Learn me e-book readers

Pumpkin Escobar wrote: 1. The E-reader will be a dead technology in the next 5 years. While E-ink screens are VASTLY superior to LCD/LED/other in terms of long term readability, the multifunctionality of zomgphones will erode the customer base (why pay for/learn/maintain/carry around more than one device if one can do it all).

I dunno. I really don't think either will exist as we think of them in five years. I think features will jump between them in all kinds of combinations making the distinction between the two device types more or less meaningless. I mean the Kindle already "speaks" 3G. How hard would it be to add phone functionality? Color e-ink type displays exist now, but are expensive. I doubt they'll remain so in five years.

Me? My cell phone is the most basic one I could find, and if I didn't need it for work, I wouldn't have one. My books are paper whenever feasible, and electronic on my laptop when not.

But she wants something she can tuck in a pocket of her work vest. Her vest already tips the scales at close to 40 pounds when loaded with gear and both weight pocket space is at a premium. Since she may well be away from anywhere a charge is possible for days at a time (including days away from even a vehicle) a fancy phone is not an option, nor is an ipad or anything of the sort that will be dead on the first day.

Keith wrote: If you're thinking of getting one for SWMBO, check it out in person. WalMart

(tried there, didn't have any to look at)

Borders, B&N, Best Buy

(don't exist within 100+ miles)

Kindle 2 and newer can read pdf's. DRM free books can be used on the Kindle. Look for prc or mobi formats.

I've looked around, and I'm sold on the nook, when I have a chance to get one.

And when it is eventually time to replace the battery, it is $29 and DIY, all the others are $100 and send it away, FWIW

I can't tell you much about the dedicated e-readers, but I can tell you about the iPad.

Battery life is about 10-12 hours of actual use. A bit less if you're gaming, but 10-12 hours for normal use. When not on, I don't know how long it will go on a charge. A few weeks, I think.

Screen is like no LCD you've ever looked at, unless you have an iPhone 4. I WISH my laptop, desktop or HDTV screen was anywhere near as good. The pixel density, the resolution, the pixie dust sprinkled in there... I dunno, but it is amazingly sharp and easy to look at, and to read on.

You can load anything on it. PDFs, Amazon books, epubs (the real .epub format, like from Stanza or the Gutenberg project, not the flash-based junk that's passed off as an epub), whatever. It doesn't care, it just displays 'em. I think it'll take .doc files, too, but I'm not sure. I don't use Word.

It costs more than a dedicated reader. Depending on the reader, maybe a lot more.

Formatting on amazon books is passable. You get the text, and that's about it. Same for .epubs. Formatting on books from the Apple book store is really, really nice, but the selection sucks.

Anything you buy or load for an iPad is also available on your PC and, if you have an iPhone, your phone. ePubs are really portable to most any good phone via Stanza, I think.

I have seen the Nook reader and had a Kobo (adopted by Chapters/Indigo books in Canada - our largest book retailer) reader. The kobo was thin and light, but mine was buggy.

I returned it for a Sony pocket edition. After wifey tried that one out, we returned it and bought two Sony 650 touch screen readers.

They're (I think) the most expensive in their "class", but they are made of aluminum instead of plastic, have a touch screen, the firmware is really functional and the screen contrast of the latest e-ink display is much better than the last generation. It will work with Sony's store, Chapters (Kobo) Canada and Barnes and Noble. They all use ePub formats. The Sony will also do .pdf and .rtf. and .doc if you have MS word on your computer.

It does work best with ePub. I usually buy from Kobo and download free classics from here as their formatting is much nicer than Google books.

FWIW - I read about the future of e-book readers this weekend. The gist is that the textbook market is a $4billion annual business, so believe that there will be interest in e-readers for students. The big draw will be making them more like a textbook, meaning that you can underline, highlight, and make notes. Additionally, you can re-sell books and even purchase individual chapters instead of whole books. Most models will be larger, allowing them to display a full 8.5 x 11 page, and some models are even going to be dual-screen for the full book experience. You can't compare the new models to an iPad...you have to compare them to a backpack full of books. Manufacturers are not going to compete with the iPad because they assume students will have one, or a netbook or tablet computer. They only want to compete against traditional textbooks.

I don't know about the other readers, but on the iPad you can underline, highlight and make notes now, view a full page, or two pages at once.

Reselling e-copies will never happen. Lawyers won't let it, and it's a flawed business model in general. IF you can resell it, why wouldn't you resell it a thousand times? It's just a computer file, as easily copied as any other.

Tim Baxter wrote: I can't tell you much about the dedicated e-readers, but I can tell you about the iPad.

The only think I can say about the ipad is that it's heavy.

And if you are sitting in your comfy chair reading a book in your lap, it may not be a big deal.

But if you are lying in bed, holding the book over you- that gets very tiring after a while. My Nook gets heavy after a little while, and the ipad is a lot heavier than that.

that's just me, though.

How much more would it cost to have a pretty girl from the book store just come over once in a while and read to me?

Tim, you can annotate with the touch-screen Sonys. Not with the small Sony. Don't know about the others. In order to annotate, you need an input so I would think that only touchscreen or keyboard equipped models could function as such - Kindles, maybe?

The iPad is a beautiful piece, no question. I've played with one with the idea of using it as a reader, but the combination of weight and battery life hurts it.

I really like the concept of a twin-screen reader with a hinge in the middle, if only for displaying larger spreads. I'm not sure it would affect the reading experience for pure text much, but most of the readers on the market are simply too small to be much use for textbooks.

I just learned that my new book is going to be released in a Kindle edition. I hope it'll come out in mobi or epub as well. I'm not sure how it would work on a reader, but it'll be really interesting to find out what they've done with layout.

I think they all do allow for some form of highlighting and note taking. I know both Sony units do, as does the nook, the Kindle and a few others I played with. The touch screen Sony is by far the easiest. Others require menu and cursor manipulation, which is difficult and time consuming.

But for use, the Sony software really screws up highlighting and note taking. For it has nothing to do with the book. Highlightings are not stored in files associated with the book you've highlighted. Highlightings are stored in a single highlight file. Same with the margin notes.

This becomes a problem when you've highlighted a number of things in different books, and becomes a real mess when you've been swapping books in and out of the unit. When you add your kid into the equation, with hundreds of highlightings and margin notes, the whole file system crashes down as a pile of unuseable trash.

Side by side display, these machines aren't the tool for the job. The iPad might be, I've not used one. But things like the Sony readers, and even the comparatively large Kindle are just too small for the job.

Text books require darn good indexing, so you can easily flip between the chapter, the examples, the questions, etc. None of the ereaders seem to do this worth a darn. Currently, I wouldn't touch an e-reader text book with a 10 foot pole. Later, when the technology catches up to Star Trek level, it'll probably be fine. Right now we are all in the bound book mindset. That mindset has to change, and create new technology and new aproaches to using that new technology.

Thanks everyone!

The B&N near me (Wilke Barre, PA) has some demo color Nooks. I was playing with one the other night as a possible gift for someone. The clerk was expecting the first shipment of sell-able colors today, but they are already all reserved. I added my name for next weeks shipment...

The color Nook uses an LCD screen instead of e-ink, right? Keep that in mind when it comes to readability. Most novels are just plain black and white, it's not as much of a disadvantage as you might think.

Keith wrote: Calibre does work to manage files on the Sony, but it runs into a problem when borrowing books from some libraries. Our local library has tried a couple of systems, and the current one works very well but you need to use the Sony software. Thus the potential problems. I do have a problem with artificial restrictions on availability of a digital book ("sorry, that book has been checked out"), but I'd prefer that over no digital access at all.

For my Sony Pocket Reader (that's been since redesigned, I believe) I use the Adobe Digital Editions app with the files from a couple different Ohio library eBook sites.

One issue with at least some of the last-gen of Sony's is that you can have either .pdf's or .epub's from libraries (Adobe DRM), but not both simultaneously. The second-loaded format will display fine, but the files of the first format will not open, just display an error screen. It was a pain redownloading the corrupted book files after having it happen.

lizard wrote: ...and I can't find anyone who lists if the battery is replaceable (big perk of the original Nook in my opinion).

No, battery replacement is not DIY on the Color Nook.

lizard wrote:

Keith wrote: The color Nook uses an LCD screen instead of e-ink, right? Keep that in mind when it comes to readability. Most novels are just plain black and white, it's not as much of a disadvantage as you might think.

Yeah, LCD that is the potential problem and potential benefit.

I just don't get why if you're going LCD anyhow you wouldn't go with a completely different option then a nook, unless the color one is way cooler than I'm aware of as far as other capabilities go (a distinct possibility).