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| From this… to this… | |
Check out (and contribute) to one of the more informative Ebook Reader Matrices: MobileRead_Ebook_Comparison_Chart
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| From this… to this… | |
Check out (and contribute) to one of the more informative Ebook Reader Matrices: MobileRead_Ebook_Comparison_Chart
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Call me a Luddite, but the picture on the left is to my mind much more attractive, you can read its contents when the batteries go flat, and you’ll be able to read the books in 50 years time when ebook readers have been supplanted by the latest in quantum holographic nanotech (or something like that). Plus the paper ones (on this side of the pond anyway) are much cheaper than the electronic versions, even without the fixed cost of buying the reading device.
I’m not yet convinced of the superiority of eBook over printed page (as you might have gathered) but I can concede a use for reading PDF and other text heavy documents that otherwise only exist digitally.
@Hercule I agree that the picture on the left is more attractive. I love paper books, and I’d love to have a huge library in my house filled with book shelves and books. However, I have a small house with limited space for books. We had all our overflow books stored in book shelves in our basement, and we had a flood a few years ago. We had 4.5 feet of water in our basement. You can’t imagine the heartbreak of watching somewhere between 500-1000 books being shoveled up and loaded into a truck to go to the dump. Ebooks lets me buy all the books I want without worry about where I’ll store them. Sure, they don’t smell like a nice paper book, but I still get the most important part of the book – the story. That is why I love my Sony reader so much.
As an early early adopter…RCA EBook reader, I am still bitter about ebooks. I like the concept, especially when I am travelling, but what do you do with them when the format changes?… or the company decides not to support them? I “want” a new reader, but am still unsure if the devices are quite there yet, and would rather all publishers would just use PDF and we read on our netbook/tablets. That way our existing devices would be more useful. Just a thought.
So do you not buy computers? Software? What do you do when the OS changes or a new version of a program comes out? What about when the hardware takes another leap forward?
We’ve got something like 200 linear feet of shelve stuffed full of books of all sorts in our house and that’s AFTER giving away over half of the books we owned just before a recent move. We’ve not got a whole lot of room for more. But we are now a two Kindle family and quite happy with the situation — we still do buy paper books just not near as many as before. As for the cost factor — my Kindle paid for itself completely in the first 6 month I had it (based on book cost differentials alone) — my wife just got her’s but it will probably pay off quicker.
The difference between reading on a netbook/tablet and an e-ink reader is like night and day — I can read forever with e-ink — for no more than 1/2 hour on netbook.
If you are a reader you owe it to yourself to look at eBooks — if not then continue to offer up your questionable justifications against them.
Chart for the Kindle is dated and doesn’t include the updates from the latest OS release.
Another interesting chart:
http://inkmesh.com/blog/2009/11/30/amazon-barnes-and-noble-sony-ebook-pricing/
Summed up by Inkmesh thusly:
The one line version of everything above: when it comes to ebook pricing, Amazon is still the clear winner, Barnes & Noble is a distant second (but trying hard to catch up), and Sony doesn’t even seem to be trying.
@JandK I still buy books, and have had to re-cycle about 400 lbs of them just recently when I got married and needed the shelf space. My point was that there is not one standard of ebook, so that your spend hundreds of dollars on ebooks that suddenly cannot be re-red if your device dies and the new one doesn’t read the old files. Just a thought.
I understand your point David — and am not sure i entirely disagree with it however nor do I particularly agree with it.
I’d also point out that there is not one standard Word Processor format either yet we all seem to get along fine.
I’ve switched WP formats several times in my professional life — yet all of my documents are still available to me.
Same can be said of the various graphics and other media formats as well. Converters exist for most everything…..
I expect in time all will eventually play nicely together.
I fail to see how books differ significantly from any other electronically stored data.
There are a lot of pros and cons to the various ebook readers for sure. I like this easy to read comparison chart (Sony, Kindle, nook):
http://ebookreader.compare2save.net
For me the biggest advantage is being ,at long last, able to access the books I want online. If you read english and live in Asia then you know what I’m talking about. Good books are few and far between. My ASTEK reader plays all the pdf formats available for download.Its been the best thing to happen in years.
Many good points on both the side of having and passing on an ebook reader. So to me it seems that people make up their minds and rationalize after the fact. For those which say it is better to not have a gaggle of books overwhelming their available shelf space the rationale seems to be, “I do not care if my device is orphaned at some future date for I am happy at this moment”. Then the other camp responds, “allright for you, but I am not ready to commit to that little electronic box just yet”.
I think a bigger development is lurking at the periphery of this discussion. Will ebook readers become a fixture in our society, not much unlike the common calculator, or will they be relegated to the heap of devices that paved a way for something better. Devices like the Sony Betamax, the 8 track tape player, the Vesa Local Bus, and the list goes on. Personally I feel that commerce will ultimately decide the fate of these devices as it has with every other offering to march into the entertainment arena.
Will I be developing an ebook version of the books which I write? I feel that it is in my best interest to do so given the target audience I write to is fond of these devices. However, a more important consideration is whether or not the big publishing houses will start going directly to ebook with their lead “cash cows”. For it is these people, and not some insignificant story teller like myself, which own that arena I mentioned.
What about using ebooks overseas? We’re in Syria and can’t even access Amazon without a bypass proxy or unblocker, so it makes the Kindle more inconvenient but buying books here is really, really expensive (often involving a trip to Beirut) and we’re limited in selection. However, I’m not sure what other factors I should be considering. Any advice?
@April —
You can still buy Amazon e-books from Amazon.com on your computer (with internet connection and your unblocker) and then download them to your Kindle via the USB cable.
Can you get to feedbooks.com? You can get free public-domain books from there, download them to your computer, then download to the Kindle, again, from USB cable. There is also mobipocket.com where you can purchase books, but probably not hot new releases.
Hi! That not a theorical question, That an actual fact,… in the last 20 years or so,.
more tha two dozen non interactive format av ben put out as a standards
for reading ebook,… what a waste of energie,
more whit drm , a mother can not read what is children read,…copy protection
is more importemp for those poples than the ne who read,… so one copy
loked copy ans welcom abuse, every kind of abuse, that not theyre responsabilite as
long the get ritch….
and by the same token, only ritch peoples ave aces to knoledje a new order of
of society, ritch nowing people and poor whitt onlys remothe aces of old literature,…
sharkspear is interstiing but did he no of todays life,…free bible to every one and the
big inquisition on he end of it`s… points….
Be sure to check out the new hit ebook series “The Lost Art” beginning with “In Search of the One”. The story is full of non-stop action and suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Make sure you pick it up you won’t regret it.