I think I’m in love

Posted by Mandy on August 6th, 2008 filed in Booky

I had my first run-in with a Kindle reader from amazon.com yesterday when I was visiting a friend; I loved it.  The screen was gorgeous, the type looked great, and it did a number of things that I liked, such as showing how far along in the book you are, allowing you to “clip” parts of the book that you like, etc.  over 4000 reviews on amazon.com and it still has 4 stars, which doesn’t seem too bad (and then you read some of the one-star reviews).

My question is this: is the kindle better than the Sony E-reader?  This site breaks it down in a point-by-point comparison, but I haven’t gotten my hands on the Sony yet to compare how they actually feel in the hand.  It’s clearly smaller than the Kindle.

And ok, so I have another question: Do I need something like this?  I read a great deal, and have been making alot of trips to the library.  The library is free although it is a drive to get there for us, about 10-15 minutes.  An e-reader is most certainly not free, but neither is it using carbon fuels to supply myr eading material.  On the other hand, the books I read over and over again at night, well, I already own them.  BUT, when I do travel, I miss not having them around and usually find myself gong to great lengths to go to a bookstore to fill in the gaps.  Granted, I don’t travel like I used to, so it’s not as big a deal.  If I did travel like I used to, though, it seems to me that would be the perfect time for  for a kindle given its wireless capacity that works from almost anywhere without a computer intermediary.  The Sony requires a download onto the computer first, then uploading into the device.  Sony has over 160,000 titles, and Amazon offers about half that, including blogs, newspapers, etc., in that number, not just book titles.

(Seriously, as an aside to my reader, Dave: you should look into a kindle if you read alot on trips–worth its weight in gold according to my friend who is a constant business traveller, essentially because it is wireless and doesn’t rely on a computer for downloading new material).

Gentle readers (for I know there are at least three, ha!), please give me any experience you may have with one or the other of these.  Thanks!