Kindle Research

Via http://bit.ly/eRX0kM :

Should I Buy a Kindle? (July 1, 2010)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1478887

• "...get an iPad and use the Kindle App - it's 1000x better than the hardware Kindle. Since the Kindle App became available for iPhone, my hardware Kindle has gathered dust - and now with the iPad, I can read on a large- or smaller-format device. It's great for illustrations, too - all the drawbacks of the hardware-based Kindles disappear when you use the Kindle App on the iPad."
  
• Not great for technical books
  
• DRM

Kindle Is OK (July 29, 2010)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1557352

• Lighter than iPad (if reading for several hours...)
  
• Battery life lasts for weeks if 3G turned off
  
• "...flipping through technical references is painful to the point of despair, and was one of the key reasons I fell in love with my iPad."
  
• "As one who has read about 30 novels on my K1/K2 - I can attest that your brain / eyes actually seem to go into a wait state when you change the page, such that you don't ever seem to recall changing pages while reading long fiction."
  
• "The Kindle is best at reading straight-forward linear text with minimal formatting, like novels. You can't go wrong with a Kindle if you read plenty of novels, especially if you read outside.
  
  OTOH, the iPad is far superior for heavily formatted text and graphical content. Even the Kindle DX has terrible support for PDFs and the eInk screen is inherently bad for graphics, so for the person who wants to carry textbooks, technical papers, other structured PDFs, or comic books, the iPad is the only viable option."
  
• "Students at Reed College complained of the slow refresh rate of e-Ink displays, problematic input, inability to load PDFs over the network, and inability to view more than one text at a time as major sticking points. Reed faculty found converting documents to work well on the Kindle to be particularly difficult in most cases.
  
  Students participating in the test at Darden School of Business, while loving the Kindle for personal reading, overwhelmingly felt the Kindle didn't pass muster in its current state for academic use -- about 4 out of 5 would not recommend a Kindle DX to incoming MBA students."
  
• Vs. iPad: "It's also nice that I don't get distracted playing "Plants vs. Zombies" or "We Rule" on it when I intend to be reading."
  
• Vs. Nook/Kobo: "eInk is far better for reading"
  
• "I have the Kindle App on the ipad as well, it doesn't afford the same pleasure or ease."
  
• "Most Kindle books have poor typography slapped on them by the Kindle software (even on other platforms)."
  
• "My girlfriend has a kindle 2, and I have an iphone. I've found that the iphone has one killer feature that the kindle doesn't: It's in my pocket all the time.For whatever reason, my reading happens in 15 minute spurts while waiting for someone or something. The kindle app for the iphone allows me to do that, along with all the book options that amazon provides (and synced up to my girlfriend's kindle too, so we share books)."
  
• Kindle supports MOBI/PRC/AZW but not ePUB. You could use the free conversion tool calibre and batch convert your books from ePUB.
  
• Sony also has a reader

Send to Kindle... (Jan 20, 2011)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123571

• All books appear almost the same, little or no typesetting
  
• The note taking interface is shockingly primitive, e.g. just to get a questions mark requires several clicks
  
• AFAIK, pagination depends on you display, so bookmarks may change place among Kindle readers on different devices.
  
• My criticisms of the Kindle are for its page transitions and poor interface. The Kindle is really like the Blackberry of of digital readers. The interface is beyond clunky compared to simple taps and swipes that much more closely emulate the act of reading a physical book.
  
• I have a Kindle, Ipad, and android phone (Droid X). Kindle: Pro: One great thing about the kindle is battery life and how easy it is on the eyes. For reading fiction, it's great. Con: It is horrible for technical work--pdfs in particular. If you're like me and you jump around in a book, it's impractical to do so on a kindle given the slow page refresh rate. Pro: The nice thing about the kindle app on the android phone is the convenience--when I'm standing in line at the grocery store (or am on the subway), I can catch up on some light reading and have finished a number of books this way that I wouldn't have ordinarily. Con: Screensize. I used to use the kindle app on the ipod touch and find the screensize of the Droid X to be a much better experience--but it's still small.
  
  Ipad: Pro: The screensize is great and bookmarking pages is intuitive. Also, for technical books, I can get them in pdf form and use GoodReader.
  
  Con: Battery life--for international flights, if you don't have power, you can survive, but the kindle wins with battery life hands down.