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Comment by lpolovets | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised to say this, but I like the Kindle ads. I have an ad-free Kindle and I got the ad-supported version for my wife (she was on the fence about getting a Kindle at all, and knowing it was cheaper compelled her to finally get it). The ads are pretty great! As the blog post says, they are unobtrusive and only displayed when the Kindle is off. More importantly, though, they are sometimes useful. The first few ads that I ended up clicking on were "$5 off any Amazon purchase" and "Buy any one of these 100 bestselling business eBooks for $1." Yes, there are ads that have nothing to do with Amazon or books, but the fact that I occasionally see an ad that makes me go "Wow, I will use this!" is pretty unexpected and pleasant. If my Kindle 3 ever breaks, I plan to replace it with the ad-supported version.

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If you really like the ads, there's on option on the website to turn them on even for devices that didn't start with them.

I bought the Kindle DX and was actually disappointed that it didn't serve ads. Instead, it puts ugly pictures of dead authors as the screensaver.

I bought the DX for the large screen so I can read programming books and pdfs on e ink. I like some of the artwork, esp the one of the fish. I think the kindle 4 smaller devices have more contemporary screen savers.

I didn't anticipate how much I would come to prefer my DX to everything else. I do wish that screensaver (that isn't quite the right term) was at least somewhat customizable though.

Amazon seems to hate the idea of a user selecting their own screensavers on Kindles. Even the new Kindle Fire doesn't allow it.

I really want to get a DX, but the page switch time scare me. It would be hard to browse code, etc. How does this work for technical books?

(Also, I'd be fired if I sent internal pdf documents off for conversion... :-)

It works quite well for reading books sequentially, even technical books. One problem I had is that their fixed width font is not the most readable in the world. For jumping back and forth, the experience is not great, but not completely intolerable either.

The DX (and I think also the other Kindles by now) reads pdfs natively, no need for a conversion service.

I bought the DX in order to read PDFs on it. No conversion is necessary - just attach a USB cable and drag-n-drop the PDFs to it. The page switch time is fine.

The only real downside is you can't "flip" through the pages. Reading a book sequentially works fine, any other way is a pain.

I got the DX at the $250 special Amazon had for it last Monday. The price is back to $379.

I like them too. I buy something via the ads about once a month. In fact, I bought the Kindle with ads just for one of the ads which was a few hundred dollars off a TV. The Kindle was essentially free.

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