge the possibility of it coming to pass.

Cheers,
Marc (noting that the Kindle is most certainly not "revolutionary" in Australia as yet. I believe we're getting the iPhone soon though. )

[Alisa]

Just an aside: I noticed Time named Bezos one of the 100 most influential people in the latest issue. While, of course, the man has been an influential business leader for a long time, the accomplishment they cited for his inclusion on this year's list was the Kindle.

[Rocketime]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Just an aside: I noticed Time named Bezos one of the 100 most influential people in the latest issue. While, of course, the man has been an influential business leader for a long time, the accomplishment they cited for his inclusion on this year's list was the Kindle.

Thanks for that Alisa.

I am a gadget freak and there is no better gadget in my collection than the Kindle. I'm amazed at how much I have come to depend on the Kindle in my daily life. I travel the western 13 states as a sales rep and what a great companion. Between the news papers, books, blogs and magazines delivered when I wake up and the ongoing updates with the blogs, I'm in readers heaven. I also rely on my XM radio, Slingbox and the internet to keep me entertained while on the road and away from my wife and home, but nothing compares to the Kindle.

[Ervserver]

Howard Stringer,Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Sony Corporation never got this sort of accolade when the Sony Reader came out

Originally Posted by Alisa

Just an aside: I noticed Time named Bezos one of the 100 most influential people in the latest issue. While, of course, the man has been an influential business leader for a long time, the accomplishment they cited for his inclusion on this year's list was the Kindle.

[Alisa]

I think most folks don't get e-ink and it's really only the display that sets the Sony apart from reading on a laptop or a PDA. In most other respects, its features are few. You'd get more from either of the others. It's basically a display for books. I think it's good hardware but I don't think it was enough to make ebooks that attractive especially considering the prices they were charging before Amazon got into the picture. I have been wanting a good reading device for years. Really since college and that was almost two decades ago. It was always the screen that stood in the way. When I saw the Sony in a shop with that display, I was thrilled. Then I researched it and found out you couldn't search a book. You couldn't look up stuff in a dictionary. You couldn't make notes. Books were almost hardback price, sometimes more. I was pretty disappointed that they had a great display and little else. They had computing power and didn't use it to offer much real functionality over the paper book. Add to that the rather predatory pricing and, I'm sorry, there's a reason Sony didn't get any credit for an ebook revolution. You could make a sound argument that the inventors or e-ink should, but not Sony.

[tlrowley]

I totally agree, Alisa. You summed up my reaction quite nicely. I lost track of the number of times I looked into the Sony. I'm a gadget nut, and it made no sense to me that I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. I think, although I'm not stingy, I begrudged the price (near hardcover) of the Sony store. It just felt like the wrong model.

I did manage to pull the trigger in the first 5-1/2 hours of the Kindle, though, and I've been enjoying it since 11/20. I think $9.99 is a good psychological price point (like iTunes albums). "under $10" is an impulse buy to me - in my (admittedly warped) view of the world, the difference between $9.99 and, say, $10.49, is huge.

[Kingston]

For those who missed the show, the video segment with Bezos is here:

http://tinyurl.com/3jcgcz

I've sort of gone the opposite path than some of you in this thread, I started with Kindle and bought a Sony 505 later.

Dollar for dollar it's hard to beat the value of the Sony. If I had to choose one and only one device it would be the Kindle, but now that I have a Sony I see why the Sony owners on this board are so vocal to defend it. It's a 3rd generation device and is much more mature hardware (for lack of a better term) than first gen devices like Kindle, Gen 3 and Iliad.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Kingston

Dollar for dollar it's hard to beat the value of the Sony. If I had to choose one and only one device it would be the Kindle, but now that I have a Sony I see why the Sony owners on this board are so vocal to defend it. It's a 3rd generation device and is much more mature hardware (for lack of a better term) than first gen devices like Kindle, Gen 3 and Iliad.

But it's rather lacking in many ways. It has no dictionary lookup facilities (a major shortcoming). You can't load your own fonts onto it (an even more major shortcoming). It doesn't support font families. You can't replace the battery.

Yes, the Sony is cheap, but "cheap" and "good value" are not necessarily the same thing. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But it's rather lacking in many ways. It has no dictionary lookup facilities (a major shortcoming). You can't load your own fonts onto it (an even more major shortcoming). It doesn't support font families.

Those "major" shortcommings are both your opinion. I have yet to want to look up a word and the built in font is fine for me.

Originally Posted by HarryT

You can't replace the battery.

This is true... however the battery will last for quite a while.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, the Sony is cheap, but "cheap" and "good value" are not necessarily the same thing. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for.

Sorry, with all the buggy problems people have had with the CyBook, it seems to be the "cheap" device to me, even being $100 more than the Sony. No, if I was going to spend $400 on a reader, it will be the Kindle at this point.

Sony is a good solid reader, with no bugs and the features that you need to read ebooks, for a great price. You can't deny that no matter how many times you protest that the CyBook is "better". What good are all those features if the think crashes and pages don't turn when you push the button?

BOb

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

You can't deny that no matter how many times you protest that the CyBook is "better". What good are all those features if the think crashes and pages don't turn when you push the button?

BOb

But mine doesn't. Since they fixed the bug which caused frequent crashes on dictionary lookup (which they did in January), my Gen3 has NEVER crashed, and I use it for 1-2h per day, 7 days a week.

Dictionary support is one of those things like, say, having air-conditioning in your car. You can go through life without it, but when you get it, you wonder how you ever managed without it. If, like me, you're a fan of 19th century books, it's absolutely wonderful to have (the dictionary, that is - not the air-con . Air-con is good too, though! Look up words while sitting in your car with its air-con - that's best of all ).

[catsittingstill]

I have spent the last couple of days looking over a book manuscript, checking it for internal inconsistencies, and inconsistencies with previous books in the series.

Kindle wouldn't load the rtf file of the manuscript :-( but the free e-mail conversion was fast and easy :-)

Checking for internal inconsistencies was way easier than it would have been with a paper book. I read it once through from beginning to end, just as I would have done in paper, and then went through it a second time, more carefully. When a character, or the narrative text, made a claim (person A was killed in such and such battle, for example) I did a text search and quickly verified the claim, or saw that it was false, and if it was false I could find out what character first made the claim. When I found an inconsistency I made a marginal note. It got to where I was actually more reluctant to look things up in the previous books (all paper, so I had to page through, looking for particular scenes so I could verify who said what to whom) than in the manuscript I was working with on the Kindle.

When I was done, the "My Notes and Marks" option for the manuscript showed me all the inconsistencies I'd noted. When I realized it would be good to organize them by chapter, I did a search on "Chapter" and went through highlighting the chapter titles. "My Notes and Marks" then included all the chapter titles I'd highlighted plus all the marginal notes I'd made, in the order they appeared in the manuscript.

Then I just wrote them up, chapter by chapter, to send to the author.

I don't know of anything other than a Kindle that would have let me do this. I think the Kindle could be a really useful tool for textual research.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

I don't know of anything other than a Kindle that would have let me do this. I think the Kindle could be a really useful tool for textual research.

Of course, you could have done this on a PC... but reading for that long on a PC can be fatiguing.

BOb

[Kingston]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Those "major" shortcommings are both your opinion.


Sony is a good solid reader, with no bugs and the features that you need to read ebooks, for a great price. You can't deny that no matter how many times you protest that the CyBook is "better".

Sorry, with all the buggy problems people have had with the CyBook, it seems to be the "cheap" device to me, even being $100 more than the Sony. No, if I was going to spend $400 on a reader, it will be the Kindle at this point.


BOb

Hallelujah brother. Almost every time someone recommends a device Harry jumps in with negative comments. Cybook is an ok reader but a device costing near $400 should be worry free....something Cybook definitely ain't!

Methinks yon Harry doth protest too much...

Like the old ad says 'ask the man who owns one'. I have all the US-sold devices (except the 1150) and Cybook is the only buggy one.


PilotBob, are you the one with a loaner Jetbook? I kinda like mine (the layout reminds me of Sony), but am annoyed by the screen glare in bright light.
I use a gooseneck lamp over my shoulder to read on my various devices and the glare from Jetbook is annoying. It is not so bad in ambient (room) light.

What are your thoughts? Or do I have the wrong Bob?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Kingston

PilotBob, are you the one with a loaner Jetbook? I kinda like mine (the layout reminds me of Sony), but am annoyed by the screen glare in bright light.
I use a gooseneck lamp over my shoulder to read on my various devices and the glare from Jetbook is annoying. It is not so bad in ambient (room) light.

What are your thoughts? Or do I have the wrong Bob?

Yes, I have an eval unit. I am working on the review now. I agree there is a bit of a glare... but usally for me holding it at a slightly different angle got rid of it. I haven't tried it outside though. Working on the review and pics, hope to have it up soon.

BOb