Amazon reveals $79 Kindle • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon reveals $79 Kindle

#41

Post by tybris » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 9:47 PM UTC

I now own over a dozen books that are more expensive than a Kindle.

Re: Amazon reveals $79 Kindle

#42

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 9:50 PM UTC

runningdogx wrote: post #28

Still no native epub support. What is Amazon waiting for?

[deleted]

Re: Amazon reveals $79 Kindle

#43

Post by wladimir » Thu, Sep 29, 2011, 5:49 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #19

raju wrote: post #14

Does anyone use the Kindle for technical books? If so, how does it fare? For the $79/$99 it's not a big price to pay, but I have 10s, if not 100s of PDFs that I would like to keep and read (reading on the iPad isn't working out for me). Any thoughts? Update: Just saw fribblerz's comment about the DX. But I am still curious about the other Kindles.

You basically need a DX for PDF's. The smaller screen requires more zooming and navigating, which is a pain due to the performance lag. Of course, this can be avoided if they are not PDF out of neccesity. If the book is all text, not heavily formatted, and you just have it in PDF for convienience, look into getting an eBook copy. Note: I use a 2nd gen Kindle. The newer models might be a little snappier.

This is not a problem of the device, though. The scrolling and zooming makes sense as (most) PDFs use A4 page format and PDF cannot be reflowed to other screen sizes, which epub etc can. Unless you generate a PDF with smaller pages somehow, it isn't even possible to display it on a small screen with all the details without zooming/panning.

Re: Amazon reveals $79 Kindle

#44

Post by zer0her0 » Thu, Sep 29, 2011, 3:07 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #15

zeratul wrote: post #3

Actually, the announcement is now at the Amazon's home page. Next step: make e-books cheaper! http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-version-expensive-paperback-ver...

> Next step: make e-books cheaper! Don't sell your freedoms that easily. I'd rather have Amazon sell the DRM-free.

DRM free ePub is my dream, but sadly I don't think that will happen.

Re: Amazon reveals $79 Kindle

#45

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Sep 29, 2011, 6:29 PM UTC

zer0her0 wrote: post #44

rbanffy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Next step: make e-books cheaper! Don't sell your freedoms that easily. I'd rather have Amazon sell the DRM-free.

DRM free ePub is my dream, but sadly I don't think that will happen.

Not until we stop paying for DRM-encumbered content. Kindles and Nooks are subsidized by the sale of DRM encumbered goods. If we buy them and use only DRM-free content, we will exert pressure on Amazon and Barnes and Noble to drop DRM on books (or, at least, offer content in non-DRM-encumbered forms) and thus, generate the same pressure to others who require DRM.