THE BORE
General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Eel O'Brian on November 20, 2011, 01:44:44 PM
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I thought this deserved a thread since it's such a crazy deal
Looks like Best Buy is clearing out stock of last year's Kindle Keyboard 3G version for $89, which is $50 off the normal price of $139. It's in-store only, but my Best Buy had a good amount of them in stock (insert obvious joke about no one in NC being able to read). I picked one up for myself and for my SO (yay, BB game trade-ins). Thought I'd give everyone in the market for an eReader a heads-up.
(http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/images/products/2506/2506119_sa.jpg)
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Amazon+-+Kindle+Keyboard+3G+%28Free+3G+%2B+Wi-Fi%29+with+Special+Offers+-+Graphite/2506119.p?id=1218354612016&skuId=2506119&st=kindle%20keyboard&cp=1&lp=1
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hahaha, the browser on this thing is so shitty
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yeah, never touch the Internet on it, but damn it's a fine e-ink screen
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Tempting price. Damn tempting.
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Why would you get one of those when the new basic Kindle w/ads is $80? (the new one is smaller, lighter, better contrast etc and you do not need the k/b at all. I have both - trust me on this)
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more storage, can do audio, free 3G
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Do these ship internationally?
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It's only in-store at Best Buy, Amazon still has them listed at $139
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more storage, can do audio, free 3G
more storage for ebooks :lol
audio on Kindle :lol
free 3G - I didn't get it w/mine but ok, if you're into that. As you have found out though - using the Kindle for anything other than reading books is so fucking HORRID that you're going to use your phone to do everything else 100% of the time (browsing, music, buying books even).
The new model is way nicer though. Just sayin'. They didn't ship internationally (although I presume that option will open up after the Xmas rush...) so I used a reshipper to get mine.
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it was only $10 more for all of that, though
audiobooks will definitely eat up some of that extra space, and 3G is nice when you're stuck somewhere with nothing else
i don't have a smart phone - i probably wouldn't even have a phone at all if i could get away with it
and tbh, inside best buy i couldn't tell the difference in the screens between any of the various kindles they had on display
did you hate your kindle keyboard or something?
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the Kindle k/b is fine for reading books, i used the crap out of it. I spent a couple of hours researching all the new Kindles when they were announced before buying, that's all. After comparing the two in use, the new basic is def. the way to go in my opinion. The lighter the better. But they are 90% the same device I guess.
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Cormac, you recommend the new basic one over the Touch?
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Got my mom a Kindle Fire- she likes it a lot so far.
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The e-ink on these things (and most non-tablet e-readers) is just plain amazing.
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I don't have a Touch but the touchscreen seems completely pointless to me. Why would you want to have to tap the screen every time (which leads to lots of unintended page turns) when you could just use a button? The best thing about the Kindle is being able to read one-handed (wine glass in the other, natch) so having to hold it in one hand and tap it with the other to go forward seems like, ironically, a step backward. And you are basically NEVER going to use it like an iPad for web-browsing and email and shit so the touch functionality is basically useless. You'll fuck around with it on the day you get it, and then never use it again.
Also, I think the Touch lacks a USB cable (I know the Fire does...) which certainly complicates your errr, back-ups. You can probably still get illicit stuff on there by email and such but mass drag-and-drop via USB or Calibre is far easier.
Plus, the basic Kindle is smaller, lighter, faster, cheaper. It seems like a no-brainer really. If you want browsing, get a real tablet or smartphone. If you want an ebook reader that you can take everywhere and not worry about (because it's cheap!), get a Kindle.
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Touch comes with a USB cable. And they structured the touch screen where if you touch anywhere on the screen except a small strip on the side to go back and a small strip on the top to open the menu so you can hold it and tap it all with one hand. Which is easy to do since the thing is so insanely tiny and light. I played with both touch and non-touch of the 4th gen at Target (I got the touch) and the size difference is basically non-existent in use. Both shockingly tiny little devices.
And the touch has a purpose. Managing and scrolling through your library if its large is not easy with a tiny little d-pad but fairly quick with a touch screen.
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How do I search for and download new books with no keyboard or touchscreen?
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How do I search for and download new books with no keyboard or touchscreen?
That too. You have to search/scroll/type names/etc all with the little d-pad. And the non-touch one has only 2 GB of space compared to 4 gb for touch and keyboard.
Touch may not be as useful as say for a tablet but due to the size and ability to search and scroll through books I can't see not getting the keyboard or touch one if you have a choice, unless you only want to spend the $79 for the 4th-gen non-touch one.
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the only thing i don't like so far is that kindle doesn't list the free books as a category on the kindle store like they do on the amazon website
on the store you access through the kindle unit, i mean
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I have the Kindle Touch. the selling point for me is the lack of keyboard.
you may ask why i didn't get the keyboard-less old kindle? well i wanted to try out the touch aspect.
i would like it if there were buttons but the touch aspect is pretty easy. holding it in one hand and using your thumb to advance forward is really easy. the screen seems treated to resist smears as long as you're just tapping.
screen refresh rate is fast.
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It isn't just about the touch screen either. Touch has twice the space for storing books as non-touch 4th gen, you can get it with 3G and you can't for non-touch, and it has the x-ray feature of looking up info about the book that non-touch (and keyboard) doesn't have.
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B&N is selling the Nook Touch for $79 on Black Friday.