The Top 10 Reasons Why The Kindle Beats The Book

Written by David SwindlecloseAuthor: DavidSwindle Name: David Swindle
Email: DavidSwindle@gmail.com
Site: http://davidswindle.blogspot.com
About: I'm a free lance writer, film critic, and blogger. I frequently write about politics, ideology, spirituality, books, and TV. I am a graduate of Ball State University with degrees in English (creative writing) and Political Science. I live in Muncie, Indiana with my wife April, our cat Butters, and Siberian Husky puppy Maura. More about me here: http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35212See Authors Posts (11) on July 6, 2009

I got my Amazon Kindle 2 for my birthday a few months back and have really come to love it. For avid readers and especially political junkies it’s an essential purchase.

For those not familiar with the Kindle, it`s an e-book reader that looks sort of like a palm pilot. You`re able to download books wirelessly from the Amazon store and upload personal documents and read them just as you would a regular book. The screen isn`t like a computer`s. It`s so-called “digital paper” — it actually displays ink so one avoids the eye strain common with a computer screen. The Kindle also has numerous features that have come to revolutionize the way I read. And so to better understand the Kindle experience, I present, the Top 10 Reasons Why the Kindle Beats the Book.

1. Text-to-Speech. One of the features of the Kindle that I love is that it can read to you, an extremely convenient feature for those us with an on-the-go kind of lifestyle.

2. Magazine and Newspapers. The Kindle is capable of delivering your newspaper to you each morning and your magazine as soon as it`s available. Not all the magazines I want are yet available on the Kindle. I have done several trial subscriptions, though, and am quite pleased with how it works. Since I`ve had to move around a fair amount in the past few years, I’ve been discouraged from getting subscriptions to my political magazines. As soon as there are Kindle editions to The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Economist, and The New York Review of Books, I`ll be subscribing. (Kindle subscriptions are cheaper than buying the actual magazine — one of the primary roadblocks toward me renewing my Economist subscription.)

3. It`s easier to lose yourself in a Kindle book than a regular book. I`m obviously a pretty passionate reader but I`m still often intimidated by the size of books. A thick book is scary. That problem doesn`t exist with the Kindle. There`s a little bar at the bottom that tells you at what point in the book you`re at but you`re not constantly being reminded of the mountain you`re climbing.

4. Want a book now? It`s yours. I can have virtually any book any time. I first realized this when I was reading a book review in the New York Times. Suddenly I realized, “Wait a second. I could be reading this book right now.” I then went into the Kindle store directly from my Kindle (since the Kindle has free wireless access to the web and the online store) and downloaded the free sample.

5. Free samples! What`s that? Free samples? Yes. You don`t have to buy a book without knowing what it`s like. Just as you`d browse through a book in a book store you`re able to download the first chapter of a book for free to see if you`re going to want to read it.

6. Free internet access anywhere. Granted, the browser on the Kindle is pretty basic. It`s not like you can watch YouTube videos or anything. But why would you want to? If you`re someone that needs internet access on the go you probably already have a phone or blackberry. The Kindle internet access is convenient and wonderful for what it`s meant for: accessing wikipedia.

7. A thousand books in the palm of my hand. One of my problems is that on trips I tend to like to take multiple books or magazines with me. With the Kindle I`m able to take my whole library with me.

8. No more losing my place; all my notes and highlights are easily available. The Kindle remembers where you`re at in each book. It also allows you to make digital notes in the margins, stick in additional bookmarks, and highlight passages. You can also clip passages and save articles — very convenient for later blog posts.

9. Already have a bunch of ebooks? No problem. I already have a pretty extensive collection of digital books. I`m able to send those to my Kindle and read them more easily than if I was just sitting at my computer.

10. Don`t know a word? The dictionary is built right into the book! If you ever come across a word in a Kindle book that you don`t know just put the cursor by it and you`ll get the definition at the bottom of the screen. I think I`ll probably have to start using this feature more regularly once I start reading William F. Buckley, Jr. on my Kindle. His

Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes and Asides from National Review

is one of the Kindle books I`m most eager to read next.

The only principle downsides of the Kindle:

1. It encourages buying books instead of borrowing them or getting them from the library.
2. I can`t loan them to friends.
3. Not exactly ideal for graphic novels.

Suggestions for improvements for the next Kindle:

1. Obviously the text to speech is a work in progress. It does mispronounce words in a strange way sometimes. When I would listen to the New York Times on my way to work I`d get accustomed to it pronouncing the president`s name O-BaMM-a. While listening to Bart Ehrman`s Jesus, Interrupted I had to adapt to the Gospel of Luke being pronounced Loo-Uk.

2. It would be nice if I could turn text to speech on and off more easily. If I could hop in the car and just press one button instead of 3 then that would be great.

3. It would be nice if somehow it would be possible to borrow library books on the Kindle or lend books to other people or swap books. This will never happen, though. It`s not in Amazon`s self-interest at all to enable any kind of functionality which would result in people buying fewer books. So what will happen as the Kindle gradually gets more popular and gets more momentum is that books will become much the same way MP3s have today.

4. It would be nice if I could sell my used Kindle books that I don`t want anymore. Again, this will probably never happen. It would cut into Amazon`s bottom line too much. But what if when you went to buy a book you could instead buy from another user for a few dollars less then fewer Amazon books would be sold. Though I do see ways for Amazon to perhaps profit from it. What if Amazon charged a fee to re-sell Kindle books through their service? Sell a used book of yours for $6 and Amazon gets $2 of it in processing and transportation fees? Or how about if you sold it back to Amazon itself and maybe got a $2 or $3 credit on your next purchase?

The Kindle represents an exciting leap into the future. Now with the Kindle on the market and thriving it`s just a matter of time before new companies start to put out their own products with new innovations and ideas. And the winner of this competition will be us: the book buying public. I can`t wait to see how this new technology and capitalist contest plays out.