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E-reader anyone?
Posted on January 25th, 2010 3 commentsI am not an early adopter. It took me over a year of ogling over a Solid State Drive to finally purchase one. I did jump on the Netbook bandwagon pretty quickly though, however I was still cautious with that. It is really strange to me when I think about it. My oldest son has a $150 cell phone, I still have my crappy “free” one? When I see new technology like Netbooks and E-readers, I honestly think of my wife. She is the one that likes cute little things, probably explains why she is semi-happy in the bedroom! Anyways, when I first saw these E-readers I was quite interested but the early prices killed any chance of me purchasing one. She is always reading books and I have wasted spent hundreds of dollars on her goofy romance novels and paranormal crap.
Now it appears that I may need to save up about $200 to get her one? With recent promises that they should go down to $150 I am now finally interested. I say $200 because I am not cheap. Just like her Netbook purchases, the first I spent $400 on and the latest one cost $350. I like to get a slightly better model with a better battery, I feel it is $50 extra well spent. So I will hopefully find a decent model for $200 some time soon?
I do have a few questions that will need to be answered before I purchase one. For one I wonder about the hard cover books I have already purchased from her. It would be really nice if you could just prove you bought the book and they would give you a digital copy at a fair price ($5?). I also wonder about new book purchases, how many will offer a digital copy for free or nominal fee when you buy the book? Like most E-reader buyers my wife would want the paperback or hardback copy and the digital one. I have hours of research to put into this and will share more thoughts on this when the time comes. For now I will just keep my eyes open to $150-$200 E-readers, once I see that then I will start researching which would be the best buy.
Do any of you have any experience with the E-readers out there? How do you like yours? Please post any comments or suggestions, thank you!!
3 responses to “E-reader anyone?”
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Tyrone January 25th, 2010 at 11:45
We recently bought my stepdaughter the Kindle and she is very happy with it. Once you purchase the ebook it is yours. If the Kindle is replaced she can log in and download all of her previous purchases.
The font quality is very nice on the eyes but there is no backlight to be able to read at night.
To my dismay she is able to access the internet through the Kindle. Since Amazon provides their own wireless network I am unable to prevent her from accessing these awful social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, and the like…
It is a very nice item although I would have preferred some sort of integrated parental controls.
Happy hunting…
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Johnny2bad January 31st, 2010 at 00:11
I know you are pretty much on the up and up with lawful software licensing but if you have already purchased a hardbound copy of a book I don’t see why having a “digital copy” (in case of flood, or earthquake of course) would be really all that bad. There are several places where you can find these digital copies for the best possible prices *cough* free *cough*. I have about 800 books on a 4yr old 2nd gen HP Tablet (ebay $50.00) that is running Ubuntu, but it works very well as an ebook reader. You don’t get painted into a corner by proprietary e-book software formats that way.
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Ben, I’m co-owner of the romance ebook site linked to my post. Email me for a deal for your wife whenever you finally get her a reading device
Imo readers aren’t there yet, so if you hold off another year, you should get something which won’t go obsolete in a year or two. Afaik there should be about 20 devices launched this year, so the bandwagon is only starting to roll after Kindle’s push.
If you forced me to get something this year, I’d go for either a netbook or maybe one of the pending new tablets like the Lenovo or Courier–something which would be still useful for other stuff if a killer reader comes out next year.
Various vendors are currently screwing around trying to lock in customers–eg Kindle to Amazon’s store, and Amazon’s proprietary ebook formats–so watch for that if you make a move. You want to be able to buy ebooks from anywhere, and read them on any device now or in future.
Iirc Barnes & Nobles’ Nook reader isn’t locking people in, and I think the recent Sony Readers dropped their lock-in too. You’ll probably also want to consider the DRM ‘arrangements’ on the device–eg are you happy that Amazon can delete an ebook from your reader, like they did last year with Orwell’s 1984 [ironic, huh?].
Instinctively I’d be inclined to stay away from the proven dodgy companies in this area–Amazon [see above], Apple [lock-in, price gouging] and Sony [DRM rootkit history]–and be wary of B&N being a big gorilla. Some of the more independent devices might be worth a look later or next year, eg:
Foxit’s \eSlick\ [the same Foxit which make the great little PDF reader];
Plastic Logic’s \Que\ [larger, seems geared to students & biz with its editing etc facilities];
Hearst’s \Skiff\ [another large format, aiming for newspaper and magazine market];
Fictionwise’s \Ebookwise\ [they're a B&N subsidiary now, so unclear if/how this will live beside the Nook].Main things to look for are:
Battery life;
Screen backlit or not–not is easier on the eyes for long reading spells;
E-ink display or not–eink is easier.If it could be used for more than plain novels [eg your tech manuals, son's school books], then other things might be important–like how it handles diagrams, color display, or robustness for backpack or workbench life.
For people who read in short bursts [commuting, waiting in car etc], a smart phone might be an option–plenty of people do read novels on them.
Email me if you want further discussion later, but I really won’t be able to recommend anything atm. As I said, I’d wait a year or so to choose between dedicated ebook reader, netbook and tablet.
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