Friday, December 27, 2013

Kindle, Nook, et al

I am not an "early adopter" of technology - nor probably anything else.  In fact, the picture below is of my actual cell phone - which most people laugh at when they see it.  But, it cost me $20 for the phone and 9.99 a month so I'm reasonably happy.  Plus, my brother has the same model!!!  (Hmmm.)




But this isn't about phones, it's about "reading devices," which I've been reluctant to embrace.





In a crisis, the local Hillsborough County Library did not have "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson in real print, which was on my list.  It was available in eBook however.  I borrowed ML's Kindle Fire that she got for a gift a year or so ago and rarely uses.  It was easy to download it to the Fire, although I had to get ML to do it through her Amazon account.  I didn't even have to go to the library . . .




So here's what I think . . ..

a.) If I traveled a lot, I would definitely have a electronic reader.

b.) I would have preferred more words on the "Fire" page.  Too much swiping! 

c.) It was nice that if a question came up, related to the book or not, I could switch over to the Fire browser and look it up with the same device. 


d.) The real benefit from my thinking is that if I subscribed to the "tablet" versions of magazines and/or newspapers that I get, I could get rid of tons of clutter surrounding the various chairs and bedside table that I use: stacks of books, magazines, newspapers, little slips of paper with notes on them, references that I'm saving to look up when I have time, you name it.   (like you see in the photo on the left.)

Just think, maybe we could have a clean house with one tablet each. 

No, you're right, even that won't work. 

I confess, it was OK, but I still like fumbling with a real book.  Must be my age.

2 comments:

  1. Funny post. The boys happen to get Kindle Fire's for Christmas this year. Mostly for reason A and C but reason D is a good one too. Not sure about the too much swiping as they haven't had much time using them for reading..... but that will come once I put the parental controls on them. Hope you had a great Christmas.

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  2. I think you can adjust "how many words per page" but of course that makes the print smaller... I agree re: useful for travel. Also useful if you're lazy like me & want to just download the book from the library instead of actually traveling to the physical place. Another small thing i like (esp useful when I had one hand out of commission) is not needing two hands: you don't have to put down your coffee to turn the page! My biggest 'plaint is that I don't like reading non-fiction books on it because I want to flip back-and-forth to end-notes, maps - or add sticky notes. But I think that's being addressed in newer devices -. & it's sure "too" easy to buy & load those Kindle books from Amazon!

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