Posted by
timothy
on from the one-that's-out-next-year dept.
jacob1984 writes "A few years ago there was a question about which e-reader was the best. Since then, the market has beenfloodedwithnewadditions, many of them more open than others. Have you bought one yet? If so, which one did you find best and why?"
The Sony
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Informative
By a very long mile. Great format support, including many open formats, great quality too.
Re:The Sony
by
WuphonsReach
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I find it very surprising that the most open eReader on the market today is the Sony. I always though that was one of the 7 signs of the apocalypse. They must be catching on to what consumers actually want.... I hope Apple is paying attention.
Yeah, I was rather wary about buying my PRS-505 two years ago, but went ahead and took the plunge when they got below $300. I'm extremely happy with it as it does exactly what I want for leisure, cover-to-cover reading. Open formats, a no-DRM source of books (Gutenberg and Baen's Webscription), and the fact that it stays the hell out of my way when I want to read. Takes a few weeks for the battery to wear down and I keep 200-300 books on it.
I've averaged 1 book every week or two for the past 2 years on it.
Very much a no-muss no-fuss e-reader. Which is a key selling point.
-- Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
My Sony Reader PRS 600 shows up as a drive (two, actually) when you plug it into your PC via USB, it has native support for PDF, LRF, ePub, plain text files and RTF. It also supports several image formats - if you like to see your photos in black and white, you'll be all set.
The number of people that don't yet have a ebook and "don't get" the concept if e-ink is staggering. Clue: e-ink does not melt your eyes like a TFT with a backlight...
I own two Kindle 2s. DRM only means I can only buy protected content from Amazon, I am free to import content from other sources without involving Amazon in the process. Amazon has yet to interfere with any third parties selling content for the Kindle as long as they don't attempt to use their proprietary DRM scheme.
It is one hell of a reader, and in an emergency Whispernet is a nice backup to have. During Snowmaggeddon here in DC I was getting better network performance from the two Kindles than from our AT&T cell phones (probably you can't compare the network traffic between these two, ever).
By the way, two of the most popular tools used to generate content for the Kindle, Stanza and Mobi Pocket creator, are both owned by Amazon. Or you could use Calibre.
Worried about generating DRM-free content for Kindle readers? Release your content as MOBI/PRC or PDF and that should do it, at least until Amazon feels the burn and issues a patch allowing Kindles to read EPUB.
The biggest problem that the Kindle faces is not the DRM, it's the tug of war between Amazon and publishers that want them to raise their $10 price point for new books.
Ah yes, this old meme. Unfortunately, books fail hard at carrying capacity. One book I picked out of my shelf has 57 chars per line * 36 lines per page * 774 pages = 1588248 bytes, and one of those takes up a full pocket. I can have a few thousand of those in an ebook reader, which also takes up one pocket.
Yes, there is plenty of evidence. A backlight causes prolonged constriction of pupils while eyes are focused at close range. This leads to fatigue, and will eventually get you glasses. There is also evidence that the blink rate diminishes when staring at a backlit display, causing eyes to dry out. Of course , E-ink doesn't solve all these problems, but is better than LCD displays.
For starters,
http://www.aoa.org/documents/EffectsComputerUse.pdf
-- Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Slashdot Mirror
By a very long mile. Great format support, including many open formats, great quality too.
Hope you enjoyed your eyes.
The number of people that don't yet have a ebook and "don't get" the concept if e-ink is staggering. Clue: e-ink does not melt your eyes like a TFT with a backlight...
I own two Kindle 2s. DRM only means I can only buy protected content from Amazon, I am free to import content from other sources without involving Amazon in the process. Amazon has yet to interfere with any third parties selling content for the Kindle as long as they don't attempt to use their proprietary DRM scheme.
It is one hell of a reader, and in an emergency Whispernet is a nice backup to have. During Snowmaggeddon here in DC I was getting better network performance from the two Kindles than from our AT&T cell phones (probably you can't compare the network traffic between these two, ever).
By the way, two of the most popular tools used to generate content for the Kindle, Stanza and Mobi Pocket creator, are both owned by Amazon. Or you could use Calibre.
Worried about generating DRM-free content for Kindle readers? Release your content as MOBI/PRC or PDF and that should do it, at least until Amazon feels the burn and issues a patch allowing Kindles to read EPUB.
The biggest problem that the Kindle faces is not the DRM, it's the tug of war between Amazon and publishers that want them to raise their $10 price point for new books.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Ah yes, this old meme. Unfortunately, books fail hard at carrying capacity. One book I picked out of my shelf has 57 chars per line * 36 lines per page * 774 pages = 1588248 bytes, and one of those takes up a full pocket. I can have a few thousand of those in an ebook reader, which also takes up one pocket.
Yes, there is plenty of evidence. A backlight causes prolonged constriction of pupils while eyes are focused at close range. This leads to fatigue, and will eventually get you glasses. There is also evidence that the blink rate diminishes when staring at a backlit display, causing eyes to dry out. Of course , E-ink doesn't solve all these problems, but is better than LCD displays. For starters, http://www.aoa.org/documents/EffectsComputerUse.pdf
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.