Comments on: Ebooks showdown Kindle vs. XO laptop from OLPC

By: annegentle

annegentle — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:44:37 +0000

@AlanW – great information, especially about Amazon doing PDF conversion. I hadn’t found that tidbit so thanks a bunch for adding it here!

@mikecane – Yeah, the weight and size comparison can be a deal-killer. I especially liked the teleread.org comparison picture they posted – gives a real sense of which one is the size of a paperback book, doesn’t it! http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/22/xokindle-face-off-and-a-few-opera-and-e-book-tips-for-the-xo/

By: mikecane

mikecane — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:31:44 +0000

Well, you see, you killed the XO as an ebook for me right at the start:

Kindle – weighs 10.3 ounces
XO – weighs about 3 pounds

Weight matters. Enjoy yours, though.

By: AlanW

AlanW — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:37:48 +0000

Under “content” for Kindle the following would be more complete:
DRM content from Amazon only (~90,000 titles). DRM-free content must be converted to the MOBI format. Many out of copyright titles are already available in MOBI format. Amazon will convert PDFs and other document types for you via e-mail and deliver the result to your Kindle via EVDO.

By: annegentle

annegentle — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:54:31 +0000

I’m no conflict journalist, but, yeah, I admit I was hoping someone would call me on my bluff – I put one of the sensationalist reviews of the Kindle up there, didn’t I? I did love one of the commenters on Scoble’s blog who said “you used to be an honest excited tech geek, but since you left Microsoft you’re all ‘fire these people’” (ah, it’s on a follow up post, “On the street reviews of the Kindle” at http://scobleizer.com/2007/11/27/on-the-street-review-of-kindle/#comments.

So yeah, thanks for calling that out for others to notice as well. A more balanced Kindle usability review is probably over at Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/03/ebooks-kindle-digital-tech-personaltech-cx_ag_1203ebooks.html).

By: HeavyG

HeavyG — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:32:44 +0000

Under your Usability section you reference Robert Scoble’s review of the Kindle. I have a Kindle and have seen Scoble’s review and to put it bluntly – Scoble is an idiot (at least in this instance). I suspect his review was intended to be way over the top and confrontational which is his frequent modus operandi.