Does the Kindle suck??

So. You might call me a bookworm. I travel with a 35L pack, and I usually have 5-6 books at a time (because I never find good ones in the hostel exchanges) stuffed into my pack. I am thinking of taking the jump from paper books to electronic copies - the motive of course, is to reduce the weight of my pack. The iPad (which translates to iFart, in Hindi ) strains my eyes, and is NOT good for reading 150+ pages per day - although it is lovely for surfing the internet.

Do any of you have experience traveling with a Kindle, Nook, or any other e-reader?? Specifically, what are the major drawbacks/advantages of traveling with an e-reader? What advice can you enlighten me with prior to jumping into this new, unknown world of paperless reading?

Ebook readers are the best thing since sliced Banana Pancake (-;

You can:

• read 5 or more books simultanously
• have 10.000s of books, always with you
• read volumes like "war and peace" without hurting your back
• keep up on blog and news articles via Instapaper
• leave your lonely planets at home
• listen to music or audio books

Disadvantages:

• reading pdfs is a pain in the ass (there are converters, though)
• random access is a pain in the ass (think switching between map and description in lonely planet)
• after 2 weeks without recharging, you are out of battery
• constant use wears the ereader down fast
• stay away from water: no reading on Songkran

If you are not sure, which ebook reader to get, treat yourself to a kindle with global internet roaming. It's a killer feature to check your emails somewhere in the rain forest or in that backwards guesthouse, with 5$ Wifi Access.

I have the larger Kindle (the one that is sized for PDF reading) that isn't designed for real internet browsing.

I'm a big fan of reading in bed right before going to sleep. When I travel with a real book, I tend to either drop it next to the bed, leave it on a night stand next to the alarm clock I'll start hitting in the morning, or leave on the bed. Since none of those are places I'd like to store a 200 dollar piece of equipment, I typically end up putting the Kindle away sooner than I would stop reading a regular book.

I usually travel with one fat paperback and pick up other books as needed.

I thought it would take me a while to get used to my kindle, but I took to it right away. For me, there are only two negatives that I've experienced: 1) rendering of maps in travel guides is horrible and essentially useless. 2) indexes in non-fiction books don't have clickable links.

BTW, even on the most basic Kindle, you can also play games, some are free, others are dirt cheap.

Traveling with a Kindle is fantastic.

The only real objection people I run into while traveling have with it is the old "but I like the FEEL of a book".

I'm a librarian, and let me tell you, that's crap. It's missing the point completely. Even back home, having a Kindle really didn't cut into my physical book purchasing. I simply bought fewer "beach reads". Things I'm likely to only read once: Kindle. My favorite books, books I'm unsure about, or highly recommended books that aren't available on Kindle: bookstore.

Books are fantastic, but eBooks are convenient in a way physical media cannot be. Think vinyl versus CDs versus MP3.

I still carry a copy of my favorite book with me even while traveling (Generation X by Douglas Coupland).

Floc mentioned the biggest pros and cons. I don't even bother with PDFs.

If you're traveling with a netbook or have access to guidebook PDFs, another option is to simply print out the guidebook pages you need at each city. Printing in India is super cheap (Malaysia and a few other countries it'll be surprisingly expensive, even for purely black and white.)

I'd also recommend not filling your eReader to capacity. It may be tempting to have 1,000 books at your fingertips, but how fast can you really read? Having more than a hundred or so books make browsing on the Kindle a pain. Because I can't fully commit to my own advice, I have around 200 on my current Kindle.

Another bonus to the Kindle is that they're CHEAP. A brand new ad-supported Kindle is $80. What this means is that you can usually pick up an older model on eBay for much less. I paid around $40 for the Kindle 2 that I'm lugging around.

Carrying a paperback with you is a good idea for when the battery does run out. 2 weeks sounds like a long time, but because the battery life is so good, you sometimes forget about it.

Another warning: the screens can be fragile. E-ink is almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. If you put enough pressure on the screen, it will crack. Then your Kindle will be useless. That's the main reason I try and put it away like Cinny does. I don't want to fall asleep on it.

It's not like eggshells, I have fallen asleep on it before with no problems, but a friend fell asleep on my first Kindle and did crack the screen. So try not to stack heavy objects on it either.

I never found the wifi to be particularly useful for anything but emergency email checking/Google searches. The screen refresh rate and slow data rate makes it pretty impractical. I don't even remember the last time I turned the wifi on (keeping it off helps save battery, too.) Given the choice, I'd save money and not get the 3G version.

Other than what's already been mentioned, the biggest drawback to me is that once you get used to/addicted to your Kindle, you'll be annoyed when something ISN'T available in eBook format.

This is a question that's been weighing on my mind for a while too.

While I see a lot of advantages in e-Readers, especially as I'm a very quick reader and on my long trips find myself spending quite a bit of money having to trade in for new books every couple of days.

However thing that has put me off so far is the steal-ability factor. The time I most want a book to read is when I'm lazing on the beach. And the two things you really wouldn't want to do with a kindle is 1) expose it to sand, suncream and salt water, and 2) leave it lying on your beach towel while you go for a swim.
Nobody is likely to swipe a battered old paperback off your towel, and if they did, at most it's an annoyance whereas if someone nicked your kindle you'd be devastated.

As a group, it seems that you guys have over all great experiences with eReaders. I think I will make the plunge prior to leaving on my trip!

Scritch wrote: "but I like the FEEL of a book".

It seems you may have been listening to me... That's exactly what I say.

Lucky Luke wrote:However thing that has put me off so far is the steal-ability factor. The time I most want a book to read is when I'm lazing on the beach. And the two things you really wouldn't want to do with a kindle is 1) expose it to sand, suncream and salt water, and 2) leave it lying on your beach towel while you go for a swim.

In every country I've been in, fellow travelers are more likely to rob you than a local. So make a friend who can watch your crap, or just keep an eye on it from the water.

It's funny, but the only reason someone might steal your Kindle is because certain people confuse it with a tablet like an iPad. Once I explain that it's "only" good for books and the screen isn't color, eyes tend to glaze over.

A ziploc bag solves the suncream, sand, and water problem. And hey, no more fighting with flipping pages if it's windy out.

I've carried my Kindle in the mountains, on beaches, in deserts, and never had a problem. I keep it in a small cloth drawstring bag or my dry bag.

Devastated is a bit much. I mean, it's an $80 device, brand new.

If you're obsessed with the "feel" of a book, even while traveling, then you'll find yourself paying 200-400 baht for shitty thrillers stuck in between stacked copies of Da Vinci Code and Eat, Pray, Love. I'll read the exact books I want, the moment I want to read them. Even when good novels are available in local stores, they tend to be the same handful of books that every traveler reads in a particular geographic area (like the Bangkok crime novels in Thailand or Shantaram in India.)

My point is that book selection, in Asia at least, is usually mediocre and best-case scenario hit or miss. And that's assuming they're even in any sort of logical order (to be fair, if English wasn't my first language, I might just throw them all onto a shelf regardless of author or genre, too.)

I guarantee that your nostalgia will disappear shockingly fast once you realize how convenient eBooks are, how comfortable the E-ink screens are, and that "real" books haven't suddenly disappeared from the planet.

Two bright spots in regard to bookstores I've found are the Bookworm in Hanoi and the Blue Apsara in Siem Reap. Cambodia seems to pirate a surprising number of books, so the selection there was both cheap and plentiful.

One caveat to mention: the Kindle does not play nice with the library systems of some cities and countries. If reading library eBooks is important to you, you may want to invest in a B&N Nook, Kobo (if you're Canadian), or Sony Reader.

Also, Amazon has this new thing where people who own a Kindle and have Amazon Prime can borrow books straight from Amazon, basically bypassing the public libraries of the world.

Edit: I don't have Prime, so I can't tell you how great that feature is or isn't, but it might be something to consider, especially if you're able to take advantage of Amazon's occasional offers for free/reduced Prime rates for students/new members/trial memberships.

I bought it.

Kindle touch. We will see how it goes

I've had Kindles since the first model came out, and I'm a complete fan. The only downside that I've seen that many people never mention is that I don't finish books. When you can read whatever you want any time you want, if a book gets slightly boring or drags, I'm onto the next thing almost immediately. My Kindle is full of unfinished books. I think that people are less likely to do this with a paperback. Nonetheless, the Kindle is an awesome piece of travel kit.

-eric

I am also in the Kindle camp for the various reasons as were listed above. Particularly because of the strain I also get from iPads. Too glossy especially in any places with bright lights.

And of course the price point. Just curious if anyone knows if your kindle did get stolen, would you be able to re-download your purchased books onto a new one?

travel droppings wrote:I am also in the Kindle camp for the various reasons as were listed above. Particularly because of the strain I also get from iPads. Too glossy especially in any places with bright lights.

And of course the price point. Just curious if anyone knows if your kindle did get stolen, would you be able to re-download your purchased books onto a new one?

Mostly yes, with a few caveats.

If you sign-in to your Amazon account, there's an area called "Manage my Kindle". From there you can download, re-download, or send purchased books to your Kindle.

The only exceptions are that technically, you don't own an e-book. You're licensing the content, and that license is subject to changes and restrictions. If that ever happens, you can theoretically lose your rights to use the content.

The easiest way to avoid that possibility is to simply keep a copy of all your books on your hard drive. Then all you do is transfer them to your Kindle via USB if anything goes wrong.

Honestly, I'm not sure the basic Kindle is really worth it. I originally paid $79.99 for my Kindle. I got the cheapest model, the one that comes with ads on it. Unfortunately, I lost it when I was in Ukraine. When I returned to the US, I bought a cheap 7' tablet instead. For only 5 dollars more, I have a color screen that I can use all sorts of apps on, it has a camera, music player, and I can surf the web. And I can still use the free Kindle app to read all my books. The only real downside is that the battery life isn't as good as a Kindle.

Anyway, the Kindle Fire might be "worth it" (not sure), but I think the Kindles that only let you read books really aren't worth it when you can buy a cheap tablet for a similar price. And the tablet will do so much more.

EMH wrote:Honestly, I'm not sure the basic Kindle is really worth it.

The only real downside is that the battery life isn't as good as a Kindle.

Saying the battery life isn't as good is a gross understatement.

The newest Kindle can last 1-2 months on a single charge. With the backlight on.

But the main reason a Kindle is "worth it" is how avid a reader you are. If you only read the occasional book for a short period of time, it's extraneous to something like a tablet. If you read constantly, e-ink is fantastic, even compared to a high quality tablet screen, which you are definitely not getting in a sub-$100 tablet.