Community weekly poll: Would you buy an e-book reader?

(NT) Nope...Too many decent freebies to pay for one.

by John.Wilkinson  - 11/28/07 3:34 PM

In reply to: Would you buy an e-book reader? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

E. Books

I enjoy books on tape, disk. I can do repetitive activities while working.

e-book readers:what's missing...?

Would I buy an e-book reader?
Definitely yes.
The real question is: Are there any devices out there that perform this task satisfactorily?
In my opinion: no, there are none…
As evidenced by the raging debates on the matter, some suggest that Iliad or Sony style readers are viable solutions, while others argue that laptops or slates are the better alternatives. A viable e-book reader is neither of the two solutions available today. It seems to me that we are talking of two different market segments, rather than hardware alternatives.

It appears controversial, that in spite of the extensive research on e-books, none of the devices on the market today offer an effective reading device and that current implementations fall short of addressing some basic requirements for a practical reading device. This situation is typical of a technology driven approach, rather than a market driven one. Even though most of the bits and pieces for building such devices are there, a deeper look will probably reveal that the core technology for these devices is not quite there yet.

Whereas most of the e-book screens available today (2007) have a size of 6 to 7 inches they are monochrome e-ink devices, which are fine if you read novels, paperbacks or the like. However if you do a lot of technical or business reading, such as (research) papers, technical books, brochures, magazines, reports, etc…then an A4 screen size (portrait orientation) accommodating a whole page without scrolling (sideways or up and down) is essential. It goes without saying it should have a high resolution color display. A reflective/ passive screen is ok, while a dynamic screen with its own light source might be an option in the future.
Also ideally, it should have a 2 page arrangement similar to the look and feel of a paper book while allowing the display of consecutive or different pages. You should also be able to search, annotate, hyperlink, and look-up text as well as create your own customized texts, by bringing in several sources together to create a “virtual” hyperdocument . Multimedia capabilities are also a key feature that would illustrate concepts, do interactive training, read aloud, and perform similar chores. The device should be able to give you at least 6 hours of battery operation.
Connectivity and communication with other devices, LAN’ s, WAN’ s and the Internet are essential components of the system and could well be at the core of a publishing revolution. It will only be a matter of time until the publishing houses come up with innovative ways to publish, distribute, lend and sell e-books.
At this stage one should deliberately avoid letting issues of intellectual property rights, or digital rights management, hamper or interfere with the modeling and construction of such devices. If history is any indication, a look at the music industry has a lesson or two to teach us.
With time, the publishers will be able to adjust to the new paradigms Such issues will be resolved separately after the market for e books matures and reaches critical mass.

BicoBull,
Alexandria - Egypt.

e-book reading devices

In reply to: (NT) Nope...Too many decent freebies to pay for one. by John.Wilkinson 

i already have an e reader it's called apalm tungsten t5 i love it i also have it loaded with games and photos i'm in the process of investing a palm TX very similer to the t5 except it has WiFi check them out and give us a run down on the pros and cons yours franksp@optonline.net

No I wouldn't

In reply to: (NT) Nope...Too many decent freebies to pay for one. by John.Wilkinson 

Maybe they are the way forward, I don't know, but I have found from experience (usually bad) that ANYTHING that is electronic in nature - a good example is the computer O/S - is not really good enough to start with, and they usually have to have at least one revision, sometimes more, before they are anything like reliable enough.

This is one of the reasons I will not accept ANY alpha or beta test versions on my computer, the O/S will normally stand programmes that are thoroughly tested, but to ask (as did Microsoft recently) the whole of the world's population to test Vista, that shows either that they are lazy or need feedback. Normally at best this can lead to O/S instabilities and crashes. Not only that but those who did get the beta version of Vista had to pay for it!

Whilst I agree that the system is fairly well self-contained, it will not be free of problems for some time to come, so I have no plans to buy one - I'd rather read some of my personal library of books!

re: freebeeies????

If you already have a pda, there are several readers available. I'm not sure if all are free but Mobipocket, Palm eReader, and MS Reader are free. Mobi and the Palm reader also have desktop versions. My Palm TX will take a 4 gig card but I use only a 1 gig. That still holds a heck of a lot more than 200 books.

I have over 1,000 ebooks and have paid an average of 6.50 - 7 dollars for the ones that I had to buy. I find the cost for an ebook that is available in paperback to be a couple of dollars less than the dead tree version. Books that are still in hardback are a real bargain at about half the cost of the dead tree version. Project Gutenberg offers thousands of free classics and they now have some that are sound files. There are more and more ebookstores out there and you can often buy direct from the publisher.

My TX also does more than just let me read books. My calendar, contacts and tasks are kept there. I also have a half dozen or so databases and lists in various formats. I can compose, read and edit Word and Excel files and view PowerPoint presentations. I carry a lot of pictures too. With wi-fi or bluetooth I can surf the web and check email. With PocketTunes I can listen to MP3s. And let us not forget games.

Not all of these programs are free. Nor are they all as full-featured as using a dedicated piece of hardware. I'll admit, the Kindle has a lot more going for it than I originally thought but not enough to make me spend the money when what I already have does what I want.

CathWren

Places to get ebooks

Frank, quite right.

I started reading ebooks from Baen.com. Now I also get books from Fictionwise which offers several formats (and where membership gets me extra discounts), gutenberg.org (all free) and mobipocket. I know there are many other outlets. Being restricted to buying one format from one place is just too monopolistic for me.

CathWren