In Trial, Kindles Disappointing University Users 247
Phurge writes "When Princeton announced its Kindle e-reader pilot program last May, administrators seemed cautiously optimistic that the e-readers would both be sustainable and serve as a valuable academic tool. But less than two weeks after 50 students received the free Kindle DX e-readers, many of them said they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices. 'I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,' said Aaron Horvath, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy. 'It's clunky, slow and a real pain to operate.' 'Much of my learning comes from a physical interaction with the text: bookmarks, highlights, page-tearing, sticky notes and other marks representing the importance of certain passages — not to mention margin notes, where most of my paper ideas come from and interaction with the material occurs,' he explained. 'All these things have been lost, and if not lost they're too slow to keep up with my thinking, and the "features" have been rendered useless.'"
I bought a Kindle in August (Score:5, Informative)
I sent it back in September.
The navigation was atrocious and slow, the books I would read cost more in electronic form than in paper form and had much more severe licensing than the paper form. Translating PDF media to Kindle form resulted in something much less readable than on a laptop. The web browser was pathetic. The display wasn't as high contrast as a 40 yr old paperback. The keyboard letter labels are too small.
The darn thing was way too expensive for what it was.
novels. (Score:3, Informative)
I have one. It's great for novels. I've read ten sci-fi novels on it so far. Reading from the first page to the last is no problem, and having features like instant dictionary look-up is wonderful. But I'm not sure they would be so good for text books, where you're flipping back and forth a lot. To navigate any more than forward/back, you need to use a cumbersome, slow joystick thingy.
Perhaps future Kindles with touch-screens would be good enough. The search feature would be pretty useful for academic purposes compared to dead-tree. But he's right: having to use that joystick to navigate in "random" directions (rather than next/previous page) is a pain.
(oh and a bonus for the slashdot crowd: the Kindle is just Linux running some java reader app. you can actually install a full blown Ubuntu system via the USB port if you like.)
Re:Actually reminds me of... (Score:5, Informative)
iRex iLiad (Score:5, Informative)
I am an Australian, and as such Kindles are not viable for me, as they are not sold to Australian residents, and even if you get your hands on one, buying books is hard. Instead I purchased the only eBook reader officially sold in Australia - to my knowledge - the iRex iLiad.
I am loving it.
While it is not as high contrast as book paper, it is close. It is very readable, even for hours on end.
Navigating is made a lot easier by the stylus driven touch screen, though it is hampered slightly by the slow page/screen refresh. I find it more than livable though. It would be a lot worse without the stylus.
Once your in a book it is perfect, because you can change pages with the flick of a thumb. It is much better than holding a weighty book, and having to shuffle your arms around every minute or so to change pages.
One of the coolest features relevant to this article is the ability to scribble over books. With the stylus you can write on top of books, and your notes will be saved in a file associate with the book. It also has a highlight feature.
I must say though that I do not use it for academic research. Mostly personal research, and recreational reading. I personally think it would be fine for academia, but I don't have much experience in that field, so I can't really comment.
My only real complaint is the lack of books. The range is terrible, and the prices only 2% to 5% cheaper than normal books. As such I am getting to know and love the many public domain books. A great site I have found for this is: http://manybooks.net/
Re:Actually reminds me of... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This isn't the only slow device... (Score:1, Informative)
The effects aren't slowing down shit. It's just covering up a bit of loading time. Stop fucking whining.
Re:Totally different experience (Score:4, Informative)
I'm certainly not concerned about the torrented books. Also, to clear up a misconception, Amazon can't simply remove anything from your Kindle without action on your part. You first have to turn on the wireless (which is kept off to save battery life), and then (I believe) manually select "Sync and Check for New Items." That's the way you get new purchases, and the way they can remove purchases.
I posted about this elsewhere, but I bought a Kindle book and got a refund because the quality was poor (apparently Amazon OCRs some books in-house). Out of curiosity, I synced my Kindle after getting the refund, and the book disappeared. However, when I restored a backup copy, not only was I able to read it, but the book has not disappeared despite syncing several times after that.
My suspicion is that anyone with the 1984 book would likely have been able to restore a backup and use it without issue.
Re:News? (Score:3, Informative)