While funny, why pick on the new shiney rock called a Kindle? For someone like me who travels a great deal, is a voracious reader and has limited cargo space, the Kindle is beyond fantabulous.

As I'm deployed to Iraq and spend a great deal of time waiting on aircraft, carrying one book-sized object vice several is a literal God-Send. Cheaper too, $5 vs $10 or more for print books.

Yeah, but you're in the one situation where this thing actually makes sense. The rest of us have access to libraries, and used book stores, and can get loads of books shipped to us from used sellers on Amazon for cheap and can get rid of them when we're done with them using the same outlets. Most people are never away from their home for so long that they need more than a couple of books anyway.

So unless you're deployed in Iraq (You have my utmost respect, by the way.) or in some kind of touring company or sports team, they seem kind of stupid.

This seems to be one of the few electronical gadgets that you can't seeem to sell to a 10-year-old billionaire.

That'd give me something to think about ;).

Nah, just paint a starfleet logo on the back. Stamp property of U.S.S. Enterprise on the back. He'll buy 10 of them. You just have to think more like a geek here.

I have to confess... I want a Kindle. I want one bad.

But I decided to wait. Way I figure it, by next year it'll be half as expensive and twice as good.

In all fairness to the Kindle, I think that anybody who travels a lot could justify buying one. Or, frankly, anybody who has limited space. I know there are a lot of people like me who have a really hard time parting with their books after they've read them and they tend to pile up pretty quickly. If you think of the $400 price tag vs. the cost of a couple of decent bookshelves, maybe it's not such a ridiculous idea. Of course, I still love the feel of a book in my hands, but that's just me.

They're obviously very popular, as Amazon has been pretty much sold out of these babies since they were introduced. Way more than six have been sold. Way more.

Personally, I'd really like to have one. If it were in color, and had multimedia capabilities (movies, MP3s, etc.) and had an SD slot... I'd really really love to have one. But they ain't cheap.

In Response to Defcon64 (#42170):

I'm sure you could write a similar comic for just about any electronic device out there.

I have yet to see an iphone or ipod touch so I'll reserve a final judgment until I do, but from what I've read I fail to see what niche they would fill in my life outside of looking 'cool'.

An electronic reader like the kindle is something I've wanted for a long time, ever since I tried reading ebooks on my palmIII (which I dropped and never felt the need to replace). I only recently received my kindle and am quite happy with it.

Not having to print out the dozens of journal papers I have to look at each month made it more than worth it.

Poke fun at it all you want though. I'm actually kind of glad Mr. Kellett wrote the comic, as I now have another site to add to my morning web comic routine.

I'm an avid reader, don't have a convenient public library, and could buy a ton of books on Amazon (indeed do), but the Kindle is better. I swore I would never take to book replacement technology. I adore books. I bind handmade books.

And yet...I have 74 books on my Kindle so far. That's 74 books I don't need to have space for in my house and 74 books that haven't downed a single tree.

And the books are, on the whole, cheaper than their print counterparts, so eventually the Kindle will pay for itself (very eventually--it certainly is expensive I admit). But it has led to me giving a chance to books I might not otherwise have bought because the price tag is low.

I love my Kindle! It doesn't browse the web; it's not multimedia. It's a book. Now when i say to my husband 'Where's my book?' it's my Kindle I mean most of the time.

And I must admit that it seems just a little disingenuous for a webcomic writer/artist to make fun of something that is working apart from traditional print media. ;)

I'm sorry. It's a rant. I joined the forums just so I could rant. I usually don't rant, I promise. I'll be good now.

I love Sheldon.
BUT, I am wondering why the rant on a totally harmless piece of technology that NO ONE is forced to purchase.
As far as I can see these are the benefits

Less space needed for books. May not be big deal for you, but in places like Japan, you can't devote a room to a library easily.

No need to wait for a book or drive to the bookstore or library. Not a big deal to you? Probably a big deal to non-driving people or people in rural areas.

Less trees cut down.

Democratization of books.

Great for travel, camping, etc

Books are nice, I like books. But I'm not a Luddite, things change. This is merely preference, and yes, it may cause paper books to die someday. But tablets went to paper, hand written books went to type faced, and paper books are going to electronic. It's all good.
Robert

Ehhh... I'm kind of stumped here. How do you think the Kindle-thingy will lead to a democratization of books if you've got to pay, what? A hundred times as much for the Amazon-a-bob as the paperback book would cost you?

In Response to Shalaina (#42177):

I think what they were saying is that not every author can get a publisher to pick them up and print their book.

Amazon launched a service for authors/publishers that allows them to publish their book for sale in the Kindle store, set their own price, and IIRC, take 30% from the sale.

The idea of having eBooks isn't bad. It's actually a great idea in my opinion. The bad part about Kindle is how crazy restrictive it is. You don't actually own the books you get for it, you're just "licensing" them. What that effectively means is that there's no way to give/lend a book to someone else, or copy your books to another Kindle. Right now (as I understand) if your Kindle breaks or you buy a new one, it's impossible to transfer your books over, you have to buy them all again. Or if multiple members of your family have Kindles, each one has to buy the same book if they all want to read it. Sorry, doesn't really sound appealing to me. I'll stick with paper books that I can lend to friends and I know won't be locked out at Amazon's whim.

Very much to the contrary -- Amazon keeps all your books in store. So if you lose your kindle (or break it or whatever) then your books are all still there waiting for you to read as soon as you have a new reader.

But what I really like is the delivery: wake up in the morning and the paper is already on your kindle. The newest edition of your jopurnal? Appears as soon as it's out. That certainly beats going to the newsstand. Wanna go back to that article in last months edition? Still there on the kindle wherever you are. No digging through stacks of paper (if you even kept it).

Finish your novel while sitting in the doctor's waiting room? Buy the sequel and start reading within a minute flat. Without even getting up. Come across an odd turn of phrase in a journal in the park on a bench? Look it up in Webster's (or Wikipedia) right then and there.

If someone had asked me 30 years ago what the digital wireless future would bring - that's what I would've named. Not youtube or blogs or myspace.

The price is high, no doubt about it. If a new hardback is $30 and on the kindle it's $15 then I'll have to read some thirty-odd books before the $400 becomes "cheaper" than dead-tree books. If storage in my house is free, shelves cost nothing and the value of having everything I've ever read on the thing available anywhere I go at any time is of no value to me.

If they do (and if, as one would expect the price starts to come down at some point) then the value proposition doesn't actually look so bad.

"And I must admit that it seems just a little disingenuous for a webcomic writer/artist to make fun of something that is working apart from traditional print media."

Hehe got to echo that. who knows, perhaps amazon will setup a popular section for downloading webcomics.

Can a Kindle owner compare the "on-Kindle" store experience to the full web Amazon experience? Or even to the iTunes store? I just wonder how otherwise unpublished authors will get their work in front of Kindle user's eyes. Is there a "Discover these Indie books" section?

My husband, knowing me and books, bought me a Kindle for my birthday. I was a bit stumped as to what he was thinking, but after about three minutes I was ready to nominate him for sainthood.

I'm surprised no one's gone here yet: For a reader with poor eyesight, this is a dream come true. Large-print editions of books (if they even exist) are *very* expensive, and generally come out months or more after the regular editions; on a Kindle, everything's large-print on demand, without it costing any more. It's kind of nice to not be kicked while I'm down.

As for it costing 100 times what a paperback does, I haven't seen a 4 buck paperback in a very, very long time. The books I read generally range from $15 to $40 in (regular-print) paperback; such is the fate of lovers of biography and poetry. It doesn't take long at all to make up the cost of the machine when you count it up that way. I figure it'll take me about 2-3 months.

In Response to Metta (#42189):

Speaking from experience (owning both a Sony Reader and the iRex iLiad) that reading from an e-ink screen bears no comparison to reading any other form of screen.

I tried it on a PDA (Heck I read many a novel on them) the backlight and screen refresh flicker would invariably give me a headache after an hour or two and scrolling down a screen is not the same as turning a page. However refreshing the screen on an e-ink device isn't the same either. The contrast ratio is similar to that of newsprint. You can read it in full sunlight (not something you can do with an LCD based PDA, and even some books for that matter)

As others have said there are many advantages to electronic readers.

Anyone who commutes for more than an hour a day (or 3 in my case) for example and reads thick novels will tell you it can be a pain fitting 2 of them in your jacket pockets because you know you will finish it and need something else to start.

Anyone who flys regularly can tell you that weight wise a reader is a heck of a lot easier to carry and saves you money on exhorbitant excess luggage fees (Hell I finish 3 novels a week, minimum, commuting. How many do you think I go through on holiday?). With my reader I don't even have to pack a charger unless I'm going away for more than a a fortnight!

As for the cost of the Kindle or the Reader. Yes the inital cost is expensive. But there are many _free_ books out there which more than mitigate this cost (For sci-fi and fantasy look into the Baen library for example. Project Gutenberg for classics and out of copyright texts. And others for different genres). And while some short-sighted publishers are still charging a the same price for their e-books as they do for print most give a good discount for electronic versions.

Anyone who is having issues with their vision can tell you how nice it is to be able to scale the text up to a level you can read easily (Laser corrective surgery which is slowly reverting is _not_ fun).

Frankly Mr Kellett is coming off like a someone who doesn't like the technology on principle (and hasn't bothered to do any research). I expect that attitude from my 5 year old nephew when trying a new vegetable. Anyone older than that should at least give it a chance. rather than stating "I don't see the point so why should anyone else".

Yes you do lose something. The smell of a book, the tactile interaction. But frankly neither of these is as important to me as the actual _content_.

So keep your paper books Mr Kellett I'll quite happily read and re-read my electronic books anyday.

Erm, can we keep this less personal? I really don't see why there's a need to offend the cartoonist just because he pokes fun at something someone here likes. That's his job, and Dave has pretty much poked fun at every electronical gadget there is. And I'm really not sure if we read the same strip, cause I never saw him saying "I don't see the point so why should anyone else". Of course it's exaggerated. Hyperbole is a common stylistic device. I hardly think that means Dave personally has a deep loathing for the Kindle-thingy.

Ignoring the discussion for a bit, let me just say that I love Arthur's little bow-tie.

That said - Kellett is well within his right to poke fun at whatever he sees fit. It's not personal - not has it ever been.

I think the Kindle looks ridiculous, but I'll be the first to buy one - or one of its competitors when they come out - if I start moving about a lot. But I cannot imagine ever getting rid of my books proper. I just love to have them. To see them there on the wall.

This is not an either or situation. I don't have any need for an e-book, iPhone (or better - 3G phone) nor mp3-player. But that may well change and then I'll get whatever I find necessary. (I have to say though that the mp3-players I've tried have been unbelievably noisy - so much static that I could not concentrate on the music).