Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Thanks to my parents' generosity, I've had a Kindle since the start of December. And I'm totally convinced. Actually, I was convinced within the first five minutes — as long as it took me to read the quick-start guide and get myself going — but I thought I'd wait a little longer before committing myself.

I'm completely convinced by the screen quality and the battery life. While it's not as good as an LCD for interactive stuff, the e-ink display is clear and crisp and much easier on the eyes than a backlit display, and with my usage patterns — heavy reading and light wifi use — I've found that I seem to be able to get 2-3 weeks out of a single charge. Most satisfactory.

I like the convenience of the gadget and smoothness of its integration with the Amazon store. There's something wonderfully decadent about being able to order a new book from your bed first thing on a Sunday morning, without having to worry about opening times or traipsing down to the bookstore in the rain or whatever, and to have access to it within a matter of minutes. The first time I did it, I realised that our SFnal future had finally arrived.

But I'm particularly taken with the economic size of the ebook reader. No longer am I forced to schlepp tens of books with me when I go away for any length of time. Nor do I have to worry about carrying books bought on holiday back home with me and nor do I have to worry about my chronic lack of shelf space.

Of the features that I don't like, only one really bothers me: I want page numbers. Although the lack of page numbers doesn't bother me as a recreational reader — locations work perfectly well for most of the things I want to do — as a sometime academic reader, the inability to cite a particular page really troubles me. This nullifies the greatest benefit of the eBook — it's searchability — because although this greatly speeds up the process of finding the relevant sections of a text, it means that to cite them, you still need to go off and reference a printed copy. Maybe this will change over time and Amazon locations will become an accepted reference, or maybe someone will step into the gap and provide a conversion service that maps locations to page numbers in printed editions of a particular text, but until something like that happens, I'll be forced to keep buying or borrowing academic books in dead tree format.

Stross is making positive sounding noises about the Sony PRS-300.

I'm tempted, not least because I've spent the last few months — or, at least, the relatively small parts of the last few months when I've been actually working, as opposed to sunning myself on holiday — schlepping one hefty hardback after another around with me. But on the other hand, I'm reluctant to invest in a piece of technology that doesn't quite seem to have matured yet.

Hmm.