The biggest problem I've ever had with e-books have been a few: readability on the small screen without too much scrolling around; and digital rights management hassles that locked me into only being able to use a specific device, or a few specific devices, that keep me from easily moving the material from one device to another.

Lately I would say the problems (for me) relate to not having a more modern device (last device I considered and tried using e-books on was an older Windows Mobile PDA) that makes sense for such uses.  Yeah, I have a laptop with a nice widescreen, but it was basically a replacement for my home computer and with me not travelling so much, I just don't have the time to spend reading books on screen or even on paper.

A book-sized device that can do what a book can do?

Little-whip is right about the two advantages, however

1) doesn't apply to most people and probably not to paperback books anyway

2) there are only two places where I would want to read and don't have access to my computer (which can also display e-books): travelling and the loo. When travelling I rarely need more than one book, and if I do, it's probably a journey on which I carry my laptop and sit down, and I never needed a library in my loo in the past and will probably never need one in the future. If I require more than one book there, my biggest problem is probably not lack of reading material.

I am just not sure what market need this product is trying to satisfy.

The more I look at Kindle, as a product, the worse it gets.

1. You can subscribe to magazines like Time (that's good)
2. But you can't buy just individual issues, you HAVE to subscribe (that's bad)
3. The magazine selection is pretty good already (that's good)
4. But the device only supports black and white (that's bad)
5. It weighs about the same as a good (that's good)
6. But it has a stupid big keyboard attached to it that is largely useless (that's bad)
7. There could be a use for this for college text books (that's good)
8. But you can't write or make notes in the books (that's bad)

But over and over, it's like there's a sense of petty greed going on here. Where so much of the device becomes interesting and useful at half the price. 

For instance, the magazine subscriptions are nearly the same as the paper magazine subscriptions even though the paper ones involve printing and mailing into their price and COLOR.

Like I said in the article, I could be talked into the device IF they had reasonable bundling deals -- I buy book X for N and I get the Kindle version for an extra couple bucks.    But no, I am expected to pay $400 for the device (That's a LOT of books) and then pay essentially full price for the Kindle book minus COGS (i.e. instead of paying $12 I pay $7, whoop).

 

Here's another pro-ebook-point you missed:
- full text search!
I often find myself holding a 'real' book in my hand, trying to find a particular quote and wishing I could just Ctrl+F...

now THAT is a selling point!

Not a $400 selling point. Maybe a $150 selling point.

 

 

I was watching TNG on G4 last night.  They ran a streamer at the bottom that said Amazon had sold out of them in 4 hours on Black Friday.

But then a lot of people bought the Newton too!

DRM-free, layout-free (IE, not formatted, so no problems with the layout not matching your screen), device-independent e-books. For less than the cost of a paperback book. That's what it will take to have ebooks "break out", IMHO.

And you can have it today - www.webscription.net. Also see http://www.baen.com/library/.

Baen books has been selling DRM-free ebooks since 2001 or 2002; and giving away books for almost that long. And, shockingly enough, making money at it. And they're doing it the same way our gracious host is - by not measuring piracy, but measuring sales.

I held a Kindle in my hand a week or so ago. I've got a friend that buys pretty much every gadget there is to see for himself - he got one from the first run.

I fell in love with it (and ordered one) for the following reasons:

1. It's easier on the eyes, and the text clearer to look at (IMO) than a real book.
2. There is no scrolling regardless of font size you choose. Each page is a page.
3. I was invited to this friend's family account which is some Amazon thingybob by which all members of said account share the books they buy. So if I buy one, my whole "family" can download it.
4. My friend makes eBooks He literally photographs every page of a book, slurps it all up into PDF followed by OCR. I looked at examples of his work. Indistinguishable from "professional" jobs.
5. You can press one button with the cursor on any line of a book and it invokes a resident dictionary listing all the words in THAT line you might need a definition of. You can then choose the word you're wishing to define and see a detailed definition.
6. It has a highlighting function. All passages you choose to highlight are stored in a separate text file. Great for research/paper writing.
7. No backlight makes for long battery life and easy reading in the direct sunlight. If it's dark, your regular old booklight still clips on.

I'm sure in the future, something better will appear, but for now, I think I'll be satisfied.

As far as DRM, there's a huge number of classics I've always wanted to read that are public domain and available. Even if all I ever really get is all the classics for 400$, that's still way cheaper than if I'd bought them all.

Kindle did not fail. ^^^^^ The two year old bump kinda did though.Way to go Magicke.

Agreed!

 

That said, I love -- and have loved -- e-books for years.  I started with an old hand-held PDA (not even a smartphone, just a Tungsten E2) and migrated to a Palm Treo.  I've been reading e-books for about 5 years now (I think), and almost exclusively e-books for 3.

 

Webscription is my favorite; Mobipocket is a great backup.  Unfortunately, thanks to Amazon's acquisition of Mobi I'm in a very nasty spot.  Mobipocket is being deliberatly run into the ground to make room for the Kindle, so eventually it (and all the books I buy with it) are going away.  I need to break the DRM (which may or may not be legal) simply to migrate to a new device.  Which device I'm going to go with is up in the air, I haven't decided.  I'd consider the iPhone, but the monthly price is actually higher than my current Spring contract with inferior service (no insurance plan to protect against damage).

 

Overall, I am unimpressed by my options.  iPhone is only available via AT&T at a higher rate, with inferior service, and none of the other options have e-book programs I am familiar with that look like good long term prospects (i. e. NOT Mobi).  That said, Amazon has recently started a "Kindle for mac" promotion, which drew my attention to kindle books for non-kindle platforms (tablets, PCs, iPhone, macs, blackberry), so I may need to look at that.  The ironic thing is that the iPhone has a program that will handle decrypting the Mobipocket DRM for me, so it's probably my best bet (especially sicne I have access to an iPod touch through work that I'll be using to debug the software we're working on).

  Thanks PJ an Ron.  Slightly red in face, heeh.  Also ty for the breakdown tigerlady, Ron Lugge and jpmurph1. 

Can I download kindle on my commodore 64? People have been bugging me to put my book on kindle, I don't see it as a winner for me. Am I wrong??