The second complaint I have is mostly a non-issue when you spend 99% of your time actually reading. The Kindle isn’t quite as responsive to swiping and tapping as modern cell phones and tablets. I imagine this has to do with the technology being different and geared toward the reading experience. It’s fine when simply flipping to the next page in the book. But, on other screens, it’s a minor annoyance.
I actually find this one of the biggest benefits to the device. It’s only good at reading, even the built in GoodReads navigation is terrible. So you read without distractions.
I read 99% of the time on my Kindle and then purchase the books that stand out to me as needing a second or third reading.
Also Tadlock must be extra awesome because we both enjoy Brandon Sanderson.
6 responses to “On the Kindle Paperwhite”
I love my Paperwhite as well, but I use it only for reading. Anything else would drive me nuts.
In the same boat. I purchase on it sometimes, but even that is harder than just grabbing my phone making a purchase and then reading on my Kindle in the few seconds it takes to download the new book.
I’ve been wanting to get one, but I keep holding myself back concerned about the vendor lock-in and DRM on purchased books. I’ve already had at least two movies and one album I purchased digitally vanish when the rights holder decided it didn’t want their content on the platform. Although it wasn’t from Amazon.
Yeah I get that. You’re not actually purchasing the book from Amazon you’re getting the right to read it. I have one book that says I’ve downloaded it too many times so I can’t read it anymore except on my wife’s iPad which was the first download. Still the prices are so much cheaper and I can live in my office without 1000+ books.
I do get paper of the things I think are worth reading again.
I’m pretty sure there are ways around the DRM (though that’s probably not exactly legal).
Even without purchasing from somewhere like Amazon, there are thousands (millions?) of e-books available in the .epub format and free to download. You won’t find too much contemporary stuff, but there’s a vast wealth of great literature that you can pick up at no cost. With the Calibre program (free), you can convert to a Kindle-based format.
Project Gutenberg, epubBooks, and many more are places.
I just switch over to my phone for the Goodreads integration and purchasing books. I think I found that aspect more of an annoyance early on as I kind of wanted to explore the device’s capabilities. Now, I pretty much only read, so it’s a non-issue for me. As part of the review, I felt like new buyers may find that info helpful.