Posted on 03/27/2011 7:58:21 PM PDT by Black_Shark
Hey all,
Topic of thread pretty much sums it up. I am a 21 year old college student with an avid love of Economics and reading. I am trying to decide whether to buy the new Kindle for $130 after my 15% discount at Target ( I work there and I have the debit card) or continue buying new books or going to the library. I would love to be able to use it to get old economics textbooks and other genres for cheap!
The WIFI internet also will help me get through Calculus without dying of boredom.
Any Kindle owners that can help me out?
- Black_Shark
Get your Kindle now, you won’t regret it. You’ll still buy print books, but more and more you’ll appreciate the convenience of one-click shopping and the cheaper price of downloaded books, and your limited storage space won’t be cluttered with piles of books.
Many public domain books/classics are available for free via amazon. some libraries lend ebooks.
If you're an avid reader, it might be worth it.
Well, the only sites that I frequent are Free Republic and Zero Hedge. Other than that, the web is dead to me haha
I have the Kindle 2. It is completely and utterly unsuitable for any sort of technical books - anything with diagrams or pictures. I’m not sure if the Kindle is any better, but I expect not. Also, you may find that you can’t get many of your textbooks for the Kindle. ANd finally, Kindle books are close to full price, whereas you can buy used textbooks.
Might? Why only might? Is there something about the Kindle, such as price, that would make me regret the purchase? While on a limited budget, I am willing to cut back on certain activities/things for awhile in order to make this purchase but I would like to have the full picture before committing.
So, for textbooks, the Kindle is worthless. Why is that? Is it because of the lack of having an actual book in front of you and being able to flip through pages, etc ( or throw it against a wall in some cases haha)?
I meant the limited storage space of your college apartment won’t be cluttered with books. The Kindle storage capacity is immense. You can also download freebies of all the old classics which can provide a justification for owning the device - having the Bible, War and Peace, the complete Mark Twain on your Kindle.
Is it possible that you have access to a digital library in your state? We get many ebooks and audiobooks from our digital libraries. Please check!
I don’t know anything other than I love books...I love the look, the feel, the smell of books...BUT I broke down and bought a Kindle for myself for Christmas and I LOVE IT! I have downloaded books from Audible so I can listen to them when my old eyes get tired. I have a wonderful cover that has a built in light that makes the Kindle feel more like a real book. I love the speed of the downloading. I like the prices of the Kindle books compared to the written word. I can take it anywhere...stick it in my purse. I downloaded Ken Follet’s new book that is about a million pages...I have that to carry as well as about 20 other ones I have downloaded...all in a little package right in my purse. Think about trying to put all those in any type of bag and haul them around!
I absolutely love my Kindle and recommend it without reservation to anyone who loves to read. That said, some of the other posters may be right in that there could be a dearth of textbooks available for it. I don’t know that for sure, never having had occasion to research the issue. Also note that someone mentioned the fact that it reads PDFs; that’s true, but it’s NOT a particularly good reader for PDFs IMHO. It displays one PDF page at a time, which makes for some tiny text.
One of my favorite features, BTW, requires the 3G version. I love that whenever I have the Kindle with me, if I spot a good looking book on a shelf somewhere, I can instantly power up the Kindle and download a free sample of that book, right then and there. The same can be done with the WiFi version, of course; you’ll just have to wait until you’re somewhere with WiFi connectivity. The free-sample feature has saved me a ton of money. I’ve read so much that I’ve gotten extremely selective on quality of writing, and being able to get a free sample saves me from many a purchase of a book I’d never finish.
MM
I would rather have pages to flip through, mark up, fold corners, etc. I can grab off a shelf and find the reference quicker than i can with the kindle.
So back to "fun" reading...it's a great deal b/c you can get free books, public domain books, and on sale ebooks. I'm just not sold on it being a 100% replacement for physical textbooks. As another poster shared, you won't regret the purchase.
I don’t know about the prices of textbooks but for new hardbacks the Kindle price is at least forty percent cheaper because of the savings on paper and distribution. New releases used to be a standard 9.99 in price but that’s inched up. Check any new release on Amazon - they always list the Kindle price if available on Kindle. Paperbacks on Kindle are usually equivalent to the Walmart discount and no charge for taxes. A 5.99 paperback sells for 4.12 at Walmart and that’s often the Kindle price too.
I like my Kindle and I wish it was available 38 years ago when I was in college. The internet access, let alone the free libary access over the internet is a great help. The ability to bookmark pages and make sidenotes would have been a great help. I muddled through nevertheless.
Good luck to you.
Do they make you read Jane Austen in English class? All her books and thousands of other books they might make you read are free.
For $50 more you can even get permanent free 3G connectivity with it which even allows you to "browse the web" for free almost anywhere with 3G even without the WiFi, though that is even more "clunky" than other navigation issues. And you can e-mail yourself notes that show up on the Kindle to read "offline" when you do not have your laptop.
Example, right up your alley, that I coincidentally doing just before I read this thread:
On another thread tonight the book below was advocated, and I just downloaded it for free ,and am putting it on my Kindle.
Even if it takes me a year to read it, I will finally get it read because I will have it with me for all those times when I are sitting in a waiting room, etc.
My new free book:
A Tiger by the Tail
A 40-Years’ Running Commentary on Keynesianism by Hayek
With an essay on ‘The Outlook for the 1970s:
Open or Repressed Inflation?’
by
F.A. HAYEK
Nobel Laureate 1974
Compiled and Introduced by Sudha R. Shenoy
Introduction by Joseph T. Salerno
Third Edition
Published jointly by The Institute of Economic Affairs and the Ludwig von Mises Institute
I do not think you will regret getting a Kindle. It is a cheap blip compared to the rest of your educational expenses.
I can run Adobe's Acrobat, Framemaker, and Photoshop 7 for sure, and I've used the Trial version of Acrobat 10, as well. It also runs MS Office 2007 as well as I need it, anyway.
It came with 1GB memory, and a 160GB hard drive, I've upgraded to 2GB (the max my model D250 will take) and a 500GB hard drive. It is slower than the Dell desktop machine I have, but it does everything that one can do, just more slowly, and it weighs 3.5 lbs. It works for taking notes in class, too. I was working on my master's in Special Ed when I bought it, shortly after I had my right hip replaced, and knew I couldn't carry my older 7 lb Compaq laptop.
I paid $248 for it at Walmart a bit over a year and a half ago. $35 for the 2GB SIMM, a year ago, and $79 for the 500GB HD, about 4 months ago.
It's not a touch screen, but it does have a full keyboard and touchpad, 3 USB 2 ports, and an SD card reader, WiFi, and an ethernet port. Plus the usual stereo mic & earphone jacks. It is considerably more versatile than a kindle would be, at any rate, and less expensive than an IPad2. Hope that helps! OS
E-readers are fueling the growth of online publishing and providing writing opportunities for writers of racier content. A lot of adult entertainment is downloaded in the privacy of one’s own reading device. Not just smut, but content to satisfy the reader’s desires for another Harry Potter or Twilight. What the big publishers don’t deliver in time to satisfy a trend, some writer will post online for download and it will sell.
Others have described well its portability and capacity for a large selection of books. The internet connection is best for buying/downloading the books and reference sources such as Wikipedia. News blogs are offered at $2 per mo., but not really worth it, I thought. You can load it with MP3 music to play aloud or through the earphones. You could use it for Yahoo mail or gmail in a pinch, but it's rather clumsy at that (or my fingers are too big). You can play video poker and other games on it to pass the time if you're not reading, which is its forte. It will convert text to speech on most books or you can even buy the audio books.
I suspect that technical diagrams or finely drawn material is best left for a textbook or full screen computer.
Here's a thought: Borrow one for a few days and see how you like it. My wife got mine and has kept it. ;o) I had to buy another one.
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