how much of the archive would fit onto one of these
devices?
Bitsavers is well over 120 Gbytes last time I checked, most of it PDF's.
Depending on generation of Kindle you get 1.4 to 3.3 Gbytes of user storage.
Last time I made a DVD-R set of bitsavers content it filled circa 28 DVD's.
how much of an advantage would one of these devices
hold over a laptop?
The Kindle screen is smaller than most laptops but the portrait orientation is a better
match to typical printed text than a laptop's landscape orientation so the screen real
estate is way better utilized.
Kindle displays by do not include ornamentation and all that other crap around the edge of
the window and that's a true win for screen real estate usage too. I can't believe
it's 2011 and most typical laptop and desktop display usage is devoted to crap like
borders and icons and buttons. Toolbars are the crappiest idea in the world. When I see
someone who has installed so many toolbars in their browser that half of the screen is
taken up with them I just want to scream.
Pixels per inch on the kindle is on the high end of current consumer displays but the same
is true for many laptop displays too.
Power consumption is way lower on the kindle. ("digital paper" vs LCD
technology)
Tim.