Kindle is ready for prime-time yet.

isn't *

An e-reader, and a paperless office while we are on the subject, will never replace a good old fashioned piece of paper or textbook. There is something to be said about physically having printed text in front of you to write on, study and ponder over.

I would agree that such readers would be useful if you are traveling light or even when flying on a plane. However, I'd have to say no to using it as a complete replacement.

They are trying to make the kindle into the next ipod but instead of holding thousands of songs it will be holding books instead. Problem with the kindle is screen size needs to be more bigger and price needs to be more affordable.

I agree, this would be a nice addition for when you can't lug around the normally rather large books that are given to you in college (or for any reading for that matter). However; I couldn't see this as being a complete replacement, just an addition to the books I physically own.

I tried to take margin notes on a Kindle and the permanent marker hasn't come out yet =(

Does anyone get sick of this bestofmedia/doubleblick crap slowing down page loading to a snails pace?

Tablet PC will be my first choice. I can do bookmark, highlight,take notes, draw figures.... even record the lecture with a tablet PC. However none of these are either easy to handle or possible on Kindles.

The only few good things from Kindles are.... cheaper, lighter, and longer battery life... which are nice.... but... not enough to replace the textbooks.

Will the electronic copy cost as much as the text book?

I can see why. I prefer the Kindle 2 over the kindle DX for even just recreational usage. I got mine from here: http://www.computersncs.com/rd_p?p [...] gift=27619

Hmmm.. bigger screen, a pen for notes, some quick acces system to bookmarketed pages or items on the page. So this little device needs more funtionality and easier user interface... Sounds something that Apple will do first (with a steep price) and get followed later with cheaper copies from other makers.

How well does the Kindle burn? Sounds like it would burn really well... much better than books.

How well does the Kindle burn? Sounds like it would burn really well... much better than books.

I tried out the Kindle DX. Amazon needs to fix the screen flash during page changes, speed up page changes, improve PDF support or at least improve the conversion. One of the features missing for PDF support is font size adjustment. Regarding note takers, to work that idea in, it may be required to have a companion "screen" which you write on. As you change pages in the kindle, it would sync with whatever you wrote on it. If it was a hinged product that would be a sweet design. I also agree that a slightly bigger screen and lower price would be good. I also would like to see a removable memory storage device re-introduced to the Kindle. Due to the design of the design of the device, it may not be out of line to experiment with a few small solar cells around the bezel to extend the battery life. Finally, when the device "shuts off" it should stay on the last page you were looking at rather than go to an "off image".

Kindle is for pleasure reading, not for studying. To study you gotta flip the pages around (not just 1-5 pages but sometimes dozens) -- and to make bookmarks (make, not put) plus notes and etc.

+ The Kindle's a nice alternative to the big, heavy books, especially if you don't take many notes or mainly take notes on a seperate notebook.

- The kindle's feature set just isn't there yet. If they were to add a PDA-style stylus and allow notes anywhere, I could see it becoming amazingly versatile.

? Will virtual copies of expensive textbooks become the newest target for pirates?

Kindle may not quite be ready for such a use, but the concept is awesome. I think this type of testing will help companies like Amazon, Asus, Apple, etc learn more about how their products will be used in such an environment and make adjustments. I'm looking forward to more affordable and useful eReaders and a larger selection of eBooks in the future! Get these massive hunks of paper off my shelves so I can use them to store all my other crap.

I've been advocating a larger screen for years!
The kindle is missing that! (The DX might be better though).
at this moment the kindle is nothing more than a fancy book replacement.
It's still far from a newspaper or study guide replacement.
In order to keep up with study (like encyclopedia) material,it needs to works about as fast as a computer.
The display needs to be fast too. And the closest we'll see in the future is a tablet, powered by an Atom Z series CPU, or the newer atom platform, and a PixelQi screen!
Give it 11 to 12", at least 1024x720 resolution, and a battery life of one day (aka 10+ hours), good standby modes inbetween lectures and breaks, and you'll have a good device.

But the kindle is good for most people wanting to read a fiction on a nice holiday at the beach or relaxed evening behind the fireplace on a cold day or so...

In no way does it suffice to replace study material!

It kind of reminds me of the first netbooks (Asus EeePc 700 series).
They came with Linux, 2/4 or 8GB of SSD, and 256 or 512MB of RAM.
All people wanted those devices, and even if you tell them that it's not ready yet for mass consumers, they didn't care.
Only later they started complaining about it not being windows, it being slow, the low battery life, yadda yadda ...

Now all want a kindle, and want it to work like a PC..Well guess what, IT IS NO COMPUTER!!! It's an e-ink reading device!

No study needs to be done for even a simple mind to understand this!

One advantage about the Kindle is that you can now read in the dark. Yay!

I just completed my degree and my wife finished her MBA all online without any physical text books. Everything was electronic via pdf and if you have acrobat pro then you can add or delete whatever you choose. Searching is allot easier and you can highlight just fine. The only downside to anything electronic whether it is a kindle or some other solution is the ability for on the fly not taking on the material in which you are studying. I would want to be able to draw circles, make highlights, write down side notes, etc, etc... Every device that cannot do the things I listed will be a waste of money if compared to good old physical text book.

I think if they redesigned to be more like the microsoft tablet book that was just announced and put some of the said features like sticky notes and ability to write I think it would be better. Only problem books dont need power, but then again I would be willing to give that up than to lug around 30 lbs of books a day.

Depends on the course and the textbook in question, but I would prefer my convertable tablet/laptop over it in any case.

I bought my first computer in 1984. There was no Internet at the time. Instead we read pc magazines published by Ziff Davis. I remember an article in PC Magazine about going paperless. It never really happened. Instead we wound up using more paper. Now we use "electronic paper". By all accounts use of "electronic paper" is going through the roof.

Hmmmm... a though just popped into my head. I wonder if the target audience is housewives that read romance novels.

The only device that might serve as a replacement for textbooks would be a device similar to a tablet PC that has about the same surface area as a closed, moderately sized text book. It would need a feature that would allow the user to view two pages at the same time(similar to have a book opened), and be able to keep up with the working speed of top-tier students.

It would also need great menu options(i.e. having multi-colored tabs to bookmark pages for starters), allow the user to write notes on the pages in free-hand form, and also allow for the backing up for all works to a secured location(as we all know, Amazon just has too much control over these devices from the 1984 book incident).

The perfect device could be made today, but the problem is that everyone is more concerned about getting paid rather than giving students what they need. It is the same reason that we do not have batteries that last longer and why we do not have high horsepower cars that can get 100 MPG.

I'd take it. One of my classes has three textbooks, one has two, and the other four all have one (plus some books). An average textbook is what, 5 pounds? Its a pain to carry around all the time. A Kindle DX would be a welcome change for me, but only if they paid for it :-P

what the hell does Princeton students have to do with the kindle being a piece of shit? Do these writers actually think we care what geeks from Princeton think?

Tablet PC FTW... I photocopy my books with a point-n-shoot camera, turn the JPGs into PDFs for each book, open it in Foxit PDF Reader, and you can highlight, bookmark, write anywhere on the page... And then copy it into OneNote.
It already has replaced physical text books for me for over a year and a half now...

Who ever thought the Kindle was designed for students is either on Crack or Meth. It was designed for home use for readers who didn't want all the books lying around. It was never meant to be a replacement
for students books. I am shocked that Amazon would even allow it knowing that that's not what it was meant for. Amazon only cares about sales, but this mistake may cost them more sales in the end. Shame on you Amazon.

As a engineering student, I fully agree with the article. For example, I just flipped through 80+ pages in a textbook, not to read it, but for all the equations and notes on the subject. I just don't see an e-reader being useful until they come with a stylus and margins so I can annotate and bookmark key points.
On another point, if I had the money (big IF), I would would consider getting one for leisure reading.