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#319151 - 11/02/2009 20:04 Re: Kindle (2) [Re: wfaulk]
hybrid8
carpal tunnel

Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
The wikipedia page on kindle has a bunch of neat facts about what formats work and where you can get more content.

Seems like the Kindle's PID (product ID used with its DRM) was reverse engineered which has allowed the use of encrypted mobi format books to be read on the Kindle. Otherwise the Kindle only supports non-DRM mobi titles. Kindles own format is a variation of mobi.

Fictionwise has used this information and now serves up their mobi book catalog in Kindle-compatible versions. So there are a few places to get books from besides Amazon.

I'm not sure what it's going to take to make the ebook reader as ubiquitous as the portable MP3 player, but it's not going to be this generation of device/platform. It's a market I'll keep my eye on though. If I weren't interested I wouldn't have started the thread after all.
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Twisted Melon : Fine Mac OS Software

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#319241 - 13/02/2009 05:47 Re: Kindle (2) [Re: g_attrill]
gbeer
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
Originally Posted By: g_attrill
Originally Posted By: hybrid8

The borders around the screen are too wide on the new Kindle. Expanding the screen (proportionally) would fill in the excess space and provide more reading room. And of course the ability to simply make the text/print bigger.


Is this to grip the device, like a border on a book? I haven't even seen or held the old version, so I don't know if the old one was fine as it was.



I have V1, They got a lot of stuff right, Some not so much.

They did pay some attention to how it's held, some of the angles are there, to keep corners from digging into your hand. There just aren't enough different ways to hold onto it. That's mostly because of the full length, out to the edge buttons.

The page buttons are very good for their purpose. The touch is just right. They do get in the way of holding it. It's almost impossible to hold with your fingers are under the cg. Thumbs want to rest on the page turning buttons, where a secure grip turns pages.

The keyboard makes for secure grasp area, but the weight is cantilevered. The leverage makes an otherwise lite object, tiering to hold.

These devices need to be graspable in a variety of ways. What works when seated upright, doesn't work well for reading in bed. Hands also tend to cramp, if they hold an e-book the same way for too long.

The 2.0 seems to address some of the problems, I suspect the side buttons are still in the wrong place with respect to the CG, and they still wrap around the side a bit.

Oh Yes, they moved the earphone jack and vol. buttons from the bottom. That was good, it's difficult to lounge, read, and listen to music with the plug digging into your chest.

edit: Web browsing is quite sucky, E-ink just doesn't have the refresh rate needed to deal with HTML bling if it doesn't render in a straight forward manner. Forget things like rollovers.

edit: perhaps they should have used touchpad tek for the page turning. A swipe bar under the page would work.


Edited by gbeer (13/02/2009 06:04)
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