Don't know if this belongs in book chamber or the TV section since it's a commercial, or whatever, but I saw this commercial on TV today, this kid's telling his grandmother about all the things he wants to read about, so she gets him a Kindle, and they say ONLY $139...and I was just thinking....and that's so much easier than getting the actual books? I don't know much about Kindles but I do know you have to pay for every book you download onto one, so is that $139 you pay for it without even having anything on it to read or what?

If you know where to get a good deal, you could get hundreds of books for just what it costs to get the Kindle. I get a lot of mine from a thrift shop that sells them 10 for a dollar and you have everything, paperbacks, hardbacks, classics, not classics but famous stories everybody knows about, hard to find books, books nobody today knows about, you name it...so, I know it's all about business with them and their business is selling Kindles, but it doesn't sell me, and I don't know anybody who has $140 to just throw away on one of those and then however much it costs to actually put the books in it.

It's a matter of preference. My wife bought a Nook (the Barnes & Noble version of the Kindle). I guess it was around the same price. She had saved up some of the B&N gift cards I gave her so it wasn't like she took the money out of our checking account in one shot. She loves it. The thing I like about it is we'll cut down on all the hundreds of paperbacks we have laying around. In many cases, the Nook book price is a lot cheaper than the brick and mortar store price so eventually it will pay for itself too. Not to mention many of the free downloads that may be of interest. It's the same thing as the choice between buying or leasing a car. For some, one of the choices doesn't make any sense but for others it makes perfect sense.

I'm starting to find the idea of these things appealing. Still learning about them & their differences. The main disadvantage I'm seeing is that if you get the Kindle you can't get books from Barnes & Noble & if you get the Nook you can't get the ones from Amazon. At least that's how it appears. Sometimes I need things explained to me like I'm three. If I get one I think I'd lean more toward the Nook because from what I've read it has a replaceable battery & the Kindle does not & the Nook has some kind of "lending" feature. But the whole idea of them is really growing on me.

Kindle; the iPod of books.

Seriously, I'm not seeing the fascination yet. I still prefer an actual book.

I have a Kindle. There are some things I like about it but I still prefer books. I still like holding and feeling books. I tend to buy short story collections, TV show related books and sports books for the Kindle because they are often cheaper in ebook format.

It would really be cheaper to get all the Oz books on one and then I wouldn't have to look so long and hard for all the hardbacks, HOWEVER one thing the Oz books are famous for are their great illustrations by John R. Neill, and you are not going to be getting any of that on a Kindle, and if I wanted just the story without their pictures, I already have all 15 in 1 book with microprint, but that's not what I'm looking for.

My wife gifted me with a Sony pocketbook ereader ($139) last Christmas. She selected Sony so that I could download books free from our library system. It was our understanding at that time that the Sony ereader was the only one that could download free books from the library system. I think Kindle is tied to Amazon.

At any rate, there are some features to ereaders that I find desirable. The big one for me is text size. My eyes are going so I can select the largest text size of three available. The other thing I like is the screen is easy on the eyes unlike computer screens. I'm retired and my favorite hobby is reading so I go through about four books a week. I can't afford to buy that many new books. We do buy a lot of used books at garage sales and flea markets and I still check a lot out of the library.

Supernova wrote:

It would really be cheaper to get all the Oz books on one and then I wouldn't have to look so long and hard for all the hardbacks, HOWEVER one thing the Oz books are famous for are their great illustrations by John R. Neill, and you are not going to be getting any of that on a Kindle, and if I wanted just the story without their pictures, I already have all 15 in 1 book with microprint, but that's not what I'm looking for.

I think most of the ereaders are in black and white. If you value the color illustrations take a look at Apple's new IPad.