Kindle, for Survival?

I was reading up on these the other day, about their long battery life, and the way they use power. Might this be a good way to carry tons of Survival guides, and other electronic info, in a survival situation? Seems that it may be a good alternative...at least for a fairly short-term SHTF scenario.

Of course, an actual book is more fool-proof, but the amount of material you could take with you, is at least worth considering as a take-along.

I get what you're saying but, when the power goes (and it will) it's gone, and all the knowledge with it. The time is now if you want to take in all the knowledge.

reply to post by Gazrok
You would definitely want to turn off the 3G or Wi-Fi service on your kindle to preserve battery life (depending on which version you have), but even then you're only looking at about a month of power for runtime. Not sure how long you could stretch that out with only turning on when you need information, and how the start-up screen affects battery life so can't tell you if that would figure in.

They are danged handy, but you would also want to be sure to have a good cover of some sort to protect the screen if you wanted to do this. They're fairly delicate and a busted screen renders them pretty much worthless (on my 3rd one now, thanks to Amazon for replacing at no charge).

Long story short - I wouldn't forego printing off or otherwise collecting survival manuals in exchange for this option. And remember, the Kindle can only display the Amazon format and PDFs, IIRC.

They require power; not overly rugged; they're vulnerable to electro-magnetic pulse effects; it's harder to barter one single book to a passerby fora his packages of instant coffee and sugar; unless he has a functioning one also.I can't imagine finding mostof the short run palladin press books I have being available for kindle.

Oh yeah they make a terrible substitute for toilet paper.
Other than that yeah they're great!

Remeber Kindle has an agreement you sign that says that they can snoop and your kindle anytime you sync it with your computer. I looked and the sony ones are the same, the only one I found with out the snoop clause is the kobo. It's canadian, cheaper and smaller. I have one stored away with it's sim card full of digital backups of lots of books, in case I have to leave the paper library behind.

It isn't when you sink it with your computer, only when you synch via whispernet. In a survival situation you would keep net connection turned off.

You could also get a windup electrical or solar recharger to help keep it going (doesn't take much to give it enough juice for a couple of hours). Presumably you want some things that are power based anyway, so you should have that kind of thing covered.

It isn't impervious to damage obviously, it is just plastic, but it is pretty hardy of you keep it secure in the right kind of case.

Obviously, you'd disable the wireless, etc. features. No, I'm really talking about any e-reader (not just Kindle) that uses the solar display method (where it only uses power when you turn the page).

I'd still want at least one good paper survival book, but at least this would be good (along with a pocket-full of small batteries) for a good while.

Oh yes relying on something battery powered when everything goes to heck is a swell idea.

There are possibilities of solar charger or even a manual one. Those devices do not eat lots of power. The thing is that in real doomsday scenario for long term it will not be a long term solution. A library full of books will not be either ,though.

We'd just go back to learning from our elders. We've survived before without all our gadgets. It would go back to trial and error. If you eat something in the wild and you get sick, avoid it in the future.

Humans learn quick that's why we've survived for so long.

This is an excellent idea. For those that don't have time to read up on everything now, and a way to preserve information for others. I personally have an old nokia N800 tablet bought used for very cheaply off of ebay. It is small, about the size of a gps, making it very portable. It runs an older version of meego linux, called maemo so there are quite a few useful apps for it besides text and pdf. The screen resolution is high enough for text at 800x480. The combination of that small tablet, a few 8gb memory cards full of data, and a small solar charger should keep me in data.

reply to post by Gazrok


Why? There are old Handheld PC's from the late 90's (97-98) that are monochromatic and have super battery life on two AA batteries. My Psion 5MX for example lasts me for well over a week with casual reading. Also has a decent screen and keyboard. It also draws very little power (even less then a Nokia mobile phone on charge) meaning you can improvise if you should be unable to find batteries. (Or use rechargeable batteries charged via a small wind turbine.)

Plus, it has back lighting. If you don't like the Psion, the HP 360LX is a great choice which runs Windows CE 2.0.

Maybe combined with a solar & wind mini charger, we can still have books & music if the SHTF. This one even has a hand crank option:

www.hymini.com...

My el cheapo e reader, a Kobo, also has an option to store books on memory cards, in addition to the 1000 (around) books it can hold. Plus, until society collapses, I can still get books for free from the library.

Originally posted by Ramcheck
I get what you're saying but, when the power goes (and it will) it's gone, and all the knowledge with it. The time is now if you want to take in all the knowledge.

I don't see this being an issue if you have a solar panel charger.

fieldlaptop.com...

www.buytough.com...

yeah i been look at solar and battery tech lately and the newer stuff out now would come in handy

any number of product makers did a thread not to recently about goal zero

one of their chargers uses aa batters that has usb connections couple that with solar and enelop batteries or hell even lithium batterys and your covered.

a christmas present i got 2 years ago was just some cheap rechargeable energizer batteries AA and i have not had to buy batteries since.

it up to the person but electronics is not out of the question for long term survivalists.

low power usage electronics will not become obsolete as long as anyone has potatoes

the potatoes battery is the oldest form of electric power next to lightning simple efffective and easlity made

and it is also possible to jerry rig and daisy chain multiple potatoes for increased power next up is hand crank generators we have all seen and wind turbines are also easily made.

reply to post by Gazrok


Wouldnt an E.M.P.fry the electronics in the unit?

reply to post by wutz4tom
As far as Im aware & I aint a scientist or expert but the EMP would only affect it if it was turned on IMHO anyway.

reply to post by Thunderheart
I use my kindle a lot & have a wind up dynamo charger, a solar charger & one connected to my car's cigarette lighter as for the the format of books you could always download calibre which is a convertor for any type of format. But you gotta read the following 2 books if you haven't already done so by Alex Scarrow AfterLight & LastLight UBER scary man & so easily done.

reply to post by daley2010
Oh & I forgot I also have an emergency charger that runs off 4 AA batteries but has a USB connection too. Incidentally there are loads of survival books on here.