Oh great and wise flist....

[gothams3rdrobin]

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with an Amazon Kindle?

My neighbour at work showed it to me on the website, 'cause he's looking to replace his books due to lack of shelf space. While I will always love books, and don't intend to stop buying them, I gotta admit I don't have too much room either. Plus there are times when something like a Kindle would be really, really useful.

Case in point, I need a copy of the A-text edition of Christopher Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' asap to continue with my studies. It's ranging from £5 to £8 depending on if I get it off Amazon.co.uk or pick it up in a shop - however, I could download it off kindle for under a pound.... Would never fully replace the hardcopy, 'cause it helps with those kind of books to be able to see both the prose page and the notes page at the same time, but still!

Tempted to download the PC version of the Kindle reader too....

Any thoughts guys?

Comments

[moonanstars.livejournal.com]

I don't have one personally but the blood lady who is here every 8 weeks has one and several friends. They all love them for portability and battery life etc. It's apparently easy to find books for on it for the most part but it's not always cheaper to buy them that way. But you can download most of the classics either for free or for extremely cheap which is nice.

[gothams3rdrobin.livejournal.com]

Cool! :-) I'm so tempted....

[moonanstars.livejournal.com]

My only temptation was to be able to take a library with me when I traveled lol it gets heavy taking all those books everywhere

[gothams3rdrobin.livejournal.com]

This is it! I don't travel a lot, other than on public transport - and I do like to hold a book in my hands - but it would be so useful!

[lithera.livejournal.com]

I have one. I love mine, I love it to death.

And it is very useful. I have not stopped buying paper books but I will say that my Kindle has changed the way I travel. I no longer have to carry six books with me for a long flight and hating a book is much less of a worry since I can replace it more easily.

There are a ton of free books out there too. Anything older than whatever date copyright has been pushed out to, is likely out there for free, totally legally.

What questions do you have?

[gothams3rdrobin.livejournal.com]

Mostly what you've already answered :-) I'm so pleased to hear it's good for travelling and stuff - my Dad has a generic e-book reader that he got to take with him to Gibraltar.

It would be good to have it for the bus/break time at work. Particularly if you can add your own PDFs to it - makes it possible to store the electronic versions of my course books on it too, I should imagine.

Do you the 3G version? Any issues with downloading?

I downloaded the Kindle for PC app, to see what I thought, but I can't register it to my Amazon account :-( I've sent a message to ask for assistance on that though, since it's not covered in the troubleshooting section.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

You can e-mail .pdfs to your Kindle as each Kindle comes with an e-mail address attached to it. I have the 2nd generation one, so it is all 3G and no wireless on mine but I've not had problems with it, except when out in the middle of no where where I can't get cell reception, either. And if you're near a computer, you can download to your computer and then port over to the Kindle if you need to do that.

[gothams3rdrobin.livejournal.com]

Awesome.... it really does sound like a good little investment.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

I've loved mine. I know they aren't for everyone but I really do love mine. I know people who prefer other brands and that's cool too. As long as people are reading more, it is all good as far as I'm concerned.

[gothams3rdrobin.livejournal.com]

I don't even know where Dad gets the files for his ebook reader from! :-)

And absolutely! I read so much fanfic online that I sometimes forget how nice it is to just curl up with a book - which is why I doubt I'd ever stop buying the actual hardcopies.

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Free eBooks! \o/

[gothams3rdrobin.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh *lookies*

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

Not sure what you mean by 'a-text edition' but they do have a copy of Faustus.

[gothams3rdrobin.livejournal.com]

Awesome... I think it's like an unabridged edition or something like that. The Kindle version's not the same either, so I'll have to buy the hardcopy anyway, but a backup copy on the computer'll be invaluable when I'm studying.