I returned my Kindle2 after a month because it did not do the job for the three things I wanted to read on it - the Newyorker, the NY Times, and my email.
But now I am reading vast amounts of stuff again in Grad school, so should I buy a Kindle?
Here's how much they cost. Kindle=$150(used), Kindle2=$220(used), DX=$490.
Assumptions
- You do not like reading on a laptop or desktop, but you learn to like your eReader.
- You get, and print, about 50 pages of PDF a week to read, per 10-week, 3-credit course.
- You have, or are willing to buy, an entry-level B&W laser printer.
- You buy 3 textbooks per 3-credit course, AND they are available on the Kindle.
- The saving on the Kindle edition is $5.
Total potential saving per course = ($5*3)+($0.05*50*10)= $40.
So I would potentially break-even after 6 courses if I bought a Kindle2 used.
Assumption#4 is probably the weakest of the lot.
If #4 were true, then the saving on #5 might be more than $5 per book.
If there are no textbooks for a course, you probably have more readings, and your printing costs will be even higher (probably more than $15 per course = 300 additional pages).
I assume you read the New Yorker article several weeks ago on the Kindle. As I raised the other night I again question the issue of archiving. If you loose your Kindle you loose all your books, can't keep copies on your backup drive. I am assuming you want to keep all your books otherwise you would have figured in how much you can get to sell them back to the bookstore (not an option with Kindle). To loose all your books might take a conflagration at your home, to "loose" a kindle? If your house gets burgled will they take the books, leave the Kindle?
ReplyDeleteHowever, all my books are also held in a repository at Amazon.com. Thus if I lose my kindle, I can get another one and replace all my books. Whereas, if my house burns down, my books are ash. I can send my kindle emails and pdfs and docs and can read the Seattle times on it, sent every day for $5 a month.
ReplyDeleteJan, I thought about resale of paper books only after I posted. You are right about the ownership issue.
ReplyDeleteRRider is correct about Amazon holding onto your library in the cloud. But you still don't *own* anything. Just the *right* to read on Amazon's hardware, at their pleasure.
This weekend's debacle at T-mobile and Microsoft (no fly-by-night operators) is a very timely reminder of what it means to be on the bleeding edge. Some Sidekick owners have just lost **everything** stored on their phones.
If you are not following this story, here's a snip from the OaklandPress.com
"The phones have been troubled by data outages for more than a week. Some users attempted to restart their phones by removing the battery, which erases data on the device. Normally, the data is then restored from servers, but with the server data gone, the device is left empty." Sorry!
University libraries, who have a huge interest in longevity of collections, have been dealing with this ever since they began to switch to digital subscriptions. They no longer own anything, except some bytes on a server they don't control,and must pay for into eternity.
The final reason I returned my Kindle was I could not borrow library books on it, nor sell the books I had bought from Amazon. Amazon has its own interpretation on what DRM means. And that does not include a library model - even if it is their own.