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Have You Changed Your Opinion On eBook Readers?
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu May 08, 2008 09:11 PM
from the indispensible-or-expensive-e-paperweight dept.
from the indispensible-or-expensive-e-paperweight dept.
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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Which eBook Reader is the Best? 469 comments
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.
Submission: Changed opinions on ebook readers? by Anonymous Coward
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Monospace Font for Technical Books (Score:5, Informative)
The Kindle, as I understand it, lacks a monospace font. Monospace fonts are rather useful for code listings and whatnot.
Re:Monospace Font for Technical Books (Score:5, Informative)
The Kindle, as I understand it, lacks a monospace font. Monospace fonts are rather useful for code listings and whatnot.
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Re:Monospace Font for Technical Books (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Monospace Font for Technical Books (Score:5, Interesting)
I've also heard that you can use it to take notes and stuff.
And, even new at full retail ($299), it's cheaper than just about every eBook reader out there.
If the thing had a cell phone expansion card it would blow the iPhone out of the water.
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Palm/plucker vs Nokia/FBreader (Score:5, Interesting)
Meh. Does it run Linux? The Nokia N800 / N810 run Linux, do all the above (well, 800x480 actually),
And the N800 is cheaper than the TX. Of course, the TX is a better PDA ,
but I think the Nokia wins as an eBook reader - e.g. with FBreader program.
And did I mention? it runs Linux.
Parent
Re:Monospace Font for Technical Books (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I cracked the display. I was looking at replacement PDAs when a co-worker was talking about his PSP. It's cheaper, wider screen (which makes reading more pleasant), good battery life etc., and trivial to hack to run custom software like an ebook reader.
Plus if you get bored you can play games, listen to music, or watch a video. Definitely recommended.
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Re:Monospace Font for Technical Books (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Monospace Font for Technical Books (Score:5, Interesting)
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No (Score:4, Funny)
Simple answer: No I have not (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a sense of achievement when sitting in the living room surrounded by bookshelves full of varied book. Besides, they are always a conversation starter when I get visitors.
A file on a computer does not compare.
Re:Simple answer: No I have not (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sick of books and would gladly pay for non drm'd replacement pdfs. I have hundreds of textbooks, novels and paperback books and can think of several serious restrictions. I have to remember who I loan them to. They are a pain to move and an even bigger pain to put back on shelves. Eventually, almost all of them will rot. I'd much rather have them all stored on a hard drive that I can run away with when the next Katrina comes. I've been taking pictures of the books I use more frequently, but a pdf would be better.
Publishers don't really stand to lose much this way. If the price was right, most people will just buy their pdfs. Universities and other schools can put the cost of texts into tuition. Employers will keep buying reference material. Libraries could pay a special fee based on average circulation. The other stuff might be swapped but it's not something people would have bought anyway. Publishers that don't get it soon enough are going to be made irrelevant by things like Google text and free science journals.
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Re:Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a safe bet that those paper books will last far longer than any hard drive that you store files on
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How about no? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:How about no? (Score:5, Funny)
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That's not a safe bet at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well maintained, redundant archives should last forever - the ability to copy reliably is equivalent to imortality. I have not lost a single file in the last eight years and I have all of my mail going back 20. Devices may and have failed me but my work, letters, photographs and music has survived and grown. They can be passed on to my kids but books will be too bulky for the same. Every library is overflowing with the result of estate overflow. Some put them on the shelf as a "free library" the majority goes to the paper mill to make TP. Such is the sad fate of your paper media and this is why public libraries are important repositories of culture. In the end, not even libraries last forever. All civilizations have their down time and public libraries are often torched. The entire library of the ancient western world, for example, now fits on a single six by twelve foot shelf because the vast majority of it was lost. The US Library of Congres itself is rotting as we speak. Digital libraries will be much hardier than this.
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Ancient libraries (Score:5, Informative)
Karen Carr, Dept. of History
Portland State University
Parent
Re:Ancient libraries (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, I suspect many surviving plays and poems may have been remakes of older works, or repackagings. But we may never know, as only the most popular copies survived.
Which returns us to the only true way to ensure a work's survival: make copies, and every so often make fresh copies. No medium is forever. Old works died out because they were either copy-protected or because they were not considered valuable enough for the effort of making a copy.
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Re:That's not a safe bet at all. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, there is no question in this debate, PDF's might be a lot better to move and transport, but nothing is better than a i-killed-a-tree text book IMHO.
Just my $0.02 AU
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Re:Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:5, Funny)
So get more screens!
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Re:Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I find that to be a blessing with paper books (and I generally prefer paper for technical books, even though I own a Sony eReader). Reference works like the old command/function lists, showing parameters, are probably an exception (I prefer those to be integrated into the IDE, or I'll look them up on a 2nd screen).
One thing that I learned 10-15 years ago... don't put blinders on when searching for information. As you search, spend 10-20% of your time looking at results that aren't exactly what you were looking for. Anything that catches your eye, that is the least bit connected, or that may shed light on another issue. You don't have to read the extraneous information in-depth, but you should at least file the concepts away in the back of your mind.
Which pays itself back in spades down the road when you, even vaguely, remember what the possible solution for a new problem is. You'll be able to better form a search query to pull up that information you saw a few months earlier. Which is a lot better then doing another blind search with not a lot of idea about what you're looking for.
I work with a bunch of technical folks. The most frustrating (and self-limiting) folks are those who simply want "the answer" to their current problem. They never grasp the concept that by trying to learn in small spurts, their work will become easier down the road. Instead, they say "I'll learn the details later, just help me fix this", and thus never get anywhere.
(Which isn't really germane to the topic at hand... except that when flipping through a paper technical reference manual, it's a lot easier to glance at content other then what you are specifically looking for. Giving me an opportunity to learn a bit about something else while I'm trying to look up something specific.)
Parent
Almost agree with you 100% (Score:5, Insightful)
But at this time, I do not like any of these except for special cases.
In the end, I KNOW that e-books will come within 5 years. So at this time, I buy few paper backs and/or computer books. OTH, I am buying leather-bound books. Esp the classics. The easton press are OH so nice. They should last all the way to my great grandchildren or beyond. But for simple items, far better to go with e-books.
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Re:Simple answer: No I have not (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, the price. I paid
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Re:Simple answer: No I have not (Score:5, Funny)
Last used bookstore I went to the guy behind the counter hit on my girlfriend. Amazon has never done that.
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Freedom, duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I want it to use KPDF, USB and just work. Sell me the book/paper and let me read it with software that works the way I like it to work. If you make it free, people will figure out how to make it usefull.
Re:Freedom, duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Palm Tungsten (Score:5, Interesting)
Any of the modern phones SHOULD be able to do ebooks but the vendors keep the damn things so locked down it's impossible to do much with them. You want some app on a Palm nobody's written yet? You can write it yourself. Want something someone else wrote? You can install it. The Palm is more like a PC, very open, and the damn smart phones these days, even the blackberries, are more like Xbox 360's, technically capable of being open but deliberately locked down due to the parent company's infamous douchebaggery.
I will also say this: none of the books I've read have been paid for and the prices charged for electronic distribution are obscene. Electronic distribution removes most of the costs associated with publication and you're still going to charge me the full price of the hardcover? Fuck you.
Re:Palm Tungsten (Score:4, Interesting)
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You're Missing the Point... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you havn't experienced eInk yourself, you're missing out. Not only is it as readable as newspaper, but the power consumption at rest is ZERO. You don't worry about that nasty backlighting or the headaches you get from reading off a screen - it is completely different and without trying it, you really can't say 'your' non-eInk device is better.
I was an early adopter, and I've still got dead tree books... but I love my sony reader because I can keep all my paper books in one small unit.
Parent
Re:You're Missing the Point... (Score:5, Funny)
as to the fact that your comment was actually intelligent and showed a higher degree of analysis than the parent, Well as they say, even broken clocks are right twice a day.
Parent
Re:You're Missing the Point... (Score:5, Interesting)
The e-ink is nice, but what really matters is the design and form factor. I've read on a Kindle, and it's very nice, and I want to get that or a Sony, but my trusty old Gemstar e-book, with its high-resolution paperback-sized screen is every bit as nice to read on, and it has the advantage that when I want to I can turn on the backlight and read in the dark.
That's actually my one big complaint about the Sony and Kindle readers, that they don't have any sort of internal lighting. I do most of my reading at night, in bed, next to my sleeping wife. The Gemstar's backlight, set at its dimmest, is perfect for me to read by in a dark room, and dim enough that it doesn't bother her at all.
Parent
Only two sticking points for me (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Refresh time on turning pages. I know that it doesn't bother some people, but I do notice it. I'm told that it's getting better, though, and that gives me some hope.
2. Price of digital books. The price is still too close to the cost of physical books. The discount from the physical edition is only a couple of dollars, despite not having to come up with materials and shipping. I don't mind paying a little for convenience, but not that much.
Going along with the price is the issue of title selection (not many science or computer books seem to have made the jump yet), but that will improve. Early in the CD days, many things in which I would have been interested were unavailable in that format.
Re:Only two sticking points for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Prices can only drop as we cut out middlemen.
If an itunes-like publisher were to open up, and offer low priced books direct from the author (like on the itunes app store model maybe) this would revolutionize (read KILL) the dead tree publishing industry. It would also open the door to lots of CRAP. But a ratings system would emerge I am sure.
If wishes were fishes...
Parent
Re:Only two sticking points for me (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm OK with DRM on ebooks from a lending library which expires them at the end of the check-out period. But if I'm going to purchase a DRM encumbered ebook it had better come at a substantial discount over the dead-tree version.
Parent
Re:Only two sticking points for me (Score:5, Informative)
They've been publishing their entire catalogue since 2001, the prices for the books are pretty reasonable, and the ebooks are available in several unencrypted forms.
They even have a whole bunch of their older titles available for free ( the first dose is always free
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Re:Only two sticking points for me (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Shouldn't this be a poll maybe? (Score:4, Funny)
()Yes
()No
()Hell No!
()The 70's called they want their 8-tracks AND the Kindle back.
()Dead Tree or Dead Me!
()Didn't I see one of these in Star Wars?
()Cowboy Neal Kindles his Spindle
Its all about book availability (Score:5, Insightful)
Pages (Score:5, Insightful)
As you get closer to the end, you keep a mental track of where you are in the book by the thickness of either ends. Having a digit tell you what page out of the total pages you're at just isn't the same.
Especially as you get closer to the end- Having the second half of the book shrink as you go, getting excited about the end (Without knowing -exactly- how close you are). Sometimes it even surprises you; you get close to the end but you know you aren't there yet, and then it -does- end, with a thick index in the back.
But not just the turning and thickness of the book. Also the texture. That rough texture of paper vs. slick plastic. That's just something that an eBook reader isn't going to replace.
However, I do think eventually next generations will get used to this. I don't dislike ebooks because of functionality or looks, I just don't like them because I'm not used to them. Sort of comparable to Windows and Linux, where Linux is actually more functional and capable of more things, but at first it doesn't matter because you're just not used to it.
At any rate, I think there is definitely a market for them, and that it'll grow. It'll just take some time of people getting used to the new feelings.
Indispensable (Score:5, Interesting)
The device has PDF support, but it is glacial and nearly inadequate for reading (say) ACM papers. There are conversion possibilities here, or the device may get better support in the future (it wouldn't be hard, frankly).
But for plain text it's wonderful. I'm on vacation now with my unit, and have ploughed through 3-4 books in the last few days.
My balk at getting a Kindle: Having to route your content through Amazon. The privacy aspects of this are terrifying.
Agree that the Kindle has its weaknesses (Score:4, Interesting)
It's very weak when it comes to handling most books with code samples as a critical component, but in most such cases, the kludginess of transporting Kindle text to a machine where I might use the code sample is such that the attraction of stocking up on programming references that contain significant caches of adaptable code is not really there on a Kindle -- and most publishers now offer some simpler means to supply sample code in an accessible manner if you own a hardcopy of the book.
I actually find its main use for me is as a laptop substitute, at least in settings were I'm not looking at a lot of quantitative material, and as a pinch-hitting connection to the 'net when I might be someplace without a convenient phone jack or other connection. My book collection is already too large and I won't replace most of it with Kindled copies.
Still its connectivity is useful for following a few current papers, storing public-domain classic texts for text search and reference purposes, when I want to be able to answer some question quickly, but still want to "un-plug" for the most part from phones, e-mail and other pointless distractions.
I can also store reference documents of my own on the device in what is usually a more readable form than I could managed with most PDAs, if the text in question can be readily formatted as HTML without too big a loss of readability.
Wishlist. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Minimalist Interface. Possibly the Kindle's greatest shortcoming. Should have no more buttons than an iPod (or, say, the original Game Boy).
3. Books easy to download/retrieve. Should be wireless, though the actual purchase doesn't necessarily need to originate from the device itself (see #1 and #2). Perhaps a hybrid system by which content may be purchased online via web browser, and then "pushed" to the unit wirelessly?
4. Open access. Any seller must be able to supply content via a common format. DRM is somewhat acceptable, as long as it isn't obnoxiously intrusive (eg. Apple's FairPlay). Free content must also not cost money (tsk, tsk, Amazon)
5. Books must be considerably cheaper than their dead-tree equivalents.
6. Large, crisp, legible, glare-free display. Should be able to withstand some degree of abuse. I want to feel like I'm looking at a piece of paper, not a screen.
7. Sleek design. Doesn't need to be revolutionary, but also not ugly. This should naturally follow from #1, #2, and #6.
7. Page-turn lag must be kept to a minimum.
8. Cheap enough for normal folks to afford. Under $300?
Under these conditions, you *might* be able to successfully market one of these.
I still don't see the point (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I've seen of e-book readers so far, I can predict that in The Future, the "perfect" e-book reader will be almost identical to a paperback book, only slightly smaller than a real book, with electronic pages, and dozens of seldom-used features like dictionaries and trivia games and thesauruses. And I guess the pages might as well light up too. Maybe it will be useful if there is a paper shortage
On the other hand, the newspaper functionality has potential. Unlike novels, reading the newspaper can be very clumsy and annoying unless you have an entire table to read it on. And the online distribution method is so much more convenient than real newspapers. Of course you can already get news on your cell phone or computer for free, but all the same I think e-book newspapers have some serious advantages over the real thing, which I can't say about the e-novels.
Still pricey (Score:4, Insightful)
Books, even cheaply printed ones, offer excellent resolution and contrast. All but the most awful will last for ages without any special effort. The ability to use marginal notes, bookmarks, underlining/highlighting, sticky notes, and dog-ears gives one a lot of markup options.
I've yet to find an ebook reader even close to my price range that can touch paper on any of those counts. Until I do find one, I'm sticking with my current setup. A cheap secondhand palm pilot of some sort + plucker + project gutenberg. It isn't even close to reading a real book; but it comes in awfully handy on the subway, in waiting rooms, and so forth. Until the tech catches up, I'm treating ebooks as complements, rather than substitutes, to real books.
Bookeen Cybook purchased through NAEB (Score:4, Informative)
This is a great alternative e-Ink reader to the Kindle and Sony Reader. It supports open formats as well as DRM'ed mobipocket, runs linux and comes with the promise of firmware updates to add future format support and bug fixes.
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
7500 "turns" on a charge. At about 20 books, that does seem to use much less power than Kindle's 1 week (maybe!) rating.
The e-books cost the same as normal books? WTF? And I'm tied into only Sony's selection, unless a publisher provides it DRM-free.
If the price were to drastically drop, maybe to $50, for that reader, and the ridiculous prices on the books were lowered, I'd buy it.
So there. I learned something new. But my overall opinion hasn't changed.
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Re:That was my take on it to (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like there are a number of very substantial hurdles for e-books to overcome, I'm guessing the solution involves some sort of wood based material...
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