Monday 16 August 2010

I've pre-ordered a Kindle 3!

I've been toying with the idea of an E-book reader for a while now, but wasn't really sure and then thanks to some rather good product placement, I had the Kindle 3 drummed into me and when I say good product placement, I mean the very large chunk of the front page of the Amazon website!

The concept of E-book readers seem to be something that you either love or hate and over the past week I've lost track of the amount of arguments "against" them. You no longer get that sensation of turning a page, they don't look as nice as a collection of books and my personal "favourite"... you don't get the "smell" of paper... In the plus corner however is convenience (thousands of books in your hands), the fact you don't have to constantly hold the thing open, the nice "look" about it isn't ruined when you damage the spine by actually opening it (paperbacks anyway), the size (real books take up a ton of space and my house isn't that big!) and you're sort of helping the environment by not placing demands for paper (although that's probably offset by the fact you need to charge them up!).

But I have to ask... does it matter what it looks like? So what if it's paper, electronic or even in audio form, it's still the same book. The story and characters haven't changed and it's just the method of how it's being delivered that's different and you still be drawn into it (assuming it's a good book anyway!). I doubt books will just go away anytime soon, but at some point in the future it seems inevitable they'll all go electronic... it's just more efficient... Okay enough rambling, time for pretty pictures!




Soon that'll be my hand! :) Well actually, no it won't. Sadly it doesn't get released until August 27th and because I didn't order mine straight away I'm due to get mine around September 10th (possibly before though) so boo :( But isn't it pretty and thin? :) They make a WiFi model and a WiFi + 3G model and I wasn't really sure that I'd ever use the 3G, but figured I might as well rather than kick myself later!

Like most E-readers it doesn't use an LCD screen (like on computers/phones), but rather an E-ink display so the text looks more natural as well as it works in bright sunlight. It also means it has an insanely long battery life since it only takes power to actually change the page and it doesn't really matter if you leave a page "on" indefinitely (well it still suffers the normal gradual slow battery discharging, but you get the idea!). Amazon are really pushing the fact that it can download books in 60 seconds from anywhere (assuming you have the 3G one and you're in a service area!), but seriously... do people actually want a book that badly?! "OMG MUST HAVE BOOK NOW - 60 SECONDS? THAT'S TOO LONG!" :S Indeed... :S

But for now I have to wait... and grr I want it now!! :(

0 comments:

Post a Comment