As I was looking at the boxes of books in my basement that I haven't cracked in the last 3+ years, I realized that while there were some books in there that I like, I'm really unlikely to keep carting the boxes of books around for the rest of my life. Furthermore, I started thinking about how cool it would be if, instead of looking at boxes full of books, I was just looking at folders on my hard drive (I used to feel this way about CDs and I imagine lots of people did before the iPod came around). Carrying around boxes of heavy books is a pain, while carrying around a hard drive is very easy.The Kindle would seem to be the solution for me: simply draw a line in the sand as of the day I receive the Kindle and never buy another paper book again. I could talk myself into that kind of strategy, but I'm not sure that the Kindle is the perfect device yet for the following reasons:
- It uses a pretty proprietary data network to download stuff from Amazon. Although I'm not a world traveler, I'd like to be able to buy books when on vacation if I run out.
- It doesn't seem beefy enough for general use. I take books to the gym, to the beach, read them by the pool, etc., so I want my ebook reader to work in all those places without getting damaged.
- You have to turn it off during takeoff and landing. This rule applies to all electronics, but I think about how much time I have to leave my electronics off on a plane, and I'm usually reading during that time, so that's frustrating (and applies to any ebook reader, not just the Kindle).
Link -- Amazon Kindle
1 comment:
I have been hauling around boxes of books for decades now. So I know what you mean. I also was a DJ in Chicago for quite awile. Hauling around 4 crates of records every night of the week. Not to mention my collection of 7000 LPs.
But I agree, the Kindle is one hot item. If you can get one. I will definitely pick one up in the near future. But like my addiction for vinyl records I could never give my books. No matter how many backaches I get.
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