Amazon Kindle Saves Money On Books?

[hmom5]

Does anyone have kids using the Kindle to download texts? BusinessWeek says it pays for itself in one term. True?

[emeraldkity4]

I doubt it.

I have never seen one in real life & I live in geektown.

[merejane]

I hadn't heard of this, but I would be very interested, having just spent almost $700 on one semester's worth of textbooks for my son, an engineering major.

I did a google search on "kindle textbook." From the many articles, it seems that this is something that is on the horizon, but is not happening yet. I do think it has potential.

[emeraldkity4]

Try bestwebbuys for book deals- looks at sites such as Amazon/B & N & Powells concurrently.
Saved hundreds of dollars every year.

Now that more classrooms are featuring interactive whiteboards, are the Kindles going to be able to download the info? that would be really cool.
Still, I would rather have an airbook.

They ( smartboards) even have been installed in my daughters inner city high school after the remodel ( that had been put off for 50 years)

[MomofWildChild]

My son is "Mr. Kindle" and hasn't found any of his texts available for it.

[SlitheyTove]

Another good resource for used books is AddALL Used and Out of Print book search. Just used it to find an international version of a textbook for a class for the spouse, 1/3 the cost of the textbook at the campus store.

It might depend on the subject, and the student's major. A chem major taking a gen ed course in anthropology might be perfectly willing to buy the anthro books in a Kindle edition, but may want a hardback o-chem text because that's a long-term reference. On the other hand, many students might want to keep their art history book.

High school and younger kids would be a GREAT target market. Many (most?) schools can't afford to have enough of those backbreaking textbooks so that students can keep one book at home and use a class set at school. Parents can't afford or can't find duplicate copies to purchase for home use. If a parent can buy a kindle and then cheaply and easily buy an e-text for home use, voila, a new market for textbook publishers and no more aching backs for students.

[Raindrip]

I have a Kindle, and I love it. It would be ideal for textbooks. All that information stored on something the size of a paperback! I hate reading computer screens, but I like reading my Kindle better than a book. It's much crisper, and one can adjust the type size.

Not sure about text with illustrations, though.

[Karen Colleges]

I doubt that it would work. S has to mark passages for use in seminar discussion, and writes a lot of ideas in the margin. Can you do that on a Kindle?

However, I could see the value of having high school textbooks on it as a resource for home use. D is carrying about 50 pounds of texts every day. (I am afraid to actually weigh her backpack and bookbag....)

[BCEagle91]

Isn't the Kindle black and white right now?

Do textbook makers want to be locked into a proprietary device for their materials?

How long can you hold the information in the book?

If you have textbooks, you can loan them to others.

This would seem to kill resales.

[lspf72]

Over the summer S1 bought a gently used older-version Sony reader (sort of like a Kindle) on eBay for $100 or so. He was able to download a bunch of foreign policy texts and several books for free (I have no idea how). He used it a ton over the summer, but not so much now that he is back at school. He didn't use it for textbooks.

Compared to staring at the computer screen (which if I do for long enough, my eyes water and feel like they're shriveling into dry little raisins ), the reader seems A LOT more easy on the eye, if a bit dark. The Kindle is probably a step or two up, though.

[BCEagle91]

Text has been available on PDA for at least a decade. I used to load texts and books in text on my Palm and Garmin devices. But what about textbooks with color diagrams and examples?