4th Edition, Kindle & The Future of Gaming Books

[Bagpuss]

They don't mention PDFs at all. The mention Word documents, JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .and PNG can be e-mailed to the device for viewing, but the lack of a mention about PDFs makes me suspect it will not display them.

Yeah and the video mentions that for a nominal fee amazon will convert the file to read on your Kindle. So it doesn't actually read those files, they need converting by amazon.

Hmm I won't be sending any personal files for amazon to convert for me at a nominal fee.

I think it's a nice start but the technology has a long way to go.

 

[RSKennan]

Give me full color, two pages, and magazine size (with hard covers), and I'll pay $400. Otherwise it's not quite impressive enough.

 

[tenkar]

Give me full color, two pages, and magazine size (with hard covers), and I'll pay $400. Otherwise it's not quite impressive enough.

Doesnt the two pages, magazine size and hardcover kinda defeat the idea of portability? Kinda hard to stick that in your pocket.

Price is kinda steep tho... there is one for $350 from another company that reads PDFs in their native format... name escapes me at the moment.

 

[Umbran]

If you already have a PDA, I don't see the point of Kindle at all-- at least not at $400.

Whether or not it is worth $400, the Kindle does have many advantages over a PDA, including, but not limited to:

larger screen
e-paper screen - meaning thousands of page turns before a recharge is necessary
a 24/7 free connection to the largest book retailer in the nation

 

[RSKennan]

Doesnt the two pages, magazine size and hardcover kinda defeat the idea of portability? Kinda hard to stick that in your pocket.

Sure, but I wouldn't buy one for that level of portability. My pockets are already full. This would be for a backpack or briefcase- for gaming, reading in waiting rooms, on planes, etc.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

I use my Archos 605 wifi for reading PDFs when need be and I'm away from my computer. Was reading one of the new PDFs I got from RPGNow this weekend in the store while my wife was clothes shopping. Love my new toy.

 

[Festivus]

Yes, I want to pay more for a non-PDF book that I can't share with my computer.

If they marketed this towards college students who $9.99 would be an awesome bargin compared with the high text book prices, it'd be a block buster seller as one semester would pay for it.

I work for a university, and our legal program has come up with a solution for students who have to use those carts to carry their books around. They are replacing all the paper books with a USB thumb drive with PDFs of all their texts on it. As part of tuition, they get the thumb drive and one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

I am seriously considering buying one for use in my kitchen where the solid-state build would come into play should I happen to drop the thing off the counter. It would make an idea computer for D&D game table use... but it runs Linux so no DI I guess (You may be able to get it to run Windows Embedded, I haven't dug into that much).

Anyhow, it's an alternative at about the same price point as the Kindle.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I really like these sorts of devices (Kindle, Sony Digital Reader, I-Rex, etc.), but they are still too expensive, IMO, to justify the purchase price. It's taking an awful long time for their prices to drop much, either, it seems. Hopefully this latest offering will put the EReader market into the necessary competitive phase so that prices will be more reasonable... well, at least for this consumer.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I work for a university, and our legal program has come up with a solution for students who have to use those carts to carry their books around. They are replacing all the paper books with a USB thumb drive with PDFs of all their texts on it. As part of tuition, they get the thumb drive and one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

I am seriously considering buying one for use in my kitchen where the solid-state build would come into play should I happen to drop the thing off the counter. It would make an idea computer for D&D game table use... but it runs Linux so no DI I guess (You may be able to get it to run Windows Embedded, I haven't dug into that much).

Anyhow, it's an alternative at about the same price point as the Kindle.

That's very interesting.

I hope other universities and fields take a serious look at this as a way of keeping costs potentially down

 

[GMSkarka]

I use my Archos 605 wifi for reading PDFs when need be and I'm away from my computer. Was reading one of the new PDFs I got from RPGNow this weekend in the store while my wife was clothes shopping. Love my new toy.

I so very much DESPERATELY WANT one of those. How was it for the PDFs?