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.
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.
ReplyDeleteI 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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