I'd been largely indifferent to the thought of getting an ebook reader for a while now. However, just recently, my dad got a Kindle. It's unthinkable for my dad to have a nifty gadget that I don't have, therefore I decided that I should have a Kindle, too. So I asked for and received a Kindle 3 for my birthday.

I thought the 3G option sounded pointlessly expensive, so I just got the one with Wi-Fi. The point is to load the thing up with SO MUCH STUFF, I don't need the connection except every once in a while to top up, right?

Anyway, here are my thoughts after several days of extensive use:



Likes:

1. Honestly, a lot of the books I read are on the large and bulky side. Being able to have a 1,000+ page book tucked away in my purse without taking up massive amounts of space is awesome. Also, I'm trying to cut down on the amount of shelves I'm gonna need when I move into my own place. While I love having books...they take up room.

2. I don't think I would have gotten the Kindle if I could only read books on it, though. I wanted a device that I could use as my all-purpose reading tool. I read a lot more than just books. I read fanfic, research articles, news articles, lengthy blog posts, etc. The Kindle lets me take these away from the computer for more convenient (and comfortable) reading.

Few tools I've found helpful:

Kindlebility: A bookmarklet that'll send articles/webpages/whatever to your Kindle. I used this first for Anything On the Web I Wanted on My Kindle. I ran into some formatting errors once when the bookmarklet rendered some smart quotes oddly in a fic. So I then also got...

Readability: Bookmarklet and/or browser add-on that polishes up webpages and can also be used to send them to your Kindle. It doesn't seem to create the same formatting errors as I was getting on Kindlebility, but I'm keeping both of them for now till I suss out whether I need I can get rid of one or the other.

Squee!Book: Newly found tool (thanks, frelling_tralk!). If there's a multi-chapter fanfic divided into different LJ posts (or on fanfiction.net) or a multi-part news article that you want to have on your Kindle in one file, this site will wrap the parts together for you and create an ebook out of it. It doesn't send to your Kindle, but you can use Amazon's method of emailing it to your Kindle address.

3. It makes it easier to read.

Let me sketch out my reading habits (of the non-book variety) prior to the Kindle. I had oodles of PDFs of interesting research articles I'd downloaded to be read at my convenience. They've been sitting there for months, most of them unread. I had an embarrassing amount of "to-read" fanfic on my delicious account. I'd go through a couple fics every now and again, but it felt like a chore. When keeping up with the news, I'd often skim longer articles.

Frankly, reading while sitting at the computer isn't just semi-uncomfortable, it's near impossible for me. When I'm on the computer, I'm doing SO MANY THINGS at once, I'm endlessly distracted. Reading requires a single-task focus that I couldn't conjure on the computer. I'd check my email every other paragraph. Oh, gotta reply to that LJ comment. Wonder if there's anything interesting on Facebok. Huh. How about Tumblr? Eh, what was this fic about? Lost track. Probably wasn't good anyway.

See, now I can load all this stuff on my Kindle, take it away from my computer, switch on some music, and read. I've already gone through so many fics on my to-read list. Genuinely gone through them. Read them all the way through, then thumbed to the next one. Research articles? Same thing. And I'm able to actually read those long news articles like you might find at The New Yorker or whatnot.

Basically, my reading habits have improved so much even just in the short time that I've had this thing.

4. I find I'm even reading books more often. Just because it seems easier to keep the Kindle with me than it is to lug around a book. I don't know why. Maybe it's a mental thing. But there it is.

Dislikes:

1. Ugh, the file system gives me fits. No way to do subfolders or tags or anything. I tried the Calibre software someone linked to me, but it didn't quite gel with how I like to do things. I've finagled a system on my Kindle that is manageable at least. I do think that future versions should come with a more intensive file and categorization system (rather than playing music or whatnot).

2. Though the Kindle supports PDFs, I've found that there are some significant sizing and clarity issues with them. I think this may just be a limitation of the format, but it poses a small annoyance. Also, page turns on PDFs seem to be much slower than other formats.

3. I bought the ebook, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. It's a data-heavy book with lots of charts. Unfortunately, some of the charts are practically unreadable on the Kindle. The ones that have a lot of data in a small space...apparently, the resolution of the Kindle isn't up to the task of rendering them adequately. This is especially irksome as this is an ebook I paid for, not some article I patched through to my Kindle. It should work better. Dammit, I want my charts!

4. It is a bit silly to find ebooks that are more expensive than their paperback counterparts. While those may be few and far between, the ebook prices are definitely on the high end considering the low cost of production for them. I can't say that I'm gonna switch to ebooks entirely. What I'm probably gonna do is compare prices and choose the cheapest option. Oftentimes, I'm probably gonna be able to find a used copy for cheaper than the ebook. But for those cases where I can't (especially for newer books), I'm definitely not gonna hesitate to get the ebook.

That's all! The Likes far, far outweigh the Dislikes thus far. I'm an ebook believer now, peeps. This stuff is awesome in a convenient package.