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I could have written this question myself. I, like you, read a large quantity of books on programming, mathematics, entrepreneurship, as well as interesting non-fiction titles.

First and foremost, I think that for technical books, a Kindle DX rather than a regular Kindle is a must. I used to own a severely underused Sony eReader. The main issue with it was the screen size. At 6" it was useless for technical books.

I don't expect the Kindle DX to be perfect for technical books either. In fact, I heard that anything that doesn't come straight from the Kindle Store tends to look less than ideal (PDFs in particular). But since people like you and I pay for books, the inconvenience may be limited to research papers and a few free PDFs (Amazon offers a conversion service as well, but I don't know how well it works).

The truth of the matter is that, I love to be surrounded by books and have a large collection of titles. Having more books than I could possibly read in a lifetime gives me a constant incentive to read more and more to satisfy my passion for learning. If I want to learn about X, I can immediately grab a book off my shelf and immerse myself in it.

Being able to buy books in 60 seconds accomplishes the same thing without having to buy as many books or take up as much room.

A Kindle DX will decrease the expansion of my physical book collection, but the convenience is definitely there. Books are cheaper, immediate to buy, easier to search, and in many cases the Kindle will be lighter than the corresponding physical books.

It's clearly the future of reading, whether we like it or not, so I decided that it will be my gift to myself for my birthday in August. If I'm not happy, I can always resell it with little loss.

An even cheaper alternative would be the iPad and a Safari Online subscription. But even indoors, I assume that the backlit iPad is not nearly as nice on your eyes for extensive reading (plus, as is essentially an internet enabled computer, it could be more distracting as well). I'd be happy to hear different opinions in this regard.

Your comment inspired me. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and after reading this, I think it's definitely worth the investment (only 400$), and if it doesn't work out, there's always ebay.

Thanks for your thoughts!

It's tough to read pragmatic bookshelf books on a Kindle - the fonts are not quite right and the screen is small. The Kindle is a rough device. The UI is clunky, but it gets the job done.

The iPad versions of the books are better, but still have odd font issues that I don't much like. If they used a reasonable font for the code, it would be great. I'm still deciding which display I like better.

The iPad is more polished, but the Kindle is smaller, cheaper, lighter, and has a battery that lasts for weeks. I keep wanting to touch the Kindle screen, though.

In the end, I prefer reading technical books as PDFs on my laptop, where I can work and read at the same time. The layout is better, and it's nice to switch between code and book quickly.

You said that the Kindle UI is clunky and that it is small to read on. The Kindle I'm thinking of buying is the new DX model with the 9.7" screen. I'm wondering if you think that one is still too small, or if that is suitable?

And regarding the clunky UI, what is the problem with it? The most important things to me, I think, would be easily flipping pages (back and fourth), and searching for text.

The bigger one would be better for technical books, but I'd prefer the small one for regular books. By clunky, I almost mean it literally. The little joystick thing is small and awkward to use - you move the cursor around the screen one step at a time, and there's a very slight, very annoying delay between input and action. It's begging for a touch screen and color. The keyboard is small, and probably slightly less usable than the ipad keyboard. Flipping pages is also strange, in that there are dedicated buttons, but I keep finding myself clicking the wrong one. That would probably go away over time, but it's annoying, and I did not have that problem with the iPad, which is very intuitive.

Given the price difference between the big Kindle and the cheapest iPad, I'd probably go with the iPad unless money is a huge factor. The keyboard is nicer, the touch screen is a huge benefit for things like using the dictionary, table of contents and bookmarks. Flipping pages is more intuitive. Install the Kindle app and iBook, and you're good to go. The only caveat to this would be if you really like the kindle display. It is different, and I can image some people putting up with the Kindle's lack of polish to have the screen. I wouldn't call it better, but it is different.

Flipping pages is fine, searching is passable. I find it a far superior reader compared to the ipad or a laptop, but they're really very different devices for different purposes. If reading is the most important thing for you, then it's better than anything currently available.

I use my DX to read PDFs and papers in bed, on public transport, etc, so while it's good for actually buying books, don't forget about its PDF viewer.

I've been thinking about getting a kindle for a little while now, and the PDF reader is a huge factor for me. I already have a fair amount of PDFs that I read on my laptop and (somewhat painfully) on my phone. I'd love to be able to sync my location on a PDF between multiple devices.

I have the previous DX model, and use it extensively for technical and personal reading. It's not perfect, but it's convenient, light, and very easy on the eyes. Since I'm in front of screens all day, I greatly prefer it to a tablet, at least until the Pixel Qi screens arrive in force.

I do buy a few books via Amazon, but mostly I buy PDFs so I can read them on my dev box, phone, etc. as needed. The PDF reader isn't perfect, but it's good enough.

So yes, in my opinion the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I'd suggest you get a slip case for it, though, otherwise you'll always worry about it when you carry it around. (That goes for and tablet format electronics, though.)

I owned and tested various readers (including the previous Kindle) but until now a traditional book is unbeatable (at least in my eyes). Here is my major reasons behind this:

- The setup cost is too high for an electronic reader. Starting or jumping in a book is faster than starting a reader especially when you have 5 minutes to kill in a traffic jam or while being in a train/metro.

- Comfort of reading is still much better with a traditional book. Having an electronic device emitting light while reading a book in your bed is not really comfortable if you want to sleep afterward.

- Annotation. I'm writing, adding post-it or even adding pages in my books... Sorry but beating a pencil in a book is difficult for a software reader. I think annotation is really important for technical books when you start to use and master a specific technology.

- Social impact. I like to share books with other and even with strangers in the train. With electronic reader socialization is much more difficult than with traditional books where everyone can read the cover.

I'm still not really convinced or found a real practical use of such readers for my day-to-day technical reading. The only advantage for electronic books is the fast look-up but with some nice placed annotation you can even beat the ebook look-up/search...

I don't have a ereader yet, but the fact that a single slate like device can hold a mini library full of books is very tempting one.

Why do you combine the Kindle service with the Kindle device. There are two questions here: Should I be using the Kindle service (e.g. on an Android phone or iPad) and should I buy the Kindle.

I don't have a Kindle, but really wanted to because it's light. But the screen flicker (will happen a lot esp. with technical books), useless buttons, and he inability to do pretty much nothing except reading books killed it for me. Also I believe, Amazon will redesign the Kindle soon to make it cheaper and better.

The Kindle service, though, is a winner.

I have a subscription to O'Reilly's Safari. The interface and text quality leaves a lot to be desired but it is unbeatable in its breadth. especially when I'm consulting a technical book, I'd rather have the physical book because I do a lot of shuffling around.

Not only do I buy a DX which is US-only (wireless-wise), not knowing they'll make the Web available in the UK (my Global kindle 2 could only access Wikipedia until the 2.5 update recently) but 2 months later they drop the price by $120 and make the case black! I'll never buy another Amazon product as an early adopter, but rather, wait until it's really cheap. I now have to read about 100 books to pay this thing off.

What annoys me is paying £50 in customs charges which I can't get back. Caveat emptor!

This happens to every product we purchase. The product gets continually upgraded even after we purchased it- Look at all the cars, cell phones, computers etc in the market.

Instead of feeling bad of our purchasing decision, we should remember that during the time when we purchased it, we did it because we believed the product fulfilled all our needs.

No, get an iPad and use the Kindle App - it's 1000x better than the hardware Kindle. Since the Kindle App became available for iPhone, my hardware Kindle has gathered dust - and now with the iPad, I can read on a large- or smaller-format device.

It's great for illustrations, too - all the drawbacks of the hardware-based Kindles disappear when you use the Kindle App on the iPad.

If you live in the US, yes, kindle redefines reading.

If you live in Europe, the device, due to whisper-net limitations is crippled: no images in subscriptions, no simple web browsing, no blogs and the books are often more expensive than the paperback editions (!)

btw, even with these limitations (I live in Europe), I love my Kindle.

It SUCKS for technical books with illustrated examples and diagrams. If you read lots of other books, buy it.

Totally agree about the Kindle DX not really being great for technical books. I have a DX, love it, but I generally still by technical books in hard copy because the charts, tables, etc are much easier to read.

I love my Kindle (1st Gen). I took it into court with me every day. It was the smallest, lightest item in my briefcase.

Despite its ugly appearance, it's easy enough to use that octogenarian judges were able to start using my Kindle without any assistance.

Plus, even though the Kindle uses proprietary DRM, that DRM is easier to remove than the ePub DRM. I've archived DRM-free copies of every book I've purchased from the Kindle store.

As other commentators have pointed out, the Kindle is not a good choice for technical books in the Mobi format because the Kindle overrides fonts and spacing. However, I haven't had any problems reading technical books in PDF format on my brother's Kindle 2.

Should I Get the New Kindle?