MAJOR FLAW in the Amazon Kindle

[mphuie]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Amazon could easily correct this MAJOR FLAW by simply supplying a PC Reader for their book files. If they did this, I would buy the Kindle to be able to continue reading when away from my PC.

Otherwise, my 24" Wide Screen Monitor with much bigger fonts and better clarity than Kindle can ever dream of will be my method of choice for reading EVERYTHING.

Wow, that quote is trollworthy.

The Kindle is 167 DPI
Your 24" monitor is 100 DPI.

Eink displays are designed for readibility, LCD monitors are not. If you are not getting eye strain your fonts must be set huge. I have 20/15 vision and have actually owned a reader with an eink display. The difference between LCD and eink is as clear as night and day.

[Alisa]

I have no comment on it being trollworthy, but I also have excellent vision and I can immediately feel the difference in comfort switching from an LCD to eink. I have a rather nice monitor, too.

[bingle]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

As long as we're speculating, though: Am I the only one who thinks Sony should just buy a majority stake in Borders and take a head-on run at Amazon?

I think that's a fight they'd lose. I'd much rather see Sony get out of the majority of content creation, and just go back to making excellent electronics that support all content. When they try to tie devices to specific content or formats is when they fail, historically.

I think they'd be best off making a general, beautiful ebook reader, that reads as many formats as they can possibly get licenses for, and then selling it as a platform to content vendors like Amazon.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by bingle

I think they'd be best off making a general, beautiful ebook reader, that reads as many formats as they can possibly get licenses for, and then selling it as a platform to content vendors like Amazon.

I think a LOT of people would've been happier if the Sony Reader was upgraded to read/convert Amazon e-books.

[jmorton]

Jeez, I can't even imagine reading an entire book on an LCD screen! My eyes would be twitching in no time. I spend ten hours every day staring at computer screen for work. The ePaper is a nice break from this. In terms of contrast, it's still not as good as paper, but it's a heckuva lot better than trying to read books on a computer screen. I suspect that people who find it acceptable to read books on a computer don't read many books. When it comes to reading, I'll take reflective text any day.

Jim

Jim

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by jmorton

I suspect that people who find it acceptable to read books on a computer don't read many books.

Not at all. We've just bought good monitors. I can work at my PC and LCD screen all day long, reading or doing whatever else.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jmorton

Jeez, I can't even imagine reading an entire book on an LCD screen! I suspect that people who find it acceptable to read books on a computer don't read many books. When it comes to reading, I'll take reflective text any day.

Jim

Jim, I read 2 books per month using Microsoft Reader. I use a 24" HD LCD Monitor. I use Zinio Reader to read 4 magazines per week. I use Microsoft Outlook to read the NY Times daily. I've been reading on some sort of Monitor for business and pleasure for 20 years. I'm 72 years of age and still have 20/20 vision. I never get eye strain.

I may start reading Sony file books since they just slashed their book file prices by 20% to 40%. I recently downloaded their eBook Library.

I never buy paper books since I cannot adjust their fonts. With my PC everything I read can have their fonts adjusted.

I read a lot of old newspapers on www.newspaperarchive.com. None of those old newspapers are even available for non-PC readers.

The main reason for all this is that I am always multitasking. I may watch stock prices or news at the same time as I am reading a book. Non-PC readers do not allow for multitasking which is essential for me.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by jmorton

Jeez, I can't even imagine reading an entire book on an LCD screen! My eyes would be twitching in no time. I spend ten hours every day staring at computer screen for work. The ePaper is a nice break from this. In terms of contrast, it's still not as good as paper, but it's a heckuva lot better than trying to read books on a computer screen. I suspect that people who find it acceptable to read books on a computer don't read many books. When it comes to reading, I'll take reflective text any day.

Jim

Jim

It depends on the device, screen, fonts and colors. My 770 has ~230 dpi and with black background and yellow-orange fonts is excellent for reading, I much prefer it to the Sony due to better ergonomics, being much faster and having a nicer reading experience than paper.

Now that I am using my Itouch for pdf reading I also prefer it to anything else for that task being amazingly fast and easy to navigate though it still has some limitations. It has a bit less dpi (I think around 200) than 770 and the screen is smaller so for reflowable text the 770 is better, but for pdf's nothing portable beats the for me the fast easy navigation of the iTouch.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

My 770 has ~230 dpi and with black background and yellow-orange fonts is excellent for reading...

Really!?! Just goes to show you, that combination doesn't work at all for me! But black text on a light grey or blue BG does. And depending on the monitor, Cleartype sometimes improves readability, and sometimes it actually makes things worse.

Bottom line: Everybody's different, and there are plenty of us who don't have a problem reading on an LCD monitor... or on a PDA... or on a smartphone... all day long.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Really!?! Just goes to show you, that combination doesn't work at all for me! But black text on a light grey or blue BG does. And depending on the monitor, Cleartype sometimes improves readability, and sometimes it actually makes things worse.

Bottom line: Everybody's different, and there are plenty of us who don't have a problem reading on an LCD monitor... or on a PDA... or on a smartphone... all day long.

It depends on the device. On the pc I do not like the combination either for reading, though for most of the applications I work daily with I use black background and colored text.

But on 770 it works very nicely due to the finer screen. On the iTouch the primitive book reader (txt, html) can reverse colors only so you get white text on black background and I use that. In general black background is much easier on the eyes and quite nice actually.

[schmidt349]

double post, sorry

[schmidt349]

I'm 72 years of age and still have 20/20 vision.

That's really extraordinary. Something like 99% of the population suffers from severe presbyopia due to lens hardening by the age of 72. (hence the term "presbyopia," which literally means "old-sight")

But one thing you definitely aren't taking into account is age-related light sensitivity. By age 70 the pupil is basically unreactive except in extremely diverse lighting situations, and the amount of light reaching the retina is down three-quarters from what it was when you were age 20.

I think your strongly negative emotional reaction to e-readers like the Kindle may be driven by an unwillingness to accept that you're suffering from age-related visual decline. You can't see the Kindle or paper books very well at all because you can't get sufficient illumination to read them properly, as a result of which you get defensive and blame the problem on the books/devices rather than yourself.

(and before you say your reaction isn't emotional, explain why you started this thread with the title "MAJOR FLAW in the Amazon Kindle" -- the caps weren't exactly necessary, were they?)

Non-PC readers do not allow for multitasking which is essential for me.

Funny. Tell that to any professional academic in any discipline.

At your age, a nice big high-resolution LCD is an ideal reading device because it can overcome all age-related visual deficiencies. Something comparatively smaller with a high DPI is very nice for someone under 50 or used to wearing reading glasses because there's much less chance of eyestrain when you aren't reading with the aid of a CCFL backlight that's flickering at the mains frequency (or up to 85Hz, if you're lucky).

I guess what I'm trying to tell you is this: don't claim that the Kindle or any other electrophoretic display device is "flawed" because it doesn't meet your reading needs. "Flaws" mostly encompass engineering and manufacturing failures, like high numbers of stuck pixels, exploding batteries, poorly-designed user interfaces, badly-written firmware, inter alia.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by schmidt349

1. That's really extraordinary. Something like 99% of the population suffers from severe presbyopia due to lens hardening by the age of 72. (hence the term "presbyopia," which literally means "old-sight").

2. I think your strongly negative emotional reaction to e-readers like the Kindle may be driven by an unwillingness to accept that you're suffering from age-related visual decline. You can't see the Kindle or paper books very well at all because you can't get sufficient illumination to read them properly, as a result of which you get defensive and blame the problem on the books/devices rather than yourself.

3. At your age, a nice big high-resolution LCD is an ideal reading device because it can overcome all age-related visual deficiencies. Something comparatively smaller with a high DPI is very nice for someone under 50 or used to wearing reading glasses because there's much less chance of eyestrain when you aren't reading with the aid of a CCFL backlight that's flickering at the mains frequency (or up to 85Hz, if you're lucky).

4. I guess what I'm trying to tell you is this: don't claim that the Kindle or any other electrophoretic display device is "flawed" because it doesn't meet your reading needs.

1. My Ophpthamologist tells me I am the ONLY patient of his in my age group to still have 20/20 vision without compensating problems of cataracts or glaucoma.

2. You could be correct about this. However, why should I be disadvantaged by not using a 24" HD LCD Monitor which is very comfortable for me.

3. You are absolutely correct about this. However, I do not notice any flicker at all on my monitor and never get any eyestrain.

4. The "flaw" was not providing a PC reader as Sony DOES with the eBook Library to supplement the Sony PRS 505 Eprint Reader. I capitalized the word, "flaw," for effect since it totally blocks me from purchasing their book files for reading on my PC.

[tklaus]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

4. The "flaw" was not providing a PC reader as Sony DOES with the eBook Library to supplement the Sony PRS 505 Eprint Reader. I capitalized the word, "flaw," for effect since it totally blocks me from purchasing their book files for reading on my PC.

So, the "flaw" is really not with the Kindle at all, but rather with Amazon's choice to create a new e-book format that is only readable on their hardware.

[schmidt349]

For my part, I do think the lack of a software reader for AZWs is really obnoxious. Still, this isn't really a "major flaw" inasmuch as it doesn't constitute a deviation from the expected performance of the device.

Damn, 72 years old and 20/20! If only I were 20/20 *now*