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Kindle DX not Doing so Hot in Princeton Experiment

Posted 09/29/09 at 01:40:57 PM  by Paul Lilly

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E-book readers are poised to become as popular as netbooks, and it's Amazon who stands to benefit the most, whose Kindle readers lead the charge. But the handheld digital readers are best served for personal use and not in an academic setting, suggests Princeton University.

As part of a pilot program, 50 Princeton students received a Kindle DX e-book reader at no cost, but according school newspaper The Daily Princetonian, "many of them said they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices."

The Kindles were given to students and faculty in three courses -- WWS 325: Civil Society and Public Policy, WWS 555A: U.S. Policy and Diplomacy in the Middle East, and CLA 546: Religion and Magic in Ancient Rome. In all three classes, the general consensus was that the devices were too difficult to use.

"I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool," said Aaron Horvath, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy. "It's clunky, slow, and a real pain to operate."

Horvath went on to explain that by trading in textbooks for the Kindle, students lose the ability for physical interaction, including highlights, page-tearing, sticky notes, margin notes, and so forth.

COMMENTS:3
TAGS: hardware, amazon, e-book, Kindle DX, e-reader, princeton experiment
COMMENTS
avatarI totally agree with

Submitted by mattman059 on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 3:56am

I totally agree with the Princeton guy...kindles are a waste of time, and money. Amazon..thanks for an expensive POS.....try again.

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avatarIf they can't sell these to

Submitted by Wildebeast on Tue, 09/29/2009 - 8:03pm

If they can't sell these to college kids, I don't see how they expect to market these...

Back in the Day, I would have loved to be able to get away from the whole: $400 worth of books every semester, which [if I use them gently] I can sell back to the bookstore for $150...

(I wonder how a $100 textbook prices out, for the Kindle??)

I have to admit, for Engineering & Sciences, you really need to be able to go over the examples quickly and flip back to tables, graphs, and references... That's a lot to ask from $100 worth of processor and a $350 screen.

I like the concept of these machines, but I think the pricing is out of whack. (both for the unit, and for titles)

I'm not sure I've yet heard what the actual "printing" cost difference is. I have to admit, I'm very curious to hear some actual numbers ---including if a book goes "best seller" and a major percentage of those copies are for Kindle.

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avatarTry a tablet

Submitted by servantsoldier on Tue, 09/29/2009 - 11:44am

I'm in my 4th year of college and I use an HP tablet with MS Onenote. I love it.

Pros: The ability to bookmark, doodle on, highlight, and text search anything I put in. Being able to rearrange my notes and add graphics to them. The ability to create an index file. Surfing the internet without looking like I'm surfing the internet. Scanning in every handout I get so I don't have to worry about keeping track of them. Syncing Onenote to the cloud and my desktop with Dropbox.

Cons: After 3 hours I have to plug it it. Most textbooks don't come in any Onenote friendly format. Bulkier than a Kindle. Some teachers still get suspicious. Professors that ask everyone to pull out a sheet of paper for a quiz.

If there was kindle software for tablets, that would be awesome. Until then, I'm going to keep scanning away.

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