Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?

My mom is getting my nephew one of the $79 Kindles for Christmas. I may get one, too. I was originally going to get Kindle Touch, but I wanted to see how the reviews were compared to the other models. I think I would prefer physical buttons. Thanks for your thoughts!

My sister is considering an e-reader for her 10 yesr old daughter. None of us can figure out if these are appropriate for someone her age.

Thoughts?

It's fantastic for kids. My 10 y.o. daughter is an avid reader and all her shelves are already full. Bought her a Kobo for her bday a few months ago - she loves it and uses it all the time. We have the password on it so we control the content, but she is free to read whatever is on there. She has a little clip on LED light for reading in bed at night. Highly recommended for a 10 year old IMO.

For me as an adult I'd start getting tempted by a tablet - why limit yourself to just reading books? But for a kid where you want that to be the main focus I think it's a great idea. I don't have to worry about my daughter surfing the net when she should be reading or sleeping. And if she's reading instead of sleeping, how upset can I really be with that?

My personal experience on the e-ink vs. LCD

I have now read several books on my Kindle 3. I truly love it and have come to prefer the entire experience over paper format.

Because I only recently invested in a protective cover, I was not travelling with it and I have spent a few good hours reading on Sharon's iPad if she was with me. It could just be my aging eyes but I found book reading for more than 30 minutes or so on the LCD screen Very tiring on the eyes.

Yes, I use two LCD screens all day at work and possibly more at home but I keep them situated a rough minimum of 4' back from my eyes. There is something about an LCD at hand held distance for serious reading that I find tiring. I definitely could not do longer than an hour without enough discomfort to quit.

It may not be a deal breaker for some but I thought I'd share my experience. If your a casual reader looking for a cheap tablet, the Kindle Fire is attractive for it's price point, even if it's a bit under powered as a full tablet. If you are a serious reader (long sessions), I would definately recommend an e-ink device.

I just received my Kindle (the cheap $79 one) which I'll be using to re-read The Wheel of Time. Definitely easier than toting around the hardcovers, which, while not as bad as the softcovers, like to fall apart. I still like having the books on my shelf, but I'm thinking I'll really like the convenience of the Kindle. I guess we'll see after I charge it and actually begin reading with it for extended periods of time.

I'm still enjoying my Kindle. Currently trying to slowly finish book five in The Song of Fire and Ice series in what little spare time I seem to have.

Just last week we bought a Kobo Touch for Sharon. Our local library recently started using Overdrive as thier lending platform and they don't support the Kindle in Canada yet. Booooo!

Joyce has decided she wants a Fire now that we have wireless in the place. She wants to play "Words with Friends" with her family but refuses to pay another $30/month on our wireless bill for a new phone!

She also has a Sony e-reader, but as we're Amazon Prime members, she probably would read on the Fire, despite the lack of e-ink.

I guess there's no perfect device for anyone at this point... and certainly no one "right" device for the masses.

Yesterday at work, someone I know with a Kindle Fire though it'd be nice to have her's password protected, so she gave it to her retired husband to figure out and put a password in it. Which he did, but then couldn't remember exactly what it was.

So she called her son, and he said the only way to use it now without a password is to reset the entire thing back to the way it was when she bought it. With absolutely nothing on it. Which she did. Painful lesson somewhere in there.

All her books will still be available. She will just need to re-download if it didn't happen automatically. Amazon keeps a backup of everything. Well technically, it is actually more like they keep track of what you own. It would make not sense for them to backup the same book thousands of times for each individual users.

Anything else she added will still need to be manually added again of course, but at least the books have been made simple. Alleviates the fear that if you drop your reader in a puddle that you lose your library.

Thanks, I'll tell her that.