The Kindle...For Textbooks?

[Andy]

Amazon's Kindle, a light piece of technology that can store and view lots of books, will be coming out as a newer version. This time, it looks like they're aiming for students and their heavy, expensive textbooks.

http://www.dailytech.com/Report++Amazon+Hopes+to+Replace+Text+Books+With+Kindle/article12784.htm

Would you buy and use one if it meant a lighter backpack and lower prices each school year?

[Phantom]

Yes... When I go off to college in four years, I would look into it.

[Lykaios]

No. The more people who buy them the less books are sold. And that could lead to all books being turned into little computer files and therefore: No books. :(

[Starry]

Yes yes yes yes yes! I had to spend $80 on my history textbook this year...and I'm in high school. xP Whose idea was that? I can hardly imagine having to buy a book for every class for all of college. The Kindle costs about the same amount as a couple of textbooks, maybe one semester's worth, and lasts for all eight. Not to mention how much easier it would be to carry around.

[Shaun]

I'm against it for high school students because I don't believe there should be any more expense put on students to have to perform better. If the school system can provide them, great, if not, then I don't want to see them in schools. Sorry, not all of us are rich enough to afford one.

For college: I'm okay with it, although I'd probably never use it. Why? Because unless my text books start costing me 200-300 bucks every quarter, I can't justify spending 200-300 bucks for a machine and then pay relatively high prices for the kindle versions anyway...I won't save much money. Not to mention that I sell my college books back, sometimes for more than I paid for them. I can't do that with the Kindle, at least not as easily. College students need to be smart about buying their books, but the colleges won't teach them how to find good deals or how to sell them and make a profit or at least most of their money back because...well the reasons are obvious.

[Midnight_Moon]

I would buy it. It would be a great investment for...
A.) the Student (smaller backpack, less back problems, only one thing for all of the text books for all of their classes.
B.) the School (even though they are like $400 bucks a student, it would probably be cheeper for the students in the long run. You guys don't know how much text books cost.)
C.) Wouldn't it help the planet. You would have less paper used it the books meaning less trees cut down. See where I'm getting that.
So I think yes, I would.

[Shaun]

The trees cut down to make our paper are replaced. I'm sort of sick of hearing this argument that the paper industry is destroying the environment. It's not. Take into account that a good portion of all that paper is recycled...meh. Just because you said that I'm going to buy extra paper and waste it :P.