Primary reason I haven't purchased a kindle: no way to lock the page orientation. I borrowed one from a friend and tried reading on the beach; the damn thing kept flipping around so I couldn't read it. Such a trivial thing to add, but lacking in the iphone as well.
Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
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Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#42I wonder why they still don't sell to Russia and over 100 other countries. Copyright issues?
Setting up Whispernet with local cell providers would also probably be a bottleneck.
Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#43Will someone please release an API so I can write a printer driver and we can print directly to our ebook readers already?
The APIs that have been available so far (AFAIK - someone please correct me) for any of the readers have been lackluster.
Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#44I wonder why they still don't sell to Russia and over 100 other countries. Copyright issues?
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Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
(genuine question) don't the wifi/3G draw power? or is your 'weeks' assessment including normal wireless use? Oddly, i feel must less strongly about Amazon's hold over the the platform the Kindle represents than i do about Apple and its hold over the music platform iTunes represents. Irrational? Probably. Uneconomnical? maybe (i buy far fewer books than i do albums/audiobooks). I can't fathom why but i just somehow f…
With a Kindle 2, I found that I only get the 3 weeks of battery life if I leave the radio disabled. So I only enable the radio for a few minutes when I need something. With the radio enabled continuously, battery life reduces to a few days. But the newer Kindle might be better in that regard.
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Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#46Primary reason I haven't purchased a kindle: no way to lock the page orientation. I borrowed one from a friend and tried reading on the beach; the damn thing kept flipping around so I couldn't read it. Such a trivial thing to add, but lacking in the iphone as well.
I'm assuming you were using a Kindle DX (the others don't auto-rotate). But anyway, you can lock the orientation:
http://thekindle.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/screenrotationd...
Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#47Amongst my group, I'm known for my near hatred of Amazon's Kindle (not the ecosystem or apps, just the devices) due to their shoddy typography, but even I've caved and ordered one of the new ones. They're cheap enough now that, I think, anyone involved in writing/publishing needs to keep a good eye on what Amazon's up to. For writers, the Kindle (ecosystem) is rapidly looking like it could become their equivalent of…
I love my Kindle. Not because it's the best, prettist, most elegant way to consume books, but because it's the best, prettiest, most elegant way for ME to consume books, based on the currently available options. I find myself reading more since I've gotten my Kindle, and for the price point, if I decide in a year that I DON'T like it, it's not a major loss (plus has some decent residual value).
I completely agree with this. I'm also reading more, which in and of itself makes it worth having. I recently went on a trip to Europe, and the free 3G was invaluable, since we didn't always have a good source of internet.
It's getting to the point that, were I to have to choose between losing my iPhone and losing the Kindle, I'd rather lose the iPhone, even though it costs 3 times as much to replace. It makes me that irrationally happy.
Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#48Amongst my group, I'm known for my near hatred of Amazon's Kindle (not the ecosystem or apps, just the devices) due to their shoddy typography, but even I've caved and ordered one of the new ones. They're cheap enough now that, I think, anyone involved in writing/publishing needs to keep a good eye on what Amazon's up to. For writers, the Kindle (ecosystem) is rapidly looking like it could become their equivalent of…
You can use your own fonts if you want to: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Font_Hacks
I use their screensaver hack (with covers and images from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and it has been completely stable and reversible.
Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#49I'm curious how well the Kindle renders tech/scientific books, with graphs, diagrams and formulae. I'd imagine the larger form factor of most printed technical books compared to fiction paperbacks to be an issue. I'd assume the 10" version does better than the smaller one.
I was just speaking to a friend of mine who is a EE/physicist who had just returned a Kindle DX two days ago. He got it specifically to read IEEE journal papers and found that it was unacceptable. His specific beef wasn't with the e-ink or the e-ink page turn speed but rather with the huge delay spent processing PDFs when you turned pages. In other words, page turn delays were no problem when reading a text only docu…
found that it was unacceptable
That has been my experience as well. Not only is pdf rendering slow on the Kindle, but it doesn't have high enough resolution to display a paper legibly in the common two column format that most journals use. You can jump through some hoops and in some cases reflow the paper. I didn't try it, but it looked like a hassle.
The iPad has much better rendering speed, but it also lacks the resolution to legibly display a two column article, as one would see it on paper.
It would be wonderful if I could carry around my entire collection of journal articles on a tablet, but the display technology just doesn't seem to be quite there yet.
Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates
#50I just wish flight attendants would stop making me turn it off for takeoff and landing.
Yeah, but remember, your Kindle is a much bigger threat to the navigation system than the 30 or 40 cell phones in people's pockets that they forgot to turn off. Plus, reading a Kindle might distract you in an emergency, which is why they don't let anyone read books or magazines during takeoff and landing either.
I have never been told to put down my book or magazine during takeoff or landing, or ever heard an attendant ask anyone else to.