Have You Changed Your Opinion On eBook Readers? 569
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?
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.
Still not interested. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Yes, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Its all about book availability (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like this is a solution looking for a problem.
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.
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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
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.
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.
Re:Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pages (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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.
Explained (Score:1, Insightful)
They'll post shit about, well, um, shit, for instance.
Deal with it. (e.g. mod it down and move on with life.)
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.
Re:Simple answer: No I have not (Score:3, Insightful)
Consoles are for the unskilled (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW the title of this post is an homage to your lukewarm troll. Enjoy!
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Paper pulp is a crop, you're not deforesting the Amazon to read a book.
Re:Freedom, duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple answer: No I have not (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
Re:two things missing (Score:4, Insightful)
No, and... (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem is chiefly with the content distribution rather than the hardware: I'm just not willing to invest substantial amounts of money in a service that might disappear, or that I might not be able to access, or that might force to pay future service fees, or whatever. As the first link states, one reason the iPod took off was that people had a huge amount of unencumbered music ready to go, and they could rip CDs with ease. If the same were true of books, I'd happily buy a Kindle, but it isn't, and I'm not willing to go the proprietary route until I'm sure it's worthwhile.
Re:Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate books for programming. Give me electronic. The main reason is electronic text search. With a book I have to flip through the pages, look through the contents, or manually search through the index to find the topic. Bookmarks get less effective as you add more and more bookmarks to the book. But now full text search and search engines... no more flipping through pages. Find me "BufferedString". Bam. I'm there.
For me small screens and PDFs suck. The DPI isn't good enough on small devices to display enough of the page. Maybe e-ink does better, but it hasn't caught on in display devices. I wouldn't mind having a 2nd display in e-ink attached to my computer if it was really large and really cheap.
Re:Still not interested. (Score:3, Insightful)
My wish list for an ebook reader (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM free content (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's not a safe bet at all. (Score:2, Insightful)
My books, on the other hand, range from brand new to second/third/nth-hand ones up to 100+ years old. 95% are in good -> very good condition, and all are readable even where some damage has occurred. And all I or the previous owners had to do to achieve this is not leave them standing around in the damp/wet for any length of time. They've been bent, thrown hurriedly onto hard surfaces, read in the bath (an hour here or there doesn't hurt), carried over several continents, dogeared, thrown haphazardly into numerous backpacks and god knows what else. And yet they survive. Minor dents don't render them unusable (unlike cds/dvds). Physical impacts don't hurt them (unlike hdds). The format is relatively stable (human language, not some proprietary binary format). Even major damage (rips, dislodged pages) can be repaired.
Nothing against electronic books. They can be really handy as a adjunct to dead-trees. Just pointing out the facts as I see them.
Re:Only two sticking points for me (Score:3, Insightful)
That's for sequential reading. Sequential reading is easy on anything. The problem is that these devices are horrible for flipping around.
I can stare at a backlit screen for about an hour before my eyes start to burn. I can read the Kindle for hours and hours and never get the slightest eye strain.
Imagination is quite powerful, isn't it?
Re:Ancient libraries (Score:4, Insightful)
Owning that you have not read the lost material, how are you in any position to judge whether it was "good" or not? All you have is the opinions of people whose materials did survive, and we all know from current politics and scholarly literature that there are many works that are improperly labelled as "bad" or "incorrect".
Further, just because a book is badly written or mostly wrong does not mean it does not contain good or useful ideas. Maybe the author was terrible but could inspire a genius to reach a new and ground-breaking mode of thinking.
No one can judge the value of lost materials.
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.
Re:Ancient libraries (Score:2, Insightful)
Non-starter (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Its all about book availability (Score:3, Insightful)
CDs are a different case, because of two reasons:
1) Everything does now come out on CDs.
(before it did, they were too expensive and everyone didn't own them)
2) Its very easy to convert an auto cassette into a CD.
Re:How about no? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm happy that I can pay $6 for a book that only lasts 20 years.
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.)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only two sticking points for me (Score:3, Insightful)
1) The Mobi version of the file they make available works on any platform that supports MobiReader, which includes WindowsPC, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, as well as dedicated E-Ink book readers that include the Booken and iRex(http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailsreader.asp [mobipocket.com]). The Kindle's description page also says it supports Mobi files (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_6774572_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=11XJPR7RV9D55KC6YNPC&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=394924101&pf_rd_i=507846 [amazon.com]).
2) Baen has been trying to get other publishers to use their store (which they've overhauled within the past year or so). SO far they've got SOME books from DelRey and Tor, but they've said that other publishers don't quite understand why Baen is making money and sometimes overprice their products. This is cultural thing though, and so long as Baen keeps making money, other's will want to follow in their footsteps and that should lead to a culture change at the publishing houses.
Re:Hi, I'm your polar oposite. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did this get modded "funny"? I would make the same suggestion.
A trio of widescreen monitors gives you room for one development environment, one open web browser, a handfull of small tools (calculator, volume control, console window, file browser, etc) and three PDFs/CHMs/LITs/whatevers all open at the same time.
And while you can take the dead-tree editions with you to the bathroom, the primative search functionality (a static non-fulltext index without per-result context? puh-lease!) makes them far more cumbersome to use as reference material than electronic formats.
Now, as for the FP topic (have I changed my opinion on eBook readers)... You don't "read" reference texts. You search them for the target information and read just as much as you need to proceed with your current task. For literature (and I don't limit that category to just dead-white-guy-classics), I'll take paper over electronics, and will continue to prefer paper until ebooks have the same basic physical properties: Flexible, thin, light-absorbing rather than light-producing, and not dependant on batteries (or having such a long battery life as to make it something like a TV remote, which we all know takes batteries but you only change them once or twice a year).