Saturday, November 19, 2011
Kindle vs Nook vs Notebook vs Laptop vs Desktop
I do subscribe to http://skritter.com which allows one to study Chinese characters by stroking them with the mouse or on a touch screen and it works fine on the Kindle Fire. I would say that if money is no object then one should get the most powerful Ipad or Laptop available. If money or size/weight IS a consideration (along with battery life) then obviously one must weigh alternatives carefully. I found one Youtube tutorial on EZpdf (for $1) for android which demonstrates how college students take the professor's slide show presentation, load it as a pdf into EZpdf and then make notes and draw on it. EZpdf can also READ ALOUD through the speaker and the volume/quality is exceptional. One must grow accustomed to the robotic voice but we grow accustomed to anything with enough time and the desire to "make do." Amazon Kindle Fire only has about 6 gig of physical storage and no room for expansion. Of course only your PERSONAL documents use up device storage. All the Amazon books are on "the cloud." Kindle Fire has a jack for headset but lacks microphone or webcam. The Kindle Fire only gets about 5 hours on battery. BUT, the Kindle Fire is small, light, easy to read. My wife wants a Catholic Bible (NAV or Douay-Rheems but not KJV or NIV). I can download various Bibles for her BUT I am thinking of getting something in PDF and loading it to her personal storage BECAUSE then EZpdf will be able to open it, read aloud, copy and paste, etc and she will have more versatility than a Kindle book would offer. I am also thinking of looking for a PDF of the 960 page Catechism. When you purchase EZpdf then they give you a Windows printer driver which will produce PDF's suitable for mobile devices. I had one minute on the phone with her sister to choose between Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook, so I said Kindle BECAUSE in my mind (and I could be wrong, I have not researched) Amazon seems like a larger organization than B&N. The Nook seems larger, heavier. It has more slots available or memory cards. BUT, I can plug the Kindle USB into my Ubuntu and upload/download files. AND there is the option to use CLOUD storage. I downloaded some free essays by Chesterton (one on Catholic Conversion and another "Tales of Father Brown") and he is such a brilliant writer but perhaps dated for today's tastes. I downloaded a free Vol I (edited) of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire because his prose is so "magisterial" and as an historian he was the standard for a century. As far as language learning, using a Kindle is like using a shovel when you could have a front-end loader steam shovel. Unless resources are limited, go with a $2000 laptop. And if you do NOT need portability then go with a desktop or tower.
