Tolkien on the Kindle - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

***Mister Underhill*** · 12-30-2010, 05:06 PM

Well there's two different versions. I got the smaller one, with a 6" diagonal screen. They also have a 9.7" screen, though of course it costs more and you start to lose some of the convenience of small size. Just holding it side-by-side with a typical paperback, I'd guess the 6" screen is roughly three-quarters the length of the paperback and about the same width.

For reading books, the screen size isn't a big issue, actually, since you don't scroll -- you press a button to "turn the page". There's a font button you can press to adjust the size that you're comfortable with reading, and then the text just reflows to fill the screen, so you can strike a balance between readability and however many times per minute you're flipping the page. I imagine this thing would be a big plus for those with fading eyesight who could use a larger font. The font size I find most comfortable has, I would guess, around 120 words on a page. Turning the page is very natural, just a button-click with your thumb, and doesn't feel like scrolling at all.

You can also read PDFs, but it's not quite as friendly. I have some screenplays on PDF, for instance, and the bigger screen would be nice. I either have to deal with a font-size that's maybe a step or two smaller than would really be preferable, or turn the display to landscape for a comfortable font size, in which case there is some scrolling involved.

You can do other stuff like blog reading and very basic web-browsing, but really it's a dedicated reading device and should be thought of as such.

Here are a few of the pluses so far:

Library in your Kindle. There's sooo much public domain stuff around that you could read for years and never spend a dime. Twain, Shakespeare, Kipling, Dickens, Austen, Sherlock Holmes, etc have already found their way into my device.
Searchable text!
Instantly sample prospective reads. This is especially good this time of year when everyone's putting out their top-ten lists.
On board dictionary. Put the cursor on a word and get a definition.

12-30-2010, 05:06 PM	#8
*Mister Underhill* Dread Horseman Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Behind you! Posts: 2,744	Well there's two different versions. I got the smaller one, with a 6" diagonal screen. They also have a 9.7" screen, though of course it costs more and you start to lose some of the convenience of small size. Just holding it side-by-side with a typical paperback, I'd guess the 6" screen is roughly three-quarters the length of the paperback and about the same width. For reading books, the screen size isn't a big issue, actually, since you don't scroll -- you press a button to "turn the page". There's a font button you can press to adjust the size that you're comfortable with reading, and then the text just reflows to fill the screen, so you can strike a balance between readability and however many times per minute you're flipping the page. I imagine this thing would be a big plus for those with fading eyesight who could use a larger font. The font size I find most comfortable has, I would guess, around 120 words on a page. Turning the page is very natural, just a button-click with your thumb, and doesn't feel like scrolling at all. You can also read PDFs, but it's not quite as friendly. I have some screenplays on PDF, for instance, and the bigger screen would be nice. I either have to deal with a font-size that's maybe a step or two smaller than would really be preferable, or turn the display to landscape for a comfortable font size, in which case there is some scrolling involved. You can do other stuff like blog reading and very basic web-browsing, but really it's a dedicated reading device and should be thought of as such. Here are a few of the pluses so far: Library in your Kindle. There's sooo much public domain stuff around that you could read for years and never spend a dime. Twain, Shakespeare, Kipling, Dickens, Austen, Sherlock Holmes, etc have already found their way into my device. Searchable text! Instantly sample prospective reads. This is especially good this time of year when everyone's putting out their top-ten lists. On board dictionary. Put the cursor on a word and get a definition.