No more paper?
It’s official Amazon have killed the paperback and they’ve called it the Kindle!
Well not really though the have made the reality of an ipod-esque book replacement one step closer. There are already a couple of ‘readers’ (for want of a much better term) in the US market. Sony Reader is now in it’s second generation and Irex’s Iliad (Andrew Marr gave the first generation Reader and the Iliad a good go in an article for the Guardian earlier this year). You can get the Iliad in the UK for £433!!
It seems that the Kindle takes book reading one stage further by using a free mobile phone connection so that you can buy books, read your subscriptions to a couple of newspapers and selected blogs (as selected by Amazon and for a price).
There are so many things to say about displays that masquerade as books that I don’t know where to start!
The good thing about each of them is that use a version of digital ink so that the words are permanently on. Meaning that there should be any flicker to tire your eyes. It also means that there is no back lighting of the displays so you have to use ambient light - not such a bad thing as it says the battery for turning the pages though I don’t know how using the network connection on the Kindle will effect the battery life.
My problem is that I can not see an ipod like revolution in way we read. ipods are great. I have one that was kindly bought for me. I have music on the go. That is on long car journeys and train trips.
If I want to listen to music at home I usually have it blasting from the computer as I type or I’m feeling really environmentally unfriendly the computer is on as I read. I have decent pair or headphones and good speakers so the music arrives in good shape.
Now with a book I don’t need electronics to enjoy it unlike pre-recorded music or television. I can pick up a book open it and I’m off. If I drop it that’s ok it’s not going to damage it that much. I can skim it really quickly if it’s poetry book or a non-fiction title and I’m looking for something. And if I loose it I’ve lost a couple of quid. The same can’t be said for ‘readers’. They need charging. You can’t skim it the same way. And if I drop or loose it I’m down a lot more than the price of paperback.
Guilt plays a big part in a my book reading. A big pile of books forces me to read them so the pile goes down. How to you do that with an electronic book? On top of that I like to see the bookmark progressing through the book and when I’m near the end I can see how much further I have to go.
But the more I think about it the more I like the idea of having one as long as it feels nice to use. On visuals and size I like Sony’s Reader. If I was going to have an electronic book then all I really need is software to swap books from computer to device and something to turn the pages. No keyboards, no pens, wi-fi might be alright. But the simpler the better.
I wonder when the UK is going to get a Sony Reader and Kindle? and will I actually get one??
