Anyone have a Kindle?

[oldcqr]

(I posted this over at PC as well. I'm looking for opinions from people here who may not be members there. DIYCers tend to be more technical, and I like technical talk)

I've been itching to buy a Kindle for a couple of weeks now, but Amazon has been 'out of stock'. I'm going to go on a cruise some time this year, and really wanted something to sit on deck with (when I'm not sequencing that is!).

I'm glad I waited. The next gen (3rd) Kindle is out, and the wi-fi only version is $139.

Now I'm REALLY exicited, but before I pull the trigger I wanted to know if any of you have one and what you think of it?

[osgoor]

My wife bought one recently and really likes it.

[budude]

I bought my wife the 1st gen Kindle - she loves it. The only problem she had with was that the "cursor" stopped showing up (it's some kind of odd silver LCDish type of thing). She got a free replacement no questions asked.

We bought another for my mother-in-law - it's a 2nd gen which is a bit sleeker and the buttons are layed out a little better.

The nice thing about the celluar bit is of course you can get access almost anywhere these days. The cost of the service is built into the device - no monthly charges which is pretty sweet. It makes for a terrible browser - perhaps it's better in the 3rd generation so I wouldn't look at it for that (my iPod Touch is way better).

It's very easy to read, you can be reading multiple books and it keeps bookmarks for you, etc. You can also get newspaper, magazine and blog subscriptions but we haven't used that much at all.

Anyway - highly recommended!

[brew95]

I recently bought my wife a Nook (Barnes and Nobels version of a Kindle) and she loves it. She chose it over the Kindle because you can take it into Barnes and Nobels and get special offers (discounts, free downloads, etc).

[Mudsculpter]

Nook has an SD port.
Kindle does not.

I personally think the Wifi version is enough for most. You can find a free hotspot just about anywhere these days

[oldcqr]

Originally Posted by Mudsculpter

I personally think the Wifi version is enough for most. You can find a free hotspot just about anywhere these days

The $50 difference is definitely pushing me towards the WiFi version vs the WiFi + 3G. To me, buying a book is something that takes time and research. If I have to spend the time to find a book I like, then I also have the time to find a hotspot.

Plus, I'm cheap

[dmcole]

My wife loves her Kindle -- she's a reading machine; at least one junky novel per week and on a good week she'll read three-four.

She too loves the ability to be working multiple books at a time. She also loves the feature allowing you to download the opening chapter of a book for free to sample it. She says she buys them about 50 percent of the time.

She has the 2nd gen device, which without going through a separate computer, doesn't work in Europe (the 3rd gen does work in Europe and the 4th gen, which is the WiFi one announced today, will work there too -- it's a cell phone thing). So, when she headed to Switzerland two weeks ago, she just loaded up with books before she left.

The battery usage is the most amazing part from my perspective -- she usually only needs to charge it once a month (she keeps the WhisperNet cellphone radio off most the time) and it charges up really fast -- two-three hours.

\dmc

[mschell]

I, too, was waiting to take the plunge. Bought a Nook (WiFi + 3g) just before the price drop (but it had a coupon for $50 of books). Bought my wife the WiFi only Nook about a few weeks later for $150.

I resisted the Kindle because of the price and the keyboard. I love the Nook because of the color touchpad at the bottom, and that's it's Android based. Haven't looked back.

I get a free ebook every week from B&N, and don't even have to go in to the store to get it. Also instore discounts. It's probably a wash between the Nook and Kindle, both on the HW and the book selection, but there is the SD expansion slot on the Nook - no expansion on the Kindle.

In any case, take the plunge and buy an e-reader - it was great to have it handy when I was stuck somewhere for a few hours or overnight and could carry lots of books with me on mine.

But you will be paying thru the nose if you choose to use their wifi on that cruise!

[dirknerkle]

I took the plunge and ordered one for my bride. I figured, what the heck -- I think nothing of spending $150 on parts, wire, PVC, LEDs, light strings, YBBS cases, etc... this way maybe she can read some psychology books and figure out why this DIY lighting stuff is do addicting!!!

[Entropy]

I bought a Nook WiFi the day it was announced. I really love it so far. Even with the 3rd-gen Kindle being announced a week later, I don't regret it.

It's a bit of a pain to read IC datasheets on it, since it only does PDF reflow but not PDF zoom. (Don't think the Kindle does either). To get it to NOT reflow PDFs, set the font size to "small".

I've been using qpdf to remove the owner restrictions from PDFs followed by a tool called BRISS to crop out all the whitespace from datasheet PDFs. Makes em' a lot easier to read, but breaks crossreferences. (I have yet to find a tool that preserves TOC/xrefs properly and also crops.)

I've also resumed reading normal books (currently on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon) thanks to the Nook.

B&N has a nice "read in store" feature - you can read nearly any ebook in their collection for free for one hour a day when in store. You can also get free content when in-store sometimes.

I also now have a Twitter client and RSS feed reader on mine, since it's softrooted. (see http://www.nookdevs.org/)