Via the Princeton pilot program of the Kindle DX:

“I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,” said Aaron Horvath ’10, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy. “It’s clunky, slow and a real pain to operate.”

OK, to say it sucks may be a bit unfair as I have never personally seen one, but at the very least it’s probably not as good as the real thing (a printed & bound book).

I am a techie through and through, but the Kindle has never made sense to me regardless of the iteration.  Yes, the thought of not having to lug a library around and having text be easy to read is appealing, but having grew up on books, it just doesn’t cut it.  I need something to hold sometimes, that feels like paper, not just looks like it. Something that I can write in. And if I want to read on a screen, I already have a perfectly capable laptop that goes with me everywhere. Just send me a PDF.

Plus the thought of paying the same price (or thereabouts) for a print and digital version is just nuts. Like with music, for a few bucks more I’ll grab the CD and rip it to my mp3 player myself. No, I’m not going to scan a print book so I can have a PDF version, but if they want more people to adopt it, they should include both.

But maybe it’s just me.

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