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Which eBook Reader is the Best?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Dec 20, 2007 04:01 PM
from the i'm-still-waiting-for-holopaper dept.
from the i'm-still-waiting-for-holopaper dept.
Mistress.Erin writes "I cannot decide between Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader. I've read some
reviews, but their motives can be somewhat suspect. So, I come to the most tech savvy group around to ask: which eBook reader is the best? If not Kindle or Reader, then what?" We've discussed this question before, but things have changed a bit since 2005.
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News: Seeking a Good eBook Reading Device? 79 comments
Quimbly asks: "I'm an avid reader, and I find that downloading books is much more convenient that trying to get them from the bookstore or library. However, I'm tired of sitting in front of a monitor to do my reading. I'm looking for a hand-held device to do my reading on, and I'm hoping the community has some suggestions.
It seems to me that most PDAs have too small of a screen for convenient reading, and a notebook / tablet computer is too big and bulky for this simple task. So, I've been looking at a few devices designed specifically for eBook reading (e.g. the RCA REB1100, the eBookwise-1150, etc.). These look more promising, but I was disappointed to discover that the RCA device ONLY reads an encrypted, propriety eBook format, making it essentially useless. (Has anyone ever hacked one of these?) Similarly, I believe both of these devices have been discontinued by their manufacturers. I want a device that can read a variety of file formats, especially scanned, non-text PDFs. A large screen, long battery life, and good interface are other attributes I'm looking for."
[+]
Hardware: Amazon's Kindle Sells Out In 5.5 Hours 417 comments
necro81 writes "As reported on Engadget, Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has sold out. Charlie Rose's interview with Jeff Bezos reveals that the Kindle sold out within just 5-1/2 hours of going on sale. Amazon hasn't revealed how many it had in stock at launch, so it may just be that they didn't anticipate early demand. A check of the Kindle's product page shows that more will be rolling out starting December 3rd." Wired also has a brief head-to-head of the more prominent ebook readers and PCWorld has a review of the new gadget from Amazon.
[+]
Entertainment: Hands-On With The Kindle 365 comments
Amazon's Kindle e-book may have sold out in record time, but there's still a lot of discussion about the device's merits. Neil Gaiman likes it well enough, but it's sent Robert Scoble into a fit of apoplectic rage. For a real, meaty, hands-on look at the way the device operates in everyday life, Gamers With Jobs writer Julian Murdoch has a slice of life with the Kindle. He takes us through his Thanksgiving holiday weekend with the device, noting the quirks (good and bad) that cropped up with Amazon's new toy. "Short of reading in the tub, the Kindle is easier to read in more places, positions, and situations than a physical book ... But it's far from perfect. It is expensive. The cover, which I find completely necessary, is in desperate need of more secure attachment (Velcro works great). The book selection is less-than-perfect, although I imagine this will improve with every passing day. And Amazon needs marketing help. The Kindle's launch reeked of 'get it out fast.' The big-picture marketing efforts (like video demonstrations and blurbs from authors) were great, but simple things like communicating how freakin' easy it is to get non-Amazon content on to the device, for free, remain horribly misunderstood."
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News: The Cult of Kindle 283 comments
DaMan writes "ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog is pondering the Kindle this week. There have been many attempts at an ebook reader in the past; why does Amazon think it can do any better? Given the high cost and DRM issues, will cachet be enough to win them financial success? Will the 'Cult of Kindle' help guarantee Amazon's success in the ebook reader market? 'A group of people willing to give it a five star rating just because someone else didn't, willing to back up every design, engineering and marketing decision that Amazon made, willing to defend the Kindle with their last dying breath. The Kindle doesn't cost money, it saves money. That 0.75 second flash as the pages turn isn't a downside because it gives you an opportunity to take in the previous page. It doesn't harm your eyes, in fact, it fixes them. Ergonomic issues that other reviewers have bought up are dismissed by the Cult of Kindle as flaws with the reviewer, not the device. The Kindle is perfect, and the Kindle 2.0 will be a little more perfect.'"
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Have You Changed Your Opinion On eBook Readers? 569 comments
An anonymous reader writes "The Kindle made waves when it came out, but they've now had the chance to calm. How many of you have been using your eBook readers since you've received them? How many of you forgot you had one, and how many of you swear by your reader? I like my single-purpose (well, dual — music player) Sony Reader because I actually use it to read, rather than multitasking myself to death. Is this technology as convenient and useful as you expected?"
If not, what refinements or improvements would reKindle your interest?
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Suspicious motives? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've read some reviews, but their motives can be somewhat suspect.
I'm actually more curious about why you wrote that than I am about the eBook readers in question.
The one that isn't Sony (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The one that isn't Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The one that isn't Sony (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:The one that isn't Sony (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and for some reason, the idea of being able to just plug in a thumb drive to the side of these things has escaped both of these companies. I can understand Sony's argument, since they make a whole line of flash media, but SD cards and the like are for cameras, not for storing books.
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Re:The one that isn't Sony (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The one that isn't Sony (Score:5, Informative)
Ask and you shall receive:
http://www.bookeen.com/ebook/ebook-reading-device.aspx [bookeen.com]
It supports the same DRM mobibook format that the Kindle does, also has unencumbered support for HTML, PDF and more, doesn't have the ugly casing or awkward controls that the Kindle has. And yes - it runs Linux.
Happy to help,
-H.
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Re:The one that isn't Sony (Score:5, Informative)
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Neither... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And here is some propaganda material: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/DRMEbookFlyer [defectivebydesign.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I own some readers (Score:5, Interesting)
The best ebook reader around, however, is the Ebookwise 1150. The LCD screen doesn't have great resolution, but it has instant page-flip. The price can't be beat. The back-lighting is wonderful for night reading.
If I were Amazon, I would have released a cheap reader to go along with my expensive reader. Something like the 1150, with just one or two modern improvements (USB file transfer).
Tags (Score:5, Funny)
Which reader? (Score:5, Insightful)
iPod Touch....not (Score:4, Informative)
I have the Kindle, and recommend it (Score:5, Informative)
- Text search capability
It's hard to believe that in 2007, the latest Sony reader has no ability to search through the text of a book. This is important for technical reference manuals and textbooks, and was a dealbreaker for me. I don't use the Kindle store (other than to purchase one book when I first got it), so I leave the wireless off to save batteries.
I find the Kindle is dead simple to use. Plug it into your computer with USB, drag some Mobipocket, RTF, or TXT files onto it (convert your
Also, some people will complain about no native PDF support on the Kindle. This is not a bad thing. Sony reader displays PDFs, but shrinks an entire 8.5x11 page down to the size of the tiny screen, so it's almost unreadable! This is why you must convert your PDFs into Mobipocket format first, so that the Kindle can resize the fonts, etc., and it becomes an actually readable e-book, and not a glorified thumbnail viewer.
Nokia N800 or N810 (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony PRS-505 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. These steps sound
Emacs. (Score:4, Funny)
FBReader + the tiny Asus palmtop? (Score:3, Insightful)
When I saw the tiny Asus machine, "ebook" was the first thing I thought of. Battery life is not great, but I'd be willing to plug it in on the couch/in bed, reserving battery power for being away. My Pocket PC only runs for a few hours too, and it's almost always enough to get me back to a charger-YMMV.
Iliad Reader (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad [irextechnologies.com]
The XO from OLPC? (Score:5, Informative)
From the specs page of the XO PC at One Laptop Per Child:
http://laptop.org/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml [laptop.org]
* Liquid-crystal display: 7.5" Dual-mode TFT display;
* Viewing area: 152.4mm × 114.3mm;
* Resolution: 1200 (H) × 900 (V) resolution (200 DPI);
* Monochrome display: High-resolution, reflective sunlight-readable monochrome mode; Color display: Standard-resolution, Quincunx-sampled, transmissive color mode;
* LCD power consumption: 0.1 Watt with backlight off; 0.2-1.0 Watt with backlight on;
* The display-controller chip (DCON) with memory that enables the display to remain live with the processor suspended; the display and this chip are the basis of our extremely low power architecture; the display controller chip also enables deswizzling and anti-aliasing in color mode.
Re:The XO from OLPC? (Score:5, Interesting)
Posting this from my XO.
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Re:The XO from OLPC? (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing about the Kindle is that it has a lot of eBooks available that are
- not mostly old things that are public domain
- not too expensive
The Kindle appears to be the first eBook reader for which someone who is a reasonably avid current reader has a chance of satisfying most of the reading needs with, without spending a lot more money (other than the initial cost of the device itself). As far as the device cost, note that this is offset somewhat by the reduced storage costs. For someone who buys and keeps a lot of books, the savings in not needing to buy as many bookshelves could actually be more than the cost of the unit!For those looking for an eBook reader that also lets you read your own files, and things like that, the Kindle isn't there. But for those looking for something that is an alternate way to deal with books, it looks like the best so far.
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Kindle's free wireless is interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
HanLin (Score:4, Interesting)
The current model is about the same as the Kindle, minus the wireless, nice button interface, and DRM, and plus some real format support (PDF, various images, even doc files to some extent).
The new model due out in the early part of the new year will make ebooks are really worth looking at. 825x1200 resolution on a ten inch screen with PDF support makes me very interested.
Great tip, thanks (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/09/18/hanlin-ereader-v9-due-later-this-year-with-10-inch-e-ink-screen-new-vizplex-tech-included/ [teleread.org]
Of all the readers out there, the only one that has me really interested is the Iliad (discussed briefly in a comment above), but the high price tag is making me a bit reluctant to jump. The price of the current Hanlin is much more reasonable, and I've been dying for an eReader with a big screen for me to read technical PDFs and RTFs on.
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Owner of both Kindle and Sony Reader (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The eInk screen is substantially easier to read. The Sony 2G is actually uncanny... looks like stickers stuck on the screen. The Kindle is much less contrasty and harder to read.
2. Battery life. eInk does not use significant power unless you are turning the page, so the battery life of these things is on the order of 1week plus with heavy usage. When I have used laptops or PDAs for reading, the batteries die quickly (before I want to stop reading).
Comparing the two.
Sony:
Much more contrast on screen. Very easy to read.
Smaller
Lighter
Much more intuitive user interface. It has multiple choice buttons for navigations.
Better physical design with buttons in convenient positions
Feels more solid and less cheap than Kindle
Software allows you to retag and organize files.
DRM and limited store is a big minus.
Better multiple format support
Kindle:
Staggeringly bad industrial design. Only really one good way to hold the thing without hitting one of the buttons which inexplicably are found on every side.
Want to turn up the contrast on the screen.
Bizaarr user interface that requires scrolling and multiple clicks with a secondary lcd screen to perform simple functions.
Keyboard take a lot of space.
No software to tag and oragnize files. So the list of files on the device is unweidly, long, and filled with incomprehensible tags from Gutenberg, Manybooks, or Fictionwise.
Very restrictive DRM which cancels out its advantage of having a much larger and easier to use store for books.
Wireless is good for subscribing to periodicals, not much else.
Amazon has a staggeringly inefficient mail-in system for conversion. No conversion has worked well so far, strange spacing and formatting even in simple documents.
They need simple PC software to manage the thing. The self-contained bit is inefficient and a waste of wireless and organization.
I figure there are three kinds of reader:
1. Like me - buy and keep books forever. Neither reader much good because DRM keep you from owning the books forever, just until the store dies or you want to change to a better competing reader.
2. Buy books read and resell - no right-of-resale with either device.
3. Buy "beach books" and throw them away. Both readers were made for you with the Kindle having a better store.
XO laptop! (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on your goal (Score:4, Informative)
If you want it for the reading experience, get the Sony.
If you want it so that everyone will think you're geeky, get the Kindle.
If you want it because you're truly geeky, get the Irex Iliad [irextechnologies.com].
There's more information than you ever wanted to know about e-book hardware, software, formats, etc. at MobileRead [mobileread.com]
My experiences in selecting an ebook reader (Score:5, Informative)
1) Know what you are getting into.
Ebooks have some great advantages. However:
* DRM is common
* books are pricey
* selection is very limited
If you're still interested, continue.
2) LCD vs Eink
I read a lot on my Palm. Now that I have an eink reader, I'm not going back, I never thought LCD was "hard" to read on until I read on something else. However, eink means $$$ and few choices, while there's a number of established as well as new LCD devices for much, much less. LCDs can also scroll, while the eink has a
Your question implies you've picked, so we'll continue on, but others are recommended to visit a Borders and take a peek at a demo Sony Reader - the viziplex screen is pretty much the same for all the major eink readers.
3) Pros and Cons
There are basically 4 readers to choose from here (ignoring the fringe players):
Bookeen
Sony
Kindle
Iliad
Iliad has some real perks, but I wanted a reader not a computer, and certainly not $700 worth.
Bookeen has some nice features, but after my painful Zaurus experience, I wanted to stick to something intended for my language and a little more commercial support. When I bought my reader, the Cybook was still finishing off the rough spots. It may now be worthy of consideration, as it has a much wider selection of formats than the Sony Reader.
Kindle - though it wasn't out when I got my reader, it came out shortly afterward. Major Pros are wireless access to snag books, improved book selection (still limited), and much better prices on books. Major Con is the highly restrictive DRM. That latter is what kept me content with my Sony.
Sony - My eventual choice. It takes props as one of the only technology choices I didn't quickly regret. It has its limitations, most notably the crappy book selection, even crappier prices, and the eink refresh time. But it does what it tries to do reliably well.
Here are the things about the Sony reader that the review may not cover (505 only, not always true for 500)
It's a USB Mass storage device - so you can install books from any computer. What's more, it takes SD cards (and memory sticks, but I haven't mucked with that), and when the card is in the reader and the reader is connected to the computer, the card also appears as a drive on the USB device. I've been able to use my Reader on multiple computers, Windows and Linux, with no issue. There is no need to use the Sony software except to download from their crappy bookstore.
You may see talk of a credit at the bookstore - that's for "Sony Classics" only, i.e. books you can grab off of Gutenburg for free. I recommend you turn to mobileread.com for your ebook needs and wait for Amazon et al to get a clue like they have (started) with Mp3s. Either way, don't factor the $100 credit into your comparison.
The Sony Reader can handle LRF (it's propriety but not necessarily DRM'ed format) well, offering hyperlinking and 3 levels of magnification along with landscape/portrait modes. It can also handle TXT (I believe the zoom offerings are the same). PDF is also handled, but (1) Not "Digital Editions" (Adobe's DRMed books) and (2) It only offers 2 "sizes". Most PDF books come across as very small even when I have it zoomed and landscape. RTF doesn't resize in my experience, but it works well enough. Notably HTML, Mobi, Palmdoc, Word doc, and Openoffice formats aren't supported.
Installing a book can be done with their crappy wanna-be Itunes like software...or you can drag and drop via USB and ignore that. I recommend the latter.
The charge for me, reading a couple of hours each day, is a little less than a week. It charges off of USB no problem, standard mini connector. Your current position in books is lost if it goes dry, but nothing else, including hard boo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hyperlinks, bookmarks and notes are another powerful feature of an eReader. I only wish that you could share this meta data with other users more easily.
And free content....well, sort of. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm with you. And, I went to my local library and got a card. And now, I have access to thousands of titles for the cost of my tax dollars.
I think a big part of the popularity of the e-readers is because it's just another gadget. Folks will come up with plenty of rationalizations as to why they need it or how it's so superior to a book. But that's the consumer mentality, I guess. It goes the same for fast cars (need them to merge with traffic!), SUVs (safety after all and I have kids!), computers, cameras, etc...
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Re:And free content....well, sort of. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't wait to be able to load up a book series and be able to cross reference names and events from within the series.
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Re:And free content....well, sort of. (Score:5, Insightful)
Time to blow some karma.
What is it about the eBook articles on slashdot (a tech geek site FFS) that seems to bring all the Ludites out of the woodwork? I can understand people complaining about DRM, but at least half the negative posts are people saying eBooks are stupid and you should just buy the paperback. What's wrong with these people? Are they also going around campaigning for the return of the slide rule? I can appreciate if they give reasons why they think eBooks aren't ready yet, or what changes they'd like to see in eBooks, but just flat out condemning the technology for no reason other than they don't like it is silly.
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Re:And free content....well, sort of. (Score:4, Insightful)
Portability, I guess, but I don't really need to take 50 books with me.
Also that they (should be) searchable. Those are the killer factors. I don't yet have an eBook reader for all of the other reasons that you mention.
The eBook reader format that Oreilly adopts is likely to be my next favorite device, however. How would you like to search every instance of a function across their entire library, at once, on the plane?
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Re:And free content....well, sort of. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I imagine it's mostly ignorance (Score:4, Informative)
You're right; it's illogical. However, there is method behind the madness. I haven't, and wouldn't, come right out and say, "I've never seen an e-book, and I think they suck," but I'll venture an apology for those who do. I've been hearing people proclaim that displays are good enough to replace books, newspapers, etc. for twenty years. Not just futurists or marketers, but real people who actually used the technology. That's two-thirds of my life, so you can't blame me for being cynical by this point. E-book proponents suffer from being preceded by decades of enthusiasts who eagerly and prematurely embraced whatever technology was currently available as the successor to print.
In fact, as the technology has become better and better, the predictions of the death of print have been toned down considerably. People made ridiculous claims about the supremacy of 80-column text on monochrome CRTs that no one would dare make about the Kindle today. I repeat, these were not (all) futurists, marketers, attention whores like Dvorak, or semi-literate basement gnomes, but real, educated professionals who had to spend a considerable amount of time in front of those CRTs. So, people who have never seen an e-book and feel safe disregarding all positive reports are just adopting a strategy with a proven track record. It's cheaper to assume e-books are useless, because you'll probably be right for years and years and save yourself tons of time and expense checking out new products, and then one day you'll be wrong, and you won't lose much over it. Unless you're Amazon, which is why they're going to be on the cutting edge the whole way, just to make sure they don't miss the turning point.
By the way, I do have a Nokia n800, and I'm pretty sure it does suck
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Re:I imagine it's mostly ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
I prefer a device with a decent screen (a nice 4" Transflective VGA screen works well) that I can use for a multitude of things, listening to music (or in my case BBC Podcasts), browsing the web, reading my email, reading documents (normal office documents and PDF's), watching a film, displaying the photo's on my camera etc... On top of that I would like it to be a diary, calender, address book and note taker.
That basically describes a decent PDA. The killer is the display if you can get a PDA with a decent display you are on to a winner. For me it is about having something that is useful on a day to day basis (i.e. the scheduling and communications element) as well as having general entertainment value (listening to Music / podcasts etc.. say in the car or at lunch). As well as also being there if I am travelling, commuting or decide I want to read something whilst I am out.
I prefer my phone to be a separate entity, simply due to the fact that battery technology wont give me 10 hours of mp3s + reading a book whilst leaving me a decent standby and talk time at the end of it, but then that is a personal choice, plus there is nothing to stop you carrying a spare battery.
The ability to carry multiple Gb worth of data (my PDA has both CF and SD slots so I use my SD slot as removable media) that are accesable on both the PDA and other computing devices is also a killer feature, so are charging from USB and wifi.
I would never shell out a large amount of cash on a single purpose device, simply because I would mean another gadget to carry around, charge and maintain.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have one word for you: bookmarks.
Seriously, I understand the benefit of having multiple references in one place but I don't see it as beneficial for work unless you happen to do a lot of travel and work on airplanes or in airports where connectivity is much less convenient/likely.
Re:Ah, teh good old days (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using my iPhone to read books. Mannybooks.net has a bunch of free/CC novels up (try "Geek Mafia") in a variety of formats, including a couple for the iPhone. I've been surprised that the iPhone works so well for this, although I haven't tried to read for more than an hour at a time or so.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And the only downsides vs (say) Kindle?
10x the weight.
1/20th the battery life.
No cell-net connectivity
signifigantly larger closed
Immensely larger open
Much slower to come on / off
can't really be used with one hand
The list goes on. I love my laptop, but would never consider it as a book replacement. An E-Book reader is pretty much there.
one word: OLPC (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want a fast refresh, laptop capability and wifi enabled, go with the OLPC. And, did I mention you could accidentally drop it and spill you coffee on it and it will still work?
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Theoretically though, in time, the e-books should be much cheaper than the equivalent books. And the other reason to use e-books is one of convenience, which if you've got any kind of library you need to slough around with you every time you move house, you'd understand.
Last time I did it, I just wanted to die. And then I decided "No, if I can get all my b
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Suspect? (Score:4, Informative)
"Disclaimer: This is all based on what I've seen and read. I haven't seen a Kindle in person. Yet."
WTF?
If you want an excellent review that goes through the whole thing in excruciating detail, you should read the AppleInsider review:
In-depth review: can Amazon's Kindle light a fire under eBooks? [appleinsider.com]
Disclaimer: I wrote it.
If you like that sort of non-stop information that demands an attention span, I also wrote about iPod/iPhone video cables [appleinsider.com].
I also wrote a disassembly of the George Ou Mac OS X vs Vista Vulnerability Numerology [roughlydrafted.com]
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