by Daggertooth on Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:28 pm
I can see both options with text books. On the one hand, it is a pain to lug around the heavy things, but on the other hand it is nice to quickly leaf through the text book to get to the important stuff you need to reference. I was working on some statistics problems and had to flip from a chapter back to the back of the book to various tables several times. I'm not sure how easy that would be on a tablet.
My decision has been made!!! Or rather, it was made for me on Christmas. I am now an owner of a Kindle Paperlight. It has a backlight and claims to be able to run 8 weeks without needing a charge. I was skeptical, but so far so good. Holding the thin electronic device and tapping to turn the page isn't nearly as annoying as I thought it would be. So as far as tactile feels and enjoyment, I'm not sure I'm getting much of a difference. The backlight isn't even bad and actually much better than my original plan of having a headlamp. Buying and downloading books was surprisingly easy, a bit too easy. I just click "buy" once and its done...guess my card is on file. ...Don't trust that.
I decided to start Patricia Briggs' Alpha and Omega series, so those are the books I've started to buy. I still don't understand why digital books cost the same as paper books. I would think that without production and transportation costs a digital book would be cheaper. Even the Digital version of Briggs' newest book that's in hardcover has an elevated price. Amazon tries to tout that the digital price is cheaper so your saving money, but $12 for a digital book seems outrageous to me. Maybe I'm just old fashioned?
One thing I did notice that I don't like is that my kindle has advertisements on it. Everytime I load it up it tries to tell me a best seller or even that I need a new phone. A bit annoying...