Kindle DX Announced

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And here I am thinking that the Kindel DX would be great to put the Commissioner's Handbook on for GA!
 
Does the Kindle allow for electronic highlighting and marginal notes? That would be a great advantage for those who mark their books up a bit in study.
 
A few months ago I came across this article online, "Three Arguments against the Kindle" [http://www.inhabitatiodei.com/2009/04/23/three-arguments-against-the-kindle/], linked from Jake Belder's blog, café de soirée

To sum up the article:

Argument one: The Kindle destroys the trace of the author.
Argument two: the Kindle destroys the community of readers which books engender.
Argument three: the Kindle denies the call to deep, meditative reflection.

Whaddaya think? Talk among yourselves...

That link only went to a page not found message for me, but I found the article here: Three Arguments against the Kindle | Inhabitatio Dei

My general reaction to the argument is "bah." But the last line might persuade Fred:

The Kindle is the devil.
Except the guy misspelled it, it should be "debil."

The destruction of the trace of the author argument relies upon the binding and cover of the original book. A reprint would do the same sort of "destruction." Not too compelling.

The community of readers argument seems kind of thin. Sure, I lend out books occasionally, but only those I don't expect to see again. I could just as easily buy my friend a Kindle copy as give a book away. BTW, doesn't the guy understand that once you purchase the Kindle book, it is yours to keep? He seems to think that it only allows one reading. People could, and probably will, do some Kindle swapping if they are too cheap to buy an edition for themselves.

The deep meditative reflection argument seems pretty shallow too. I've seen a Kindle--the page looks like paper. I've had deep meditative reflection studying printed pages from an internet site while sitting on a bus. I don't see how the device changes anything.

I freely admit that I'm a curmudgeon. I like old books. I'm not the least tempted by the latest gadget. But I do think the Kindle balances out as a good thing. Calling it the devil, even in jesting hyperbole, strikes me as a misplaced shot--futile in its choice of target and its effect--and kind of derivative at that. They said cars and TVs were of the devil and look at how effective that was.

Actually, my main reservation about buying a Kindle is simply the fact that I have a lot of actual books I have yet to finish reading. The Scot in me won't let me buy anything else until I make a dent in that pile.
 
A few months ago I came across this article online, \"Three Arguments against the Kindle\" [http://www.inhabitatiodei.com/2009/04/23/three-arguments-against-the-kindle/], linked from Jake Belder's blog, café de soirée

To sum up the article:

Argument one: The Kindle destroys the trace of the author.
Argument two: the Kindle destroys the community of readers which books engender.
Argument three: the Kindle denies the call to deep, meditative reflection.

Whaddaya think? Talk among yourselves...

It's for all those reasons that I think binded books are the debil and prefer scrolls:

[video=youtube;LRBIVRwvUeE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRBIVRwvUeE[/video]
 
Has anyone here used the Kindle DX? I am very seriously thinking of getting either it or the second generation. What are the major differences?

The big advantage is size and native handling of PDF's. I won't even consider a Kindle 2 because I want that PDF support if I drop the $.

Does the Kindle allow for electronic highlighting and marginal notes? That would be a great advantage for those who mark their books up a bit in study.

Yes to both.
 
OK. Took the plunge. I will report back. (Praying that it will come before I leave for Orlando!)
 
Whenever people come to my place, they are always amazed at my 1500 volume library. If all those volumes were on a little kindle sitting on my desk, no one would care. While you guys are reading your kindle, I'll be sitting in front of my bookshelves with a smug look on my face. :smug:
 
If only, if only... I'd love to have one (especially now that it reads PDFs), but am not a big fan of proprietary DRMed formats, so it's staying off of my wishlist for now (not to mention the prohibitive price point when on a student's budget).
 
Whenever people come to my place, they are always amazed at my 1500 volume library. If all those volumes were on a little kindle sitting on my desk, no one would care. While you guys are reading your kindle, I'll be sitting in front of my bookshelves with a smug look on my face. :smug:

Yeah, but if you ever have to move, I imagine the Kindle guy would be hard pressed to keep from looking a tad smug. :p

But I have to admit, I'd take a library like that, especially if it had a fireplace and a nice coffee table with real coffee on it. I haven't counted the volumes we have, but they are in various rooms on shelfs of all sorts of sizes and shapes. My favorite collection right now are the Puritan works I've found online, printed out double sided, and bound in recycled deposition folders. Nobody so far has been impressed, but they read well and I don't worry too much about spills or stains.
 
Whenever people come to my place, they are always amazed at my 1500 volume library. If all those volumes were on a little kindle sitting on my desk, no one would care. While you guys are reading your kindle, I'll be sitting in front of my bookshelves with a smug look on my face. :smug:

Yeah, but if you ever have to move, I imagine the Kindle guy would be hard pressed to keep from looking a tad smug. :p

But I have to admit, I'd take a library like that, especially if it had a fireplace and a nice coffee table with real coffee on it. I haven't counted the volumes we have, but they are in various rooms on shelfs of all sorts of sizes and shapes. My favorite collection right now are the Puritan works I've found online, printed out double sided, and bound in recycled deposition folders. Nobody so far has been impressed, but they read well and I don't worry too much about spills or stains.


I've moved several times with them, and I still wear the smug look. They are a burden worth bearing. The best part about moving is unpacking all the books and thinking about how I'm going to arrange them this time around. You cannot convince me that a Kindle is better.:smug:
 
I really wouldn't much envy a large library. I have quite few volumes and, given the number of times I move, I don't like having to find places for books. I cannot sit in front of a computer screen for lengths of time reading long texts and I also do a lot of reading on the road or while working out. Both put wear and tear on my books. Also, because I need to have those texts with me, I end up with a couple of crates of books in the back of my car.

I'll frankly be happy to have something like this device that has all my volumes, where I can easily pull up what I need, and avoid all the clutter.
 
I'm saving for the Kindle DX, but I don't see it as 'better' than books - just good in different ways. Good for travel, especially. I won't be getting rid of my books, but I just don't have the space for any more, and much as I love the smell and feel of real books, they don't help my dust allergy much :). And there are so many classics available for free or for just a few dollars.

Other things I really like about the Kindle DX - you can download the 1st chapter of any book for free before you buy it. And it comes with an unabridged dictionary and you can select any word in any book you're reading and the definition will come up at the bottom of the page.

So I'm not buying any new books right now...really tough to hold off, especially with all the good suggestions on the PB :). My wish list is getting a bit out of control.
 
Mine is supposed to be delivered this evening. I am excited about the native PDF support. I plan on scanning the relevant portions of my commentaries on Philippians and taking "all of them" on vacation with me. (No lugging of books!!)
 
So just to clarify: there is space in which to write notes on the pages, correct? And I would be able to save the notes I write for reviewing them later?
 
So just to clarify: there is space in which to write notes on the pages, correct? And I would be able to save the notes I write for reviewing them later?

From the Amazon website:

Bookmarks and Annotations

By using the QWERTY keyboard, you can add annotations to text, just like you might write in the margins of a book. And because it is digital, you can edit, delete, and export your notes. Using the new 5-way controller, you can highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use. You'll never need to bookmark your last place in the book, because Kindle remembers for you and always opens to the last page you read.

I believe your notes are saved on the Kindle, and you can also export them to your computer, but I would also be interested in hearing from anyone who has actually used these functions. (as I said...still saving up... :))
 
This rules! I'm gonna hafta save some money though.

Are there any differences between the different Kindles besides their physical size and information capacity (and cost)?
 
This rules! I'm gonna hafta save some money though.

Are there any differences between the different Kindles besides their physical size and information capacity (and cost)?

I think the Kindle 2 is best but you might want to download PDF's
 
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