Amazon Kindle Fails First College Test 256
theodp writes "If Amazon hoped for honest feedback when it started testing the Kindle DX on college campuses last fall, writes Amy Martinez, it certainly got its wish. Students pulled no punches telling Amazon what they thought of its $489 e-reader. But if Amazon also hoped the Kindle DX would become the next iPhone or iPod on campuses, it failed its first test. At the University of Virginia, as many as 80% of MBA students who participated in Amazon's pilot program said they would not recommend the Kindle DX as a classroom study aid (though more than 90% liked it for pleasure reading). At Princeton and Reed, students complained they couldn't scribble notes in the margins, easily highlight passages, or fully appreciate color charts and graphics. 'The pilot programs are doing their job — getting us valuable feedback,' said Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener. Martinez notes that Reed, Seton Hall, and other colleges plan to test the iPad in the fall to see if it can do better."
Correction to Summary (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Odd choice (Score:5, Informative)
Well they are completely right to complain about this: "they couldn't scribble notes in the margins, easily highlight passages".
You can do that with the products from IREX [irextechnologies.com] which, BTW, also happen to be much more open than the Kindle (no DRM bullshit, based on Linux, you can install new/better applications, etc.).
Disclaimer: I don't work for IREX, I'm only an happy owner of an iLiad.
Re:Odd choice (Score:1, Informative)
So you mean they chose MBA students to test the applicability of a device for students' use? They should have considered using real graduate students [phdcomics.com] instead.
Franzi Roesner is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science. http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/franzi/
Re:$498 way too high for a unitasker (Score:2, Informative)
I am surprised anybody buys it. You can buy an iPad for about the same price, and the iPad does far more.
Arguably the kindle is better for just reading - still.
Sears has the "Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO" for $99, and buy.com has the "Ectaco jetBOOK LITE e-Book Reader" also for $99.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00309013000P?vName=Computers%20&%20Electronics&cName=PortableElectronics&sName=MP3%20Players&psid=FROOGLE01&sid=IDx20070921x00003a [sears.com]
http://www.buy.com/prod/ectaco-jetbook-lite-e-book-reader/q/listingid/84607877/loc/111/213401968.html [buy.com]
The reason that the kindle / sony reader / nook are better than these $99 readers is because they use e-ink. Which really is a different feel for reading and viewing. If you haven't seen it then you don't realize how much of a difference it brings over the other display types. It is also why they are better at just plain reading then the iPad ever can be just because of eye strain levels.
Re:Odd choice (Score:5, Informative)
Let me include a bit more of that quote...
"You don't read textbooks in the same linear way as a novel," said Roesner, 23, a graduate student in computer science and engineering. "You have to flip back and forth between pages, and the Kindle is too slow for that."
That rings very true to my own educational experience. Also, based on my own experience and from watching other students in the past, when you're looking for something specific in a textbook you're most likely going to flip through looking for a picture, diagram, or a certain page layout. You may even remember approximately how far in from the front or back of the book the section is you're looking for (ie. you may remember it's about half an inch or one finger's thickness from the back of the book). None of these visual cues would work as well with an ebook reader, and as Roesner said, would be a lot slower.
Re:a tool for the wrong job (Score:2, Informative)
Depends on what you're reading. Many textbooks are formatted for paper that is not much smaller than 8 1/2 x 11. Grabbing a not atypically sized one (Dummit & Foote's Abstract Algebra) gives pages that are about 7.5x9.25 in, or about 12" in diagonal. Displaying that on a 10.1" screen gives almost a 15% reduction in magnification.
For a more extreme example, take a typical CS conference paper. Printed on 8.5x11 paper (13.9" diagonal) in 10 or 11 pt font, two column format, reducing that to the size of 10.1" gives a 27% reduction in size. That 11 point font is now barely 8 points; if it's 10pt, then it now acts like 7.2pt. At LCD resolutions, that's starting to really impact readability IMO.
Now sure, you can scroll and such, but this can be a huge PITA. It's a PITA if you're using a textbook with figures that you want to refer to; it's a PITA if you're reading something formatted in 2-column format because you have to scroll way more, etc.
Re:Odd choice (Score:3, Informative)
The Kindle IS based on Linux. The Kindle DOES NOT require DRM. You need to get your facts straight. And unlike the cheaper readers, the Kindle actually has a gigantic library attached to it through that free 3G connection.
E-ink readers are great for pleasure reading, because you read front-to-back. They are not good for reference books, because it is difficult to "flip through" pages in them. The search feature also is inadequate, as the slow screen makes interactive search feel cumbersome.
The Kindle is too slow and DRM hurts (Score:5, Informative)
It can take even longer to add a highlight, plus the additional annoyance of using the little joystick for navigating. A stylus would be great if it were possible to use it with this type of display. I notice the same slowness on the Kindle for PC software (even on a fast machine), but at least I can use the mouse there.
The Kindle is terribly unresponsive for typing notes. It can't keep up with two slow thumbs on those awful little keys and you nave to pop open the symbol screen just to get a comma because there is no key for it (among many other common symbols).
Worst of all is the DRM. The Kindle saves each highlight to a plain text clippings file which might have been useful for study notes. About one third of the way through a very large (and expensive) ebook, I found that my clippings file was full of messages stating that I had exceeded my limit for clippings for that book. I guess they put some limit in there in order to prevent people from using highlights to extract the whole book into the clippings text file, thereby defeating DRM. What it really prevents is legitimate study. Due to this stupid technical deficiency, I should have been noting these passages by hand in a notebook. But the Kindle didn't warn me that this limitation existed, nor did it stop me when I reached it.
The Kindle hardware is an interesting novelty and I see potential in the technology, but it is not good for serious reading or for study. It's too slow and the DRM puts me back in the age of pencil and paper anyway, so why bother? Picking up the actual book is more efficient and convenient than using the Kindle.
Re:Odd choice (Score:2, Informative)
My own experience follows this closely. I have a Nook. It is superb for reading a casual novel. It absolutely fails at anything for reference. I've tried to use it for a few tech white papers and programming books, but without the ability to quickly thumb through pages, it's a no-go.
When they come up with a solution for this (with an e-ink screen, as opposed to the active lcd screen of the ipad), it's a world-changer for me.
Re:Odd choice (Score:3, Informative)
My wife is a "real graduate student" (she's doing her doctorate work in radiocarbon calibration), and although she got a Kindle for reading scientific papers, she says it sucks way too much at that. These papers usually only come in PDFs, which the Kindle has a hard time displaying properly - the best her small Kindle can do is display one quadrant at a time, which is basically useless. Sometimes you can get the papers as an HTML page, but the Kindle's HTML parser isn't that great and you have to remember to download all the figures individually too - and even then, they're kinda hard to make out since it's rendering them in black and white.
She basically needs something that just works - you load up a PDF and it's readable, you save (somehow) or browse to a web page and it's readable. The Kindle is not that thing, especially when it comes to scientific papers. It just can't handle the formats she needs it to, at least not easily enough (and unlike me, she hates fucking around with computers; the MythWeb interface is about the extent of what she's willing to put up with)
Eventually she's going to get an iPad, which should be able to do all the things she needs it to; I'll get the Kindle then, since I read more novels than she does and it rocks at that (except it lacks its own reading light, which seems like the stupidest of oversights).