Customer Reviews

Los Angeles Times

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I've been using the 14 Day trial Kindle subscription to various newspapers (New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times). I thought at first that most should be pretty equal in quality but was seriously mistaken.

Living in Los Angeles, I ended up choosing and keeping the Los Angeles Times subscription for it's coverage of California news and Calendar section. However, I noticed a (very) significant difference in quality from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times to the Los Angeles Times. The aforementioned newspapers rarely (almost never) have typos or grammatical symbols in their articles. The articles are nicely formatted and are very consistent. This is not the case with the Los Angeles Times. While the information is pretty much there for the Los Angeles times, it is very evident that there is a lack of quality in the Kindle edition. I want to like it and the articles are very relevant to me as resident of Los Angeles. The Kindle edition is maybe 80% there.

The editors of the LA Times need to put in more work into this Kindle edition to bring it more in line with their competition. Please look at the quality of the New York times and Wall Street Journal and try to match it (no typos, add pictures and charts, no formatting errors, etc). I'm still a subscriber to the Los Angeles Times but I have seriously pondered switching to either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal simply for the quality of both their articles and the quality of their Kindle editions (the only thing keeping me as an LA Times subscriber is the California section and the Calendar section in the newspaper). Hopefully the editors can put in the required effort to make this a quality publication. I definitely want to like it and would like to see it improve.

July 2, 2009

Did not see the LA Times Kindle edition fix the negatives mentioned above. I have canceled the subscription. Will probably subscribe if the LA Times staff puts the effort into fixing their Kindle edition.

I tried at least 5 newspapers on the Kindle, including New York Times and Washington Post, and settled on the LA Times a few months ago. The layout and navigation work well on the Kindle. It consistently arrives early. The quality of the writing and the breadth of coverage are both excellent. I would have given it a '5' - but the lack of graphics and photos is an obvious negative--especially when reading a story that refers to a graph that you have no way to see. Nevertheless, I highly recommend LA Times, especially to Californians who want substantial and original coverage of national events.

It's disappointing enough that there are no pictures or graphics in the electronic version of the L.A. Times. (How exciting it is, for example, to read about art, architecture and home decorating without illustrations.) But when I learn that the "special" sports sections featuring the first two Lakers' NBA Final games aren't downloaded with my subscription, I can't believe it!

Am I supposed to buy a second "hard" copy of the newspaper just to see the Times' coverage of the Lakers? Or should I read the paper for free on the tiny screen of my Apple iPhone? Amazon and Kindle, PLEASE get your act together.

I live on the East Coast, read both the NY Times and Wash Post on the web, but was disappointed with both their Kindle attempts. Perhaps, their Kindle editions are finalized and published so early (between 4 to 6 am EST) that they can't include many of the stories found on their websites at the time most people start their days. It appears like both are a bit short on articles compared to their print or web editions. The LA Times Kindle edition, however, seems to have more timely headlines for the late morning commute (9 am EST). Also, their writing is solid, and coverage amazing. In addition to the hard news of world conflicts or the housing crisis, they mix in human interest stories like recent ones on the struggles of workaday classical musicians or archaeologists uncovering artifacts from ancient "green" Sahara. Definitely a keeper.

After reading the comments from everyone I was leery about it, so I decided to try it out for the 14 days free and see for myself...I have no idea what people are talking about. There plenty of pictures (albeit in black/white), stats, scores, etc...Also very well laid out in both sections or titles/articles. You can chose to keep issues or it automatically deletes the old one when it downloads the new one. It seems to be the complete paper, but I have no reference as I don't subscribe to the print edition.

The one thing that is insane is the price...cannot believe what they are charging, which is one of the things I am debating in keeping or deleting the subscription once the 14 days expire...I really would like to keep it, but not at that price.

Absolutely you should give it a chance if you like to read this paper.

I just finished my first reading of the Kindle version of the LA Times. I thought that it was great....for what it is. I compared it to the print version the same day. After reading the Kindle version, I perused the entire print version. I did get the backbone of the Times news.

It is NOT the print version. As others have complained, it does not have the number of photographs, graphs, or minor articles that the full print version does. For someone "on-the-go", it is great. It covers the main articles with full text in a fairly uncumbersome manner.

Don't expect the print version and don't expect a smart phone version. The Kindle version is somewhere inbetween.

What a disappointment! I've been a subscriber to the Los Angeles Times print edition for years, but earlier this year moved to the Kindle version to save trees. Sadly, typographical errors are frequent in the Kindle editions. Article continuity is inconsistent. There are no photos, comics or graphs. Many articles from the print edition are omitted from the Kindle version. Recently, LAT stopped including the local weather forecasts altogether.

Other newspapers manage to publish very acceptable versions on the Kindle. Los Angeles deserves a better newspaper.

I've had this subscription for several months. Initially I thought it would be great to get my L.A. Times on the Kindle and save the environment. But I can no longer take it!! The Kindle version is always missing content that is in the physical paper. (I'm a big sports fan and there are always articles in the physical paper that are left out of the Kindle edition). That just won't work. So, I'm going back to the actual newspaper until such time as the L.A. Times decides to make the Kindle edition a "full edition".

Having been an intern at the Los Angeles Times in 2007 (before Sam Zell took over), I was excited to be able to start reading the paper in a form besides the Web site again. I ordered the first day I had my Kindle and was over the moon.

The stories are interesting and remind me of a great point in my career. I love the Column Ones and many of the great columnists. I get my national news and my stories out of Africa. Good interviews fill the Calendar section and I get to read my friends' stories.

But as months have passed, I find the editions becoming smaller and smaller. For being one of the most known papers in the world, it's becoming one of the smallest. For example, on Jan. 4, the Sunday New York Times (kindle edition) had 12,000-plus locations while the LA Times had 5,111. On Feb. 1, The Washington Post's Sunday edition had 8,500-plus while the LA Times had 4,892. Also, the LA Times doesn't have images where the NYT and the Post do.

With the announcement of the California section's death and move into the front section, it most likely means less of the national and world news I'm after and the local news Californians are after.

Plus, with the mass layoffs coming again, editing mistakes are bound to become more frequent than they are now. I'll likely cancel soon and go with the Washington Post until someone wrests the LA Times from Sam Zell's evil clutches.

All of the negatives mentioned in other reviews are still present, but as of today, the LA Times has photos. Sometimes, multiple photos per article, which is better than the NY Times (when I looked a month or so ago).