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?"
Reads all file formats, browses the internet at hot-spots or anywhere with add-ons, variable brightness, 32-bit color, access to free bookstores (The Pirate Bay being the most popular free store) and much more functionality that one couldn't eke out of small overpriced pieces of shit like the Kindle or -- ha HA! -- the iPad.
It's too damn heavy. I use a nokia n800 some but the screen is a little small. I'm eyeing the iPad. It looks like it's close to what I want and the wifi one is not too pricey. It may be a little big though.....must research more.
Re:Answer:
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Pirate Bay is the best source for books? I don't think so. Project Gutenberg is the best source for books, unless you want technical manuals--then it depends upon what you need. There seems to be plenty of public domain and creative commons sources for those. (linux documentation prj., freebsd, lightandmatter.com, etc...)
Or were you looking for modern teeny bopper crap? Just look for "fan fiction" sites (Halo is "wonderful"), or just about any site which allows teenage girls to publish a "book." But then, those aren't any better than the penny rags of yesteryear which are already in the public domain.
Plenty of free places to legally get books. Makes me wonder why you would mention The Pirate Bay. Did some publisher pay you to do that so they could create "proof" they need DRM?
No - its because its the best place to get books free. Not GP but tried Gutenberg and TPB has both a bigger selection and easier to download (i.e. 100 of books a time), also available in many diff formats.
And yes, a publisher pays everyone who has a different opinion to you - as part of a convoluted conspiracy to make slash-dot pro-pirate!
-- Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie.
From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Pirate Bay is the best source for books? I don't think so. Project Gutenberg is the best source for books, unless you want technical manuals--then it depends upon what you need.
Mildly off-topic, but for Project Gutenberg books I'd greatly recommend ManyBooks.net, they have most of the PG books available in multiple formats (and I *do* mean multiple, check it out) and with user reviews to help you find the better ones.
-- No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
If you do download books from Gutenberg or ManyBooks you might like to consider giving a little back. This doesn't have to be financial - head over to Distributed Proofreaders and sign up.
The Sony
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Informative
By a very long mile. Great format support, including many open formats, great quality too.
Re:The Sony
by
biryokumaru
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Plus you can mount it under Linux and just copy over your books. My wife has a PRS-500. It's a little slow, but it is one of the earliest models. Definitely the most consumer-friendly option.
-- When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
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.
I've heard the Iliad is amazing, but I think it's about 700$.
Re:The Sony
by
WuphonsReach
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· 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?
I find it very surprising that the most open eReader on the market today is the Sony.
Sony is a huge corporation. While the left hand is suing downloaders and rootkitting customers, the right hand is sneaking off and selling DivX players. I was pleasantly surprised to put a home-burned DVD with 720p mpeg4 avi movie in a PS3, and it just played!
And I must add - pick the one without touchscreen. It's not particularly useful for reading fiction books, anyway (and reading tech books on those things isn't very convenient), and it darkens the screen. Readers without touchscreen have noticeably better contrast, which means less eye strain.
I've owned an Illiad and a PRS-300 now, and the PRS-300 wins hands-down for reading books.
The Illiad was handy for taking notes, but really just wasn't up to snuff for heavy note-taking, and was generally slower than the PRS. The PRS also wins on price and battery life.
And, yes, Calibre is a must with Sony's.
Re:The Sony
by
minorproblem
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· Score: 3, Informative
Agreed, PRS-300 is probably one of the best e-book readers out at the moment if all you want to do is read novels front to back.
Why would you call the sony's "most" open? From what I see very few of the sony readers support any format but e-pub, the only readers that don't support that format is the kindle and Illiad. So it seams it is more open than those 2 e-readers. Sure it runs linux, like many others, but with only the 505 having a memory card it seams the least hackable of the many readers running linux.
The nook currently seams more open, it is fairly easy to hack, requiring only a micro-sd card, having wifi access, pdf access, and android having a SDK, easily the easiest developed for (once hacked.) But even un-hacked it is more open than the Sony, simply plug the supplied USB into your PC, the internal memory and u-SD card show up as drives, drop mp3's or epub/pdf,etc into the folder labeled for them, done. I will give you that using B&N store you will likely end-up with a bunch of drm'd files with more restrictive sharing (but not all that difficult to strip.) But it appears to me to you can use it identical to the Sony's, if you choose the same stores as you would with the Sony.
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.
Re:The Sony
by
rotenberry
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· Score: 3, Informative
PRS-300 has two advantages: no WiFi and no touch screen.
Neither Sony nor anyone else can hack in and erase your ebooks.
A touchscreen is makes the characters less crisp, more muddy. I much prefer clear text to the minor advantages of a touchscreen.
And it works well with Linux. Now if Sony did not supply such lame software...
They can have my PRS-500 when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I just got it back from Sony after the firmware upgrade and I found it hard to get by without while it was gone. No DRM, no restrictions. It's mine and I can use it as I see fit. Those are the highest recommendations I can think of these days.
Re:The Sony
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Funny
Math no workie... "I keep 200-300 books on it" and "averaged 1 book every week or two for the past 2 years". So you keep around twice-thrice the number of books you've ever read on it. Good call.
Re:The Sony
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vcgodinich
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· Score: 2, Informative
Kindles (all of them) show up with no drivers as mass storage devices. ..get your facts right.
Re:The Sony
by
Hurricane78
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Didn’t you all swear to boycott Sony, after the rootkit debacle?;)
-- Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I've had a PRS-505 for about a year now, and I really like it. It's clarity is good, and it's a 'no frills' sort of a device. I don't need MP3 playback, 3G connections or touchscreens. They're nice, but what I _really_ want is something that is clear, sharp, readable and with a good battery life. The PRS-505 is also quite lightweight and compact too.
My only grumble with it, is it's very expensive to fix if you drop it (I've done so twice now, and each time netted me a bill not actually much below the price of a new one). I'd therefore consider A Tuff Luv case for one a mandatory accessory.
I too was afraid that Sony might 'do a Sony' and make it full of proprietary bells and whistles. To my pleasant suprise, they're one of the most open ones out there, and the only nod to 'sonyism' is having a memory stick slot as well as an SD card slot.
With the amount of internal memory it has, I've not really come close to exhausting it, so have actually used the SD card as a portable USB drive from time to time.
The UI is good - simple, yes, but that's exactly what you need. I've handed it over to people, who've 'got' it quickly without needing any instructions at all.
The text and text reflowing are clear and neat and easy to read.
The 'new' one, that a friend has got - has touch screen, more screen estate. It's quite nice, but I can't actually see that much need to upgrade. If Sony did a 'ruggedized' one, that's y'know, vaguely capable of being dropped, and for bonus points capable of surviving a bit of a splash from the bath, then it'd be perfect.
Book availability is still one thing that bothers me - I would, in general, rather pay 'hardback' price, for an ebook, than the hardback. But there's still a lot of publishers that a) Won't do eBook at all, b) do 'region controlled' ebook distribution or c) do 'unfavourable' ebook pricing - either more expensive, or later release than paper.
I know that pirating is an option - I wouldn't feel a lot of guilt about buying a physical copy, pirating an ebook, and then reading it on my ebook reader, but I feel it shouldn't be necessary.
The other problem with it is Amazon don't really support anything other than the Kindle, and they're a big name in the market. It's a bit annoying, as I used to use their site a lot, and now I've migrated to other retailers as a result. Especially now Amazon recommendations are getting badly pumped by shill reviewers, making them increasingly meaningless.
What do you think? aside from the screen size, pretty phreaking awesome eBook, right?
No. For serious reading e-ink is the only way to go. Either you don't read much or you haven't tried e-ink at all if you even consider other technologies, your eyes WILL get tired if you read 4-6 hours every day, as I do. With e-ink that's not an issue. And yes, I have tried several different phones with good screens for reading, they are not even close.
Also, it's very difficult to disregard the screen size for reading. What you describe would require me to turn the page about 5-6x as often as with my ebook-reader (PRS-600). Colours? Meh. The books I read don't require a colour display, the grayscale e-ink is great for anti-aliased fonts. The reader has absolutely no features other than reading, note-taking, basic mp3 functionality and an incredible battery life, which is exactly what I need. For everything else I use my phone.
-- Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!:)
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...
Sorry, but this is for the "best" eBook reader, not the one "most crippled by DRM."
I was waiting for that. It certainly must be acknowledged that the Kindle is DRM-laden. However, that doesn't automatically make it non-best. The hardware is amazing, and substantially more capable the the competition. On top of a remarkable screen, form factor, and battery life, it has WIRELESS DATA CAPABILITY! As a whole package, it's a slam dunk - notwithstanding the DRM issue.
-- I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
I still use my N800 daily...
by
IANAAC
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· Score: 4, Informative
It reads pretty much anything non DRM I can throw at it, and it fits in my pocket.
Re:I still use my N800 daily...
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TheRaven64
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· Score: 2, Informative
and it fits in my pocket
I have a 770 and an iRex iLiad and, although the 770's screen is one of the nicest TFT's I've ever used, the iLiad's eInk is much nicer. The form factor, however, is a problem. The 770, which is the same size as the N800, fits (along with a folding keyboard) into a jacket pocket. The iLiad doesn't. That means I can take the 770 to a lot of places where the iLiad would be inconvenient. I'd love to have a device with a fold-out or roll-up eInk screen that was the same physical size as the 770 (or smaller) when not in use. I use the iLiad in my house and for reading in the park during the summer, but I couldn't just slip it into a pocket when I got into town to read in a coffee shop when I've finished shopping and that dramatically reduces its usefulness. An eBook reader should be at least as portable as a thin paperback, and ideally more so.
Re:I still use my N800 daily...
by
Zerth
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· Score: 2, Insightful
if you're on a 24-hour plane ride, you're soon going to get tired of reading what's available for free.
If I'm on a 24-hour plane ride, I'll probably be spending more time pestering the crew about how the plane stays in the air so long.
Re:I still use my N800 daily...
by
masmullin
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· Score: 3, Informative
This plane runs on love baby
Happy valentines day.
Just got a Nook
by
zwede
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Reason I went with the Nook is that it accepts non-DRM epub files (kindle does not).
For its intended use it is OK. But it also has its issues. The menus are sluggish. I have had a few crashes (automatic reboots).
I'm sure ebooks is an area where we will see massive improvements in the next year or two. Faster e-ink screens, in color, and touch sensitive (rather than having a separate touch screen).
Re:Just got a Nook
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BerntB
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Can the Nook handle password-protected PDFs? (Some publishers sells ebooks like that.)
-- Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Re:Just got a Nook
by
sowth
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· Score: 2, Informative
Are you brainwashed or a shill? There are plenty of places to get legal ebooks for free. You don't have to pay anything. Start with Project Gutenberg. They have countless public domain books available.
Re:Just got a Nook
by
Joe+Tie.
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Are you brainwashed or a shill?
I'd ask the same of you. Everyone knows about project gutenberg, that's not what he's asking. He's asking about stores with current content which have cheaper prices alongside comparable selections. I don't know the answer to that, but I can still tell his question is valid.
-- Everything will be taken away from you.
Re:Just got a Nook
by
Stele
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· Score: 2, Informative
I put non-drm books on my Kindle all the time. There is a free program called Calibre which can convert between formats and install the files on the Kindle automatically.
Came here to see someone recommend the iPad.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Funny
I came here to see someone recommend the iPad, inspite the fact that, It has orders of magnitude less battery life than a kindle & can't be used in direct sunlight and am leaving satisfied.
Featuring an easy to learn lift and turn interface, people can pick up a Book and just start reading! And Book has been specifically designed to interoperate with your existing Shelves(tm).
--
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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.
The hardware is amazing, and substantially more capable the the competition
Not sure about that. I have an iLiad which doesn't waste space with a keyboard and has a wacom tablet over the screen for accurate drawing. It has WiFi, runs Linux and X11, and can run arbitrary applications. It supports CIFS, so it can sync with your computer over your WLAN. It has MMC and CF slots for other apps; someone even produced a version of Wikipedia for offline reading that fits on a 16GB CF card, and there have also been ports of web browsers and RSS readers, among other things (even a terminal; the device gives you full root access if you want, or a consumer-electronics type interface if you don't). The screen is bigger than the Kindle (800x600 for the Kindle, 1024x768 for the iLiad, both the same DPI) but the overall form factor is about the same.
Re:Kindle
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Sorry, but this is for the "best" eBook reader, not the one "most crippled by DRM."
Why is the "only" factor DRM? We're talking devices not media. It accepts PDF which works for most non commercial applications. The fact you can buy books through the internet without having to buy a mobile service is huge. For features, speed and ease of use Kindle appears to be the best so far and yes ePaper is a huge deal and far more important than DRM. Based on your reaction I'm sure you don't own a Kindle which hardly makes you an authority. Take it from some one that actually uses one and reads a great deal they are a godsend. The problem with people making their decisions based purely on DRM is they miss out. It's like my iPod Touch. I watch movies with it all the time and use it every day. Just how much do the people with non DRM devices actually use them? I think all the whining from AT&T is proof of how popular the Apple handhelds are while the other services struggle to sell apps and content. The same with Kindle. It's the most popular for a reason. If you don't want an eReader then why do you care? If you do isn't it better to have one you'll use than one that makes a political statement?
The entourage edge It's not available yet (set to ship in March 2010), but it looks like its got what most people want and then some. I might be getting one myself. I've been hesitant, like most, because of price, ease of use, screen size, etc...
It's not too much more than some of the other readers, so it might be a nice alternative.
http://www.entourageedge.com/devices/entourage-edge.html
as for the DRM comment, what would you want, a crash all the time Nook, or something that works?
If people think we won't be locked down to hell and back on the iPad they are delusional. The nook would be nice but until they fix it the stability kills it
-- *
Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I bought my dad a Cybook Opus for Christmas - sturdy, simple, wasn't too expensive, just epub support, no ties to a publisher/DRM. Not used it myself but Dad seems pretty happy.
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.
"I think all the whining from AT&T is proof of how popular the Apple handhelds are while the other services struggle to sell apps and content."
So I suppose that means that the best of all worlds would be running Windows ME on a 90's era Dell in sub-saharan Africa...
-- A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Re:I hate to say it...
by
Daniel_Staal
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· Score: 4, Informative
Basically everybody but the Kindle is using the ePub format, which is an open format. It supports DRM, but doesn't require it, and there are many sources out there who sell/provide books in it without DRM.
The conversion software available to ePub is a bit primitive at the moment, but it does exist, from practically any format you can care to name.
-- 'Sensible' is a curse word.
Re:Kindle
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Informative
How about the you've-just-been-screwed-because-you-upgraded-your-kindle-issue?
Check out the one-star review by Gadget Queen on Amazon's site (last review on the page): http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation/dp/B0015T963C/ref=amb_link_116589822_2/181-8601578-0208657?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0R4JH04FW7KYM843PYA4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=528911022&pf_rd_i=507846
Particularly disturbing was the lost content she paid for when she switched from Kindle 1 to Kindle 2.
2. All of my previous issues of magazines and newspapers were lost (ie, I could not re-download them specifically for the K2) because Amazon does not back up subscriptions on their server for more than 6 days. SINCE I PAID FOR THE CONTENT, I SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE THAT CONTENT ALWAYS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD. Sorry, but I won't consider buying any more newspapaers or magazine subscriptions to the Kindle 1 or 2.
and
4. Although Amazon says it keeps you content on their server, I found many instances where I could not download my books to my computer because the item THAT I PAID FOR was not available for download to my new Kindle2. Amazon said the book had been "pulled." Excuse me, but I paid for it, pulled or not, it should always be avaiable to me since I paid for it. When I asked for a refund for the pulled item now unavailable to me, SINCE I COULD NOT GET THE ITEM REDOWNLOADED, I was told that a refund was not possible. LESSON LEARNED: I now back up ALL my Kindle content on my computer. Since Amazon says "Don't worry, your content is safe with us." I respectfully disagree. Also, some authors issued new versions of their books for K2. However, then the original version for K1 "disappeared" from the server so I could not even download it to K2, nor K1.
Re:SmartQ v7
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PolyDwarf
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· Score: 2, Informative
Ugh, replying to myself, but I put the wrong link... SmartQ has a lovely product naming convention; they've got a SmartQ 7 and a SmartQ V7, two different products.
The most open/least crippled & versatile..
by
Paracelcus
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· Score: 2, Informative
IMHO, is the Aztak EZReader Pocket Pro 5" with the Ectaco Jet Book Lite as a follow up.
The Kindle is an expensive way to get locked in to a single vendor, as is the Nook. The Sony is crippled by very restrictive DRM. WiFi/Wimax is very tough on batteries and unnecessary to the functioning of an ebook reader.
Yes it has DRM, to protect their content. So fraking what. The ability to get new media ( in particular periodicals) from anywhere without a pc, sets the kindle apart from the others.
The Sony Daily Edition has wireless capability, the ability to download periodicals and new content with or without a computer, a touchscreen and most importantly it's not a DRM laden POS locking you in to one bookstore.
Did you know that the ipod also has even more intrusive DRM, but yet it is considered to be the best device out there.
Considered the best by who? There are many portable media devices out there that are better than the IPOD both in features and price. I think you are confusing "Best" with "Has the highest market share."
Unlike an ipod, all you need to do to add third party content to a kindle is hook it up to a computer and it becomes a usb storage device, or surf the kindle to the numerous sites out there like feedbooks to get content.
Why are you comparing the kindle to an ipod? Pretty much every e-reader does this.
-- "Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
Re:The one with DJVU support
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Paracelcus
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The Aztak EZReader Pocket Pro does DJVU and if you download & install Calibre you can convert DJVU to any other format.
-- I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Please mod parent up
by
YA_Python_dev
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Anyone that thinks that the Kindle is even barely acceptable doesn't know the iLiad. Better hardware, open system (I installed an alternate PDF viewer on mine, with better features for my usage than the builtin one) and MOST important it's my device and my books.
With the Kindle, Amazon is just temporary allowing you to read their books on their device: they can at any time remotely delete books you paid for (it already happened and it WILL happen again, or they wouldn't have spent money developing this "feature"), remotely change the contents of "your" books even after you have paid and downloaded them (it already happened and once the capability is there it WILL be abused for censorship) and remotely disable functionality on the Kindle itself. All this without your consent.
Mark my words: if you buy books on the Kindle, 10 years from now you will not be able to read them without breaking anti-piracy laws, even if you think you can make backups now.
Please don't give money to Amazon for the privilege of raping your freedom to read books.
And, going back to the hardware thing, the bigger screens of the iLiads (8.1 or 10.2 inches) are waaay better for content that can't be reformatted on the fly (e.g. PDF files). Remember this is not an LCD, you can't scroll: a page must fit entirely on the screen.
-- There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
Re:Please mod parent up
by
kannibal_klown
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Unless I'm mistaken...
The biggest hardware advantage the Kindle has over the iLiad is the fact that the Kindle comes with a free data connection a-la Sprint.
I saw a lot of people, a lot, using their Kindles while commuting on to New York City for a 1-week class I was taking.
Combine that with Amazon's large one-stop library and it makes it a force to reckon with.
If not for those 2 items, I'd say the iLiad superiority might be a no-brainer.
Fooled me once, shame on you...
by
dpbsmith
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· Score: 5, Interesting
...fooled me twice, shame on me.
I bought a Nuvomedia Rocket eBook in 2000 over the counter at Barnes and Noble. (The company and products were acquired by Gemstar and marketed for many years as the Gemstar REB-1200).
The device itself was fine. More than good enough. 20 hour battery life and that was for real. I read many long novels for pleasure on it. I took it on trips and loved the convenience of being able to carry eight full-length books with me in a device with the same size and weight as one trade paperback. Of course 2010 devices are better in every way, but the Rocket eBook was good enough.
What was not good enough was DRM.
I've been taught a lesson. I am now the proud owner of over $300 worth of useless bits. They are encrypted and keyed to a serial-numbered hardware device which bit the dust last year. In theory, this is no problem, as the books and Gemstar's record of my ownership remains on the servers. All I need to do is buy a new device, call Gemstar customer service, have them reencode my books with the new device serial number, and download them again. Except that Gemstar doesn't exist, Gemstar customer service doesn't exist, and the servers were shut down long ago.
Because of another limitation of DRM--I couldn't share my books with my wife even if she had her own Rocket eBook reader, which she didn't, she didn't know that I had purchased an e-copy for $15, and bought her own paper copy for $15. She can still read her copy. She will still be able to read it twenty years from now. She can lend it to a friend. She can sell it on eBay. Scarcely five years after purchase, I cannot read mine and will never be able to read it again.
eBooks should cost far, far less than print books, not merely because their marginal cost of production is tiny, but because they deliver far less value than a print book.
I've seriously considered writing to Jeff Bezos and saying I will only buy a Kindle if he will arrange to get me free Kindle copies of all the books I bought, which the eBook industry has rendered useless piles of bits. The word theft gets thrown around rather casually with DRM gets discussed. Well, I feel that denying me access to the books I bought and paid for in good faith is theft. When the eBook industry, as represented by Amazon, is willing to make me whole, then I will start buying eBook devices and content again.
Re:Fooled me once, shame on you...
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Eric+Green
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The average print science fiction paperback sells approximately 20,000 copies (this is an actual number from an actual mid-level author who has a good reputation in the industry). The majority of the cost of a print science fiction paperback is not the marginal cost of production, which is miniscule -- it costs less than $1 to print and ship a typical mass-market paperback. Rather, the majority of the cost of a print science fiction paperback is related to the costs of creating the actual content -- the editor, the proofreader, the cover artist, and the author's advance, which is probably going to be about $12,000 on that paperback (and figure he's going to get around $8,000 more in eventual royalties before the book goes out of print). Baen appears to believe that if you price ebooks at approximately $2 less than paperbacks and sell them direct, you can make the same amount of profit that you made from selling paperbacks. That's probably a reasonable indication that the price of producing an ebook is not much less than the price of producing a paperback novel, because Baen can price ebooks this way only because they're selling direct, without the $2 markup imposed by the supply chain.
I do agree, however, that the DRM situation is one decided reason to avoid e-books right now. The DRM situation is driving piracy right now because I, like you, am not going to invest large sums of money into throw-away content. I have files on my computer that are 25 years old now, that have been faithfully transferred from one computer to the next first via RS-232 serial cable and XMODEM, and later via Ethernet and either FTP or a network file sharing protocol. They're all still (mostly) readable because I avoided proprietary file formats, even though the first computer involved in this chain was a Commodore 64 and the last one is an Apple Macbook Pro. I cannot conceive of any scenario where I would allow a proprietary file format with no means of translating it into any other format exist on my computer.
Re:Fooled me once, shame on you...
by
Low+Ranked+Craig
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· Score: 3, Informative
eBooks should cost far, far less than print books, not merely because their marginal cost of production is tiny, but because they deliver far less value than a print book
Not at all true. almost everything that has to be done to produce a print book needs to be done to produce an e-book.
Editing, typesetting, formatting, proofing, marketing, artwork, etc all still needs to be done. Only the distribution is different. In one case you're printing a book (an automated manufacturing process) or you're publishing a book to an e-marketplace (a bunch of servers, software and bandwidth (not free)). The reality is that the great majority of the cost in producing a book is labor, and it's all still required, regardless of print or electronic distribution, so while printed materials may cost more to produce, the cost difference is not the huge amount that people seem to think it is.
-- I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Black background with white text and dynamic brightness adjustment have all let me get by without eye strain on my iPhone. I get that e-ink is no doubt better, but the non dedicated devices still tend to have options that don't make your eyes bleed...
Every. Single. Time... When there's an ereader discussion someone always brings this up. Perhaps technically e-ink IS indeed better for the eyes, however does this really matter a damn?
I've never used an ereader. I've no intention of doing so anytime in the next decade. I've sat behind desktops and laptops with CRT and LCD and other types of displays. I've done so for 10-15 hours at time over extended periods. I have 20/20 vision without the need for glasses, and am checked regularly. I do not suffer from headaches.
You can tell me that e-ink is better for my eyes till you are blue in the face. I do not give a fuck. It smacks of FUD coming from people who are shills for the e-ink industry. Seriously, this is absolutely NOT an issue for me at all in any way. This will in no way affect my decision in choosing a device to read on.
What will affect my decision is utility and price. The iPad looks like a fine choice to me, because if I'm carrying around something that size I want it to do a hell of a lot more that just display books.
So will everyone please just stop with the e-ink is better for the eyes FUD? Most of us do NOT care.
The Amazon Kindle. Is this even a legitimate competition?
If you were on a site with "normal" people, maybe not. But this is Slashdot, and very little of what the typical consumer is interested in will even make it into this discussion (and if it does it'll get "offtopic" or "overrated" mods).
Instead, I expect this discussion will be all about whether a reader can mount from Linux, run Linux, or can interpret TeX.
--
#DeleteChrome
It's all about content
by
Eric+Green
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The situation in ebook readers today reminds me of the situation in portable digital music players in April 2003, the month Apple introduced the iTunes Store. There were literally thousands of portable digital music players out there, the vast majority of which looked like portable USB keyfobs as far as operating systems were concerned, all of which played open unencrypted mp3 files. Then there was Apple selling their own proprietary-DRM'ed music files -- but it was integrated with the computer hardware and with their iPod music players. In the end people decided the convenience of having one application handle all their content whether local or located on a portable device was more important than the DRM, and the iPod won the portable digital music player contest by a landslide.
Right now, there are only three players that integrate content, software, and hardware: Sony, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Amazon's Kindle wins the content war by a landslide, but their hardware looks dated and obsolete compared to the new readers from Sony and B&N. Sony's content situation is horrible -- books from Sony's ebook store actually cost more than paper books purchased in bookstores! The Nook right now is unobtainium and a bit unstable, as you'd expect from version 1.0 of a product, but is decidedly better hardware.
The wildcard is Apple. Will they do for ebooks what they did for digital music? The problem is that the iPad will have, realistically, a 5 hour battery life in normal usage, and that just isn't enough for most situations where I might haul my e-book reader. If I'm doing an intercontinental flight that is 10 hours long, a 5 hour battery life is a "don't even bother" for me. My Sony e-reader, on the other hand, will happily let me read books for 10 hours at a time, and still have plenty of battery life left, thanks to the e-ink display. It's just that my selection of content is rather limited -- all I have on it, for the most part, is Baen Webscriptions stuff (no DRM, reasonable prices), and you can only read so much sci-fi warporn before you're sick and tired of sci-fi warporn.
So I'm keeping my eye on Apple. But unless Steve Jobs has a change of heart on e-ink (which he sneers at) or there's some revolution in LCD technology that allows it to generate readable displays without a backlight and thus get decent battery life (don't care if it's as good as e-ink battery life, but it has to be at least competitive with the Nook's battery life!), the hardware simply isn't good enough. Otherwise I'd be reading books on my iPhone via Stanza or etc., which I'm not doing because realistically I only get three hours of battery life that way -- far less than if I fire up my e-ink based reader.
Oh, what about all these *other* ebook readers? Some of them have nice hardware and software. But it's all about content, in the end. I suspect they'll end up just like all those portable digital music players that plugged in like keyfobs -- they'll still sell, but the readers that allow a fully integrated content cycle (purchase, transfer, read) will be the ones that most people buy, because for most people, they just want to purchase books in a convenient manner and not worry about how they get onto the ebook reader.
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.
Re:Wrong question
by
OttoErotic
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I think that dedicated ereaders will turn out to be a dead-end technology like mini-discs and that this is one of those "back in my day" moments: this generation (myself included) are still emotionally invested in traditional presentations of text, so ereaders that mimic books to some degree seem like the natural way to go; the same way my parents still prefer physical media for audio and video. Once the next generation grows up primarily with ebooks, the need for this in-between, pseudo-traditional technology will fade. I love books, but my library gathers dust now while I do all my reading on my (small screen) Blackberry. Plenty of people "can't understand how you can read on that tiny thing" but it's perfect for me: backlight means I can read in the dark without a lamp; adjustable text size and color; quick bookmarking and annotating; and smaller chunks of text mean that I actually read more, as I've started sneaking in a page or two during what used to be dead-time. Not perfect for everyone, but it's been enough to prove to me that there's nothing sacred in a 6"x8" sheet of text.
The big thing I'm waiting for now is an open, standard format that combines media-types. I would kill for an ebook/audiobook combo where I could bookmark what I'm reading, plug my phone into my stereo, and have the audiobook pick up at that bookmark for my drive home. Hell, why not video too? You read halfway through the battle of Helm's Deep, hear the rest on audio during your drive, and see the battle scene from the movie when you get home.
-- "Once in Hawaii I had sex with a 102 year old male turtle. It is difficult to argue that it was consensual." - Steve Ma
I know where you're coming from. I was of the same opinion as you, until I saw a sony e-reader, then a friend's Kindle. They absolutely blow LCDs and CRTs away for reading purposes, they simulate printed paper to such an extent that you can't read them in the darkness, they need a active light source around like you need for real books.
I've never used an ereader. I've no intention of doing so anytime in the next decade.... You can tell me that e-ink is better for my eyes till you are blue in the face. I do not give a fuck. It smacks of FUD coming from people who are shills for the e-ink industry. Seriously, this is absolutely NOT an issue for me at all in any way. This will in no way affect my decision in choosing a device to read on.
How the fuck do you know that they're bad when you haven't even looked at one? I guess you're a Apple fanboy shilling freely for them who is unable to see past the RDF. Maybe you think looking at one will make you disloyal to Apple? In that case, I rest my case. For others who never looked at a e-reader, try it once, you may like it.
Note: e-ink is not suitable for tasks like color rendering, browsing etc. so it doesn't really compete with laptops or tablets but is really great for reading.
Really, I'm curious if this oft repeated 'fact' is substantiate by anything other than anecdotes.
Common sense helps.
When you're looking at a TFT screen, you are, effectively, staring at a rather bright lamp. It's not like we've just found out recently that this kind of thing is not good for the eyes.
Pure FUD and lies.
by
aussersterne
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· Score: 3, Insightful
You can mount Kindle just like the Sony reader or any other USB storage device. Plug it into Linux and go. And then copy over all of the books you want, including (for example) the entire Project Gutenberg, which (unless I am very much mistaken) is not DRM-encumbered.
-- STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Re:Pure FUD and lies.
by
YA_Python_dev
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· Score: 3, Informative
Can you please be more specific? What do you think is not true in my previous post? I was explicitly talking about books bought from Amazon with the Kindle (which are all DRMed) and you reply saying that it's also possible to read non-DRM books from third parties. What's your point?
-- There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
It hasn't been invented yet.
by
mark-t
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· Score: 3, Interesting
We're getting close, but I don't think we're there yet.
My own expectations are:
color;
bistable display that consumes no power for a static image;
high contrast display, easily usable both indoors and out;
durable enough to withstand being stepped on without breaking;
utilizes SD cards or mini-SD cards for expanded storage for documents;
screen large enough to show a full 8.5x11" page without scaling it down;
high enough resolution to read smaller fonts (such as footnotes) without zooming;
screen update times of no more than a tenth of a second;
allows user supplied (PDF) documents to be displayed, and not just DRM'd documents; and
still costs less than a more functionally versatile device such as a laptop.
If a company can hit all ten of these requirements, I'd buy one in a proverbial New York minute.
Best for Hackers
by
niftyguy
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· Score: 2, Informative
is the Onyx Boox - also rebranded as the Bebook Neo.
It has e-ink display, wifi, a wacom touch screen (mounted *under* the display - so that you don't get the glare issues that exist with other touch-screen readers), runs on linux, is completely open, and best of all
has a Debian based SDK!!! which allows linux users to write their own apps!
Running X11 means that you can take existing *NIX apps, recompile, and run them. They'll need a bit of effort to work well with an eInk display and a tablet, but you can make that effort with toolkits that you already know, not with something new designed just for the device. It also means that third-party developers can easily add features. For example, the community-developed PDF reader for the iLiad is much better than the stock one.
Hint: if they equate eink to ebooks they probably are new to ebooks.
Seriously... while I think the iPad is a poor choice in ebook readers it sure as hell isn't because it has a color screen that doesnt require an external light source to make it readable. In fact, my choice currently is an iPhone. Why? Because I have it with me ALL the time. I can read at night while my girlfriend is sleeping without having a light on and finally, it can do lots of other things besides being a book. Oh, and turning pages doesnt take an insanely long amount of time like e-ink does.
Also, the iPhone offers you many options in terms of ebook readers. Stanza is the one I use, but if you have a kindle, you can use the Kindle reader and read the books you have already "purchased" there. Built in web browser for online repositories.
Yeah.. but part of the formula is availability of real books.
Many books are available as only DRM'ed eBooks in the first place. And it's not been shown that Amazon DRM is any worse than other DRM, for the customer.
It appears that there are a lot of books available on the kindle store, that are not otherwise available as eBooks, or are much more expensive in other eBook formats.
So that actually is a huge advantage of the Kindle over some other readers (easy acquisition of the materials you want to read).
I shouldn't have to forego reading certain books, or read certain alternatives instead just because it's not available for my reader. That would be an inconvenience, and indicate a deficiency of the reading platform.
Some eBooks being available only as AZW is a disadvantage all other readers have to count.
My example for the moment is: IPv6 Security - Eric Vyncke (Author), Scott Hogg
There is a kindle edition for $38.40.
You can get that particular one as an encrypted, DRM'ed PDF from publisher, but that requires $50 to purchase the same thing as a PDF.
Or a $500/year subscription through Safari.
In any case, that is one of thousands of examples...
You pay more for a PDF, and it is still protected by Adobe DRM and encrypted so it can only be registered on one eBook authorized reader.
it appears to be a lot easier and less expensive to legally purchase and ACQUIRE Kindle format eBooks than to acquire electronic versions of certain books for other readers.
I dunno. I like my Kindle, but all the math books I've bought have been so badly formatted as to be useless. When I read the same books on the Amazon reader for iTouch they're properly formatted, so I'm guessing something is broken with book rendering on the reader.
I've had my Kindle 2 hard reset. The books I'd bought from Amazon I was able to get back, but I lost all my notes and bookmarks on the books I'd loaded over USB -- one of the key buying points for me. No ability to put my own documents on, no sale. But the documentation doesn't explain that when it says notes are backed up over WhisperNet, that's only for books that you have bought through the Amazon store. That had me *pissed*, because they essentially told me they were backing my notes up when in fact they weren't.
Recently my Kindle has been taking a very long time to wake up from stand by or to go to stand by.. fifteen or twenty seconds. Enough to be annoying. At first I wasn't sure the Kindle was responding and so I'd hit the power button again, only to be rewarded by the Kindle turning on and off.
There have been lots of complaints about customer service -- especially where there have been screen problems. Several people I know (whom I trust as truthful) have had screens fail do to what should be normal handling for an ebook. Some people claim that the screen failed after being put through airport security, although that hasn't happened to anyone I know.
Finally, the user interface is really about as screwed up as you can make something that ought to be dead simple. Err. When do you want to hit "back" or "return" or "previous page" exactly? I know what to do if I think it through, but after over six months with the thing I still occasionally do the wrong thing.
Oh, it's a very good device overall, but there is vast room for improvement, even without talking about major updates like color or touch screen input.
-- Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I use a Kindle DX for work all the time and have no issues with DRM since I can put whatever I want on it (in PDF but there may be other formats this works with) via USB. If you are worried about "1984"-like issues, you don't even have to turn the wireless on - mine's been off for months. If, however, you want the convenience of purchasing books through their store, then you are locked into their DRM for that purchase no different than a purchase from iTunes.
It's called "lighting"
by
SuperKendall
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· Score: 2, Interesting
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...
First of all, I love books. I greatly prefer printed text above everything for reading.
BUT.
eInk is still quite far from printed text for readability - the contrast is not great, the "paper" is rather greyish. I do prefer reading books on an LCD to the Kindle, and I have read whole books on an iPhone.
But - the reason why an LCD might have "melted your eyes" is because eye strain is easily caused when you try to stare at a bright LCD screen in an overall dark room. In short, it happens because it CAN happen. With an eInk display you have no choice but to provide enough ambient light to read in - if you simply provide that same level of light with any LCD they are not actually that hard on your eyes at all.
And with an LCD you have the possibility for real full-color illustrations in an eBook, along with all of the other things you can do on a screen with a high refresh rate.
I love the idea behind eInk, I really like the idea of it in a reader, but I don't think yet it is good enough to beat out a really good LCD for a good reading experience - and the iPad ships with an IPS panel which helps a lot with quality of output. Perhaps it's using cheap LCD's in the past that have "burnt your eyes out" - I can't stand using them either.
-- "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:your numbers don't make sense
by
Eric+Green
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· Score: 4, Informative
The vast majority of novels never appear in hardback. The number of fiction authors whose books appear in hard cover barely cracks three digits in any given year. In particular, a typical midlist science fiction author such as John Scalzi will virtually never have any of his books come out in an mass market hardcover edition -- if he wins an award or something which puts him into the ALA's "buy this" lists, there might be a special hardcover library edition put out, but not a mass market hardcover edition.
Regarding the actual numbers, I must admit that I simplified. As Scalzi explains on his blog, "In the course of the production of my book, it is touched and receives positive benefit from (in no particular order): A writer, an agent, an editor, a copy editor, an art director, an artist, a book designer, a marketer, a publicist, a distributor and a bookseller. As an author, if I lose one of those people, the final product — a saleable book — suffers in one way or another." But the point is that up-front costs before the book ever hits the printer are what comprise most of the costs for a typical trade paperback, not incremental per-unit costs. This of course is inverted for best-sellers, where the up-front costs are amortized over far more units, but there were only 157 fiction books that sold more than 100,000 copies in 2008. That's it, according to Publisher's Weekly, and I suspect the numbers for 2009 are little different. And BTW, authors typically get a percentage of the cover price that is about $1.50 per hardback, about half that per paperback. Just in case you're wondering. That gets applied toward their advance until they sell out their advance.
In short, the argument that ebook versions of a novel should cost way less than paperback novels due to a lower marginal cost of production simply doesn't match the actual numbers. The marginal cost of production is not the primary thing driving book costs, whether ebook or otherwise. Rather, it is the up-front sunk costs in the editorial department and the fixed costs for marketing and publicizing the book which drive the costs for most books. Then there are the best-sellers, those selling more than 100,000 copies... but those are a distinct minority and are the only ones on which book publishers make any actual profits. In all of these scenarios, the marginal cost of production is not going to be even $1 for a trade paperback and will rarely be over $1.50 for a trade hardcover (obviously the last big brick Harry Potter novels cost a teeny bit more due to sheer volume of paper needed to print a 750 page novel, but not *that* much more), meaning that if we're talking marginal cost of production as the difference in price between a paperback and an ebook, we're not talking about a huge difference in price. Clearly the expectation that ebooks should cost a lot less than paper copies of the books because of lower marginal costs of production doesn't match the reality that marginal cost of production really IS marginal even for paper books. A little less, okay. A lot less? Well, that money will have to come from something other than marginal cost of production... probably either author advance, or by publishing fewer books by more marginal authors (those who sell less than 20,000 copies). Either alternative is not very good for those of us who enjoy books and buy hundreds of books per year -- mostly *not* the 150 books on the bestseller lists.
It's not actually an ebook reader, but
by
func
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I use my Iphone for reading most books these days. Back in the day, I used to travel a lot for work, and usually had a stack of books on my crusty old palm pilot, which was nice for carrying around, especially since I used it for a lot of other things as well.
These days, I don't go anywhere without my phone, and I find the screen just fine for reading books. A lot better than the old palm pilot. Since I'm already carrying the phone, the e-reader is basically free.
Backups are designed to protect against loss regardless of cause...
The "1984 fiasco" caused Amazon to pledge to not ever again delete eBooks from consumers' devices. By contrast, Apple, BN, Sony, and others have not made such a promise.
It's kind of pointless to pick on the kindle about problems that should be ancient history.
Re:iPad?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You should check the metadata on your link... it's from 2005 and deals exclusively with CRTs.
There is NO evidence because tech routinely outpaces the lifespan of a scientifically meaningful clinical trial. It would be like trying to measure the effect of modems or Sonic clinically, when they've been phased out of relevance. What there IS plenty of is unsophisticated superstition on par with fear of microwave ovens.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is up with you e-ink greybeards? LCD does not 'melt your eyes' literally or figuratively. Do you read this page and all other websites using an eink screen? If not, why does an LCD suffice for most computing activities (including reading), but is then suddenly inappropriate for reading?I look at an LCD perhaps 8 hours a day with no eyestrain, as do millions of office workers.
LCD is a much better general purpose screen, deals with colour for photography and diagrams, lets you use the device to browse the web and play games, by sacrificing some battery life.
For this reason I think general purpose devices like the apple slate will overtake ereaders very quickly in the marketplcae. You're welcome to your eink screens though; I won't try to claim that they make your eyes bleed, they're just less useful than an LCD or OLED.
Actually, the latest reference in that document is basing stuff on data from 1996 (most of the references are from the 80s or early 90s) and well... LCDs (and monitors in general) have certainly changed a lot since then. Basically... that information is no longer to be taken as gospel and is not about current technology.
Doctors now say that really, LCD displays are not bad for the eyes at all, and what is bad is the setup of the screen (not an issue with a portable LCD like a phone) and the lack of blinking you do when reading for long periods of time (which isn't related to LCDs at all and is a problem for eInk too).
Here is a timely blog post on the NY Times for slightly more info...
Basically... eInk isn't really any better, lacks in contrast, and is not good for reading in low light situations.
I think the eInk industry has done a really good job at making people believe something that isn't true. People's eyes go bad as they get older, your LCD monitor probably isn't the cause though.
Slashdot Mirror
A laptop.
Reads all file formats, browses the internet at hot-spots or anywhere with add-ons, variable brightness, 32-bit color, access to free bookstores (The Pirate Bay being the most popular free store) and much more functionality that one couldn't eke out of small overpriced pieces of shit like the Kindle or -- ha HA! -- the iPad.
And yes, laptops do run Linux
By a very long mile. Great format support, including many open formats, great quality too.
Sorry, but this is for the "best" eBook reader, not the one "most crippled by DRM."
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
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...
Sorry, but this is for the "best" eBook reader, not the one "most crippled by DRM."
I was waiting for that. It certainly must be acknowledged that the Kindle is DRM-laden. However, that doesn't automatically make it non-best. The hardware is amazing, and substantially more capable the the competition. On top of a remarkable screen, form factor, and battery life, it has WIRELESS DATA CAPABILITY! As a whole package, it's a slam dunk - notwithstanding the DRM issue.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
It reads pretty much anything non DRM I can throw at it, and it fits in my pocket.
Reason I went with the Nook is that it accepts non-DRM epub files (kindle does not).
For its intended use it is OK. But it also has its issues. The menus are sluggish. I have had a few crashes (automatic reboots).
I'm sure ebooks is an area where we will see massive improvements in the next year or two. Faster e-ink screens, in color, and touch sensitive (rather than having a separate touch screen).
I came here to see someone recommend the iPad, inspite the fact that, It has orders of magnitude less battery life than a kindle & can't be used in direct sunlight and am leaving satisfied.
Featuring an easy to learn lift and turn interface, people can pick up a Book and just start reading! And Book has been specifically designed to interoperate with your existing Shelves(tm).
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The hardware is amazing, and substantially more capable the the competition
Not sure about that. I have an iLiad which doesn't waste space with a keyboard and has a wacom tablet over the screen for accurate drawing. It has WiFi, runs Linux and X11, and can run arbitrary applications. It supports CIFS, so it can sync with your computer over your WLAN. It has MMC and CF slots for other apps; someone even produced a version of Wikipedia for offline reading that fits on a 16GB CF card, and there have also been ports of web browsers and RSS readers, among other things (even a terminal; the device gives you full root access if you want, or a consumer-electronics type interface if you don't). The screen is bigger than the Kindle (800x600 for the Kindle, 1024x768 for the iLiad, both the same DPI) but the overall form factor is about the same.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sorry, but this is for the "best" eBook reader, not the one "most crippled by DRM."
Why is the "only" factor DRM? We're talking devices not media. It accepts PDF which works for most non commercial applications. The fact you can buy books through the internet without having to buy a mobile service is huge. For features, speed and ease of use Kindle appears to be the best so far and yes ePaper is a huge deal and far more important than DRM. Based on your reaction I'm sure you don't own a Kindle which hardly makes you an authority. Take it from some one that actually uses one and reads a great deal they are a godsend. The problem with people making their decisions based purely on DRM is they miss out. It's like my iPod Touch. I watch movies with it all the time and use it every day. Just how much do the people with non DRM devices actually use them? I think all the whining from AT&T is proof of how popular the Apple handhelds are while the other services struggle to sell apps and content. The same with Kindle. It's the most popular for a reason. If you don't want an eReader then why do you care? If you do isn't it better to have one you'll use than one that makes a political statement?
The entourage edge It's not available yet (set to ship in March 2010), but it looks like its got what most people want and then some. I might be getting one myself. I've been hesitant, like most, because of price, ease of use, screen size, etc... It's not too much more than some of the other readers, so it might be a nice alternative. http://www.entourageedge.com/devices/entourage-edge.html
Hint: if they suggest the iPad, then they have no clue about ebooks.
leaves out the iPad doesn't it?
as for the DRM comment, what would you want, a crash all the time Nook, or something that works?
If people think we won't be locked down to hell and back on the iPad they are delusional. The nook would be nice but until they fix it the stability kills it
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I bought my dad a Cybook Opus for Christmas - sturdy, simple, wasn't too expensive, just epub support, no ties to a publisher/DRM. Not used it myself but Dad seems pretty happy.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
It's hard to imagine a feature more significant for an e-reader than running X11.
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
One word: 1984
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"I think all the whining from AT&T is proof of how popular the Apple handhelds are while the other services struggle to sell apps and content."
So I suppose that means that the best of all worlds would be running Windows ME on a 90's era Dell in sub-saharan Africa...
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Basically everybody but the Kindle is using the ePub format, which is an open format. It supports DRM, but doesn't require it, and there are many sources out there who sell/provide books in it without DRM.
The conversion software available to ePub is a bit primitive at the moment, but it does exist, from practically any format you can care to name.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
How about the you've-just-been-screwed-because-you-upgraded-your-kindle-issue?
Check out the one-star review by Gadget Queen on Amazon's site (last review on the page):
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation/dp/B0015T963C/ref=amb_link_116589822_2/181-8601578-0208657?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0R4JH04FW7KYM843PYA4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=528911022&pf_rd_i=507846
Particularly disturbing was the lost content she paid for when she switched from Kindle 1 to Kindle 2.
2. All of my previous issues of magazines and newspapers were lost (ie, I could not re-download them specifically for the K2) because Amazon does not back up subscriptions on their server for more than 6 days. SINCE I PAID FOR THE CONTENT, I SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE THAT CONTENT ALWAYS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD. Sorry, but I won't consider buying any more newspapaers or magazine subscriptions to the Kindle 1 or 2.
and
4. Although Amazon says it keeps you content on their server, I found many instances where I could not download my books to my computer because the item THAT I PAID FOR was not available for download to my new Kindle2. Amazon said the book had been "pulled." Excuse me, but I paid for it, pulled or not, it should always be avaiable to me since I paid for it. When I asked for a refund for the pulled item now unavailable to me, SINCE I COULD NOT GET THE ITEM REDOWNLOADED, I was told that a refund was not possible. LESSON LEARNED: I now back up ALL my Kindle content on my computer. Since Amazon says "Don't worry, your content is safe with us." I respectfully disagree. Also, some authors issued new versions of their books for K2. However, then the original version for K1 "disappeared" from the server so I could not even download it to K2, nor K1.
Ugh, replying to myself, but I put the wrong link... SmartQ has a lovely product naming convention; they've got a SmartQ 7 and a SmartQ V7, two different products.
http://en.smartdevices.com.cn/Products/V7/200912/04-40.html is the V7's spec sheet, which is what I meant to link.
IMHO, is the Aztak EZReader Pocket Pro 5" with the Ectaco Jet Book Lite as a follow up.
The Kindle is an expensive way to get locked in to a single vendor, as is the Nook.
The Sony is crippled by very restrictive DRM.
WiFi/Wimax is very tough on batteries and unnecessary to the functioning of an ebook reader.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Yes it has DRM, to protect their content. So fraking what. The ability to get new media ( in particular periodicals) from anywhere without a pc, sets the kindle apart from the others.
The Sony Daily Edition has wireless capability, the ability to download periodicals and new content with or without a computer, a touchscreen and most importantly it's not a DRM laden POS locking you in to one bookstore.
Did you know that the ipod also has even more intrusive DRM, but yet it is considered to be the best device out there.
Considered the best by who? There are many portable media devices out there that are better than the IPOD both in features and price. I think you are confusing "Best" with "Has the highest market share."
Unlike an ipod, all you need to do to add third party content to a kindle is hook it up to a computer and it becomes a usb storage device, or surf the kindle to the numerous sites out there like feedbooks to get content.
Why are you comparing the kindle to an ipod? Pretty much every e-reader does this.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
The Aztak EZReader Pocket Pro does DJVU and if you download & install Calibre you can convert DJVU to any other format.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Anyone that thinks that the Kindle is even barely acceptable doesn't know the iLiad. Better hardware, open system (I installed an alternate PDF viewer on mine, with better features for my usage than the builtin one) and MOST important it's my device and my books.
With the Kindle, Amazon is just temporary allowing you to read their books on their device: they can at any time remotely delete books you paid for (it already happened and it WILL happen again, or they wouldn't have spent money developing this "feature"), remotely change the contents of "your" books even after you have paid and downloaded them (it already happened and once the capability is there it WILL be abused for censorship) and remotely disable functionality on the Kindle itself. All this without your consent.
Mark my words: if you buy books on the Kindle, 10 years from now you will not be able to read them without breaking anti-piracy laws, even if you think you can make backups now.
Please don't give money to Amazon for the privilege of raping your freedom to read books.
And, going back to the hardware thing, the bigger screens of the iLiads (8.1 or 10.2 inches) are waaay better for content that can't be reformatted on the fly (e.g. PDF files). Remember this is not an LCD, you can't scroll: a page must fit entirely on the screen.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
...fooled me twice, shame on me.
I bought a Nuvomedia Rocket eBook in 2000 over the counter at Barnes and Noble. (The company and products were acquired by Gemstar and marketed for many years as the Gemstar REB-1200).
The device itself was fine. More than good enough. 20 hour battery life and that was for real. I read many long novels for pleasure on it. I took it on trips and loved the convenience of being able to carry eight full-length books with me in a device with the same size and weight as one trade paperback. Of course 2010 devices are better in every way, but the Rocket eBook was good enough.
What was not good enough was DRM.
I've been taught a lesson. I am now the proud owner of over $300 worth of useless bits. They are encrypted and keyed to a serial-numbered hardware device which bit the dust last year. In theory, this is no problem, as the books and Gemstar's record of my ownership remains on the servers. All I need to do is buy a new device, call Gemstar customer service, have them reencode my books with the new device serial number, and download them again. Except that Gemstar doesn't exist, Gemstar customer service doesn't exist, and the servers were shut down long ago.
Because of another limitation of DRM--I couldn't share my books with my wife even if she had her own Rocket eBook reader, which she didn't, she didn't know that I had purchased an e-copy for $15, and bought her own paper copy for $15. She can still read her copy. She will still be able to read it twenty years from now. She can lend it to a friend. She can sell it on eBay.
Scarcely five years after purchase, I cannot read mine and will never be able to read it again.
eBooks should cost far, far less than print books, not merely because their marginal cost of production is tiny, but because they deliver far less value than a print book.
I've seriously considered writing to Jeff Bezos and saying I will only buy a Kindle if he will arrange to get me free Kindle copies of all the books I bought, which the eBook industry has rendered useless piles of bits. The word theft gets thrown around rather casually with DRM gets discussed. Well, I feel that denying me access to the books I bought and paid for in good faith is theft. When the eBook industry, as represented by Amazon, is willing to make me whole, then I will start buying eBook devices and content again.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Black background with white text and dynamic brightness adjustment have all let me get by without eye strain on my iPhone. I get that e-ink is no doubt better, but the non dedicated devices still tend to have options that don't make your eyes bleed...
Every. Single. Time... When there's an ereader discussion someone always brings this up. Perhaps technically e-ink IS indeed better for the eyes, however does this really matter a damn?
I've never used an ereader. I've no intention of doing so anytime in the next decade. I've sat behind desktops and laptops with CRT and LCD and other types of displays. I've done so for 10-15 hours at time over extended periods. I have 20/20 vision without the need for glasses, and am checked regularly. I do not suffer from headaches.
You can tell me that e-ink is better for my eyes till you are blue in the face. I do not give a fuck. It smacks of FUD coming from people who are shills for the e-ink industry. Seriously, this is absolutely NOT an issue for me at all in any way. This will in no way affect my decision in choosing a device to read on.
What will affect my decision is utility and price. The iPad looks like a fine choice to me, because if I'm carrying around something that size I want it to do a hell of a lot more that just display books.
So will everyone please just stop with the e-ink is better for the eyes FUD? Most of us do NOT care.
The Amazon Kindle. Is this even a legitimate competition?
If you were on a site with "normal" people, maybe not. But this is Slashdot, and very little of what the typical consumer is interested in will even make it into this discussion (and if it does it'll get "offtopic" or "overrated" mods).
Instead, I expect this discussion will be all about whether a reader can mount from Linux, run Linux, or can interpret TeX.
#DeleteChrome
Right now, there are only three players that integrate content, software, and hardware: Sony, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Amazon's Kindle wins the content war by a landslide, but their hardware looks dated and obsolete compared to the new readers from Sony and B&N. Sony's content situation is horrible -- books from Sony's ebook store actually cost more than paper books purchased in bookstores! The Nook right now is unobtainium and a bit unstable, as you'd expect from version 1.0 of a product, but is decidedly better hardware.
The wildcard is Apple. Will they do for ebooks what they did for digital music? The problem is that the iPad will have, realistically, a 5 hour battery life in normal usage, and that just isn't enough for most situations where I might haul my e-book reader. If I'm doing an intercontinental flight that is 10 hours long, a 5 hour battery life is a "don't even bother" for me. My Sony e-reader, on the other hand, will happily let me read books for 10 hours at a time, and still have plenty of battery life left, thanks to the e-ink display. It's just that my selection of content is rather limited -- all I have on it, for the most part, is Baen Webscriptions stuff (no DRM, reasonable prices), and you can only read so much sci-fi warporn before you're sick and tired of sci-fi warporn.
So I'm keeping my eye on Apple. But unless Steve Jobs has a change of heart on e-ink (which he sneers at) or there's some revolution in LCD technology that allows it to generate readable displays without a backlight and thus get decent battery life (don't care if it's as good as e-ink battery life, but it has to be at least competitive with the Nook's battery life!), the hardware simply isn't good enough. Otherwise I'd be reading books on my iPhone via Stanza or etc., which I'm not doing because realistically I only get three hours of battery life that way -- far less than if I fire up my e-ink based reader.
Oh, what about all these *other* ebook readers? Some of them have nice hardware and software. But it's all about content, in the end. I suspect they'll end up just like all those portable digital music players that plugged in like keyfobs -- they'll still sell, but the readers that allow a fully integrated content cycle (purchase, transfer, read) will be the ones that most people buy, because for most people, they just want to purchase books in a convenient manner and not worry about how they get onto the ebook reader.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
http://www.entourageedge.com/entourage-edge.html
It will be out in a month, but so far seems amazing. Runs on android. Has one side of e-ink and one of lcd.
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.
I think that dedicated ereaders will turn out to be a dead-end technology like mini-discs and that this is one of those "back in my day" moments: this generation (myself included) are still emotionally invested in traditional presentations of text, so ereaders that mimic books to some degree seem like the natural way to go; the same way my parents still prefer physical media for audio and video. Once the next generation grows up primarily with ebooks, the need for this in-between, pseudo-traditional technology will fade. I love books, but my library gathers dust now while I do all my reading on my (small screen) Blackberry. Plenty of people "can't understand how you can read on that tiny thing" but it's perfect for me: backlight means I can read in the dark without a lamp; adjustable text size and color; quick bookmarking and annotating; and smaller chunks of text mean that I actually read more, as I've started sneaking in a page or two during what used to be dead-time. Not perfect for everyone, but it's been enough to prove to me that there's nothing sacred in a 6"x8" sheet of text.
The big thing I'm waiting for now is an open, standard format that combines media-types. I would kill for an ebook/audiobook combo where I could bookmark what I'm reading, plug my phone into my stereo, and have the audiobook pick up at that bookmark for my drive home. Hell, why not video too? You read halfway through the battle of Helm's Deep, hear the rest on audio during your drive, and see the battle scene from the movie when you get home.
"Once in Hawaii I had sex with a 102 year old male turtle. It is difficult to argue that it was consensual." - Steve Ma
I know where you're coming from. I was of the same opinion as you, until I saw a sony e-reader, then a friend's Kindle. They absolutely blow LCDs and CRTs away for reading purposes, they simulate printed paper to such an extent that you can't read them in the darkness, they need a active light source around like you need for real books.
I've never used an ereader. I've no intention of doing so anytime in the next decade. ... You can tell me that e-ink is better for my eyes till you are blue in the face. I do not give a fuck. It smacks of FUD coming from people who are shills for the e-ink industry. Seriously, this is absolutely NOT an issue for me at all in any way. This will in no way affect my decision in choosing a device to read on.
How the fuck do you know that they're bad when you haven't even looked at one? I guess you're a Apple fanboy shilling freely for them who is unable to see past the RDF. Maybe you think looking at one will make you disloyal to Apple? In that case, I rest my case. For others who never looked at a e-reader, try it once, you may like it.
Note: e-ink is not suitable for tasks like color rendering, browsing etc. so it doesn't really compete with laptops or tablets but is really great for reading.
This space for rent.
Really, I'm curious if this oft repeated 'fact' is substantiate by anything other than anecdotes.
Common sense helps.
When you're looking at a TFT screen, you are, effectively, staring at a rather bright lamp. It's not like we've just found out recently that this kind of thing is not good for the eyes.
You can mount Kindle just like the Sony reader or any other USB storage device. Plug it into Linux and go.
And then copy over all of the books you want, including (for example) the entire Project Gutenberg, which (unless I am very much mistaken) is not DRM-encumbered.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
We're getting close, but I don't think we're there yet.
My own expectations are:
If a company can hit all ten of these requirements, I'd buy one in a proverbial New York minute.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
is the Onyx Boox - also rebranded as the Bebook Neo. It has e-ink display, wifi, a wacom touch screen (mounted *under* the display - so that you don't get the glare issues that exist with other touch-screen readers), runs on linux, is completely open, and best of all
has a Debian based SDK!!! which allows linux users to write their own apps!
Running X11 means that you can take existing *NIX apps, recompile, and run them. They'll need a bit of effort to work well with an eInk display and a tablet, but you can make that effort with toolkits that you already know, not with something new designed just for the device. It also means that third-party developers can easily add features. For example, the community-developed PDF reader for the iLiad is much better than the stock one.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It won't be out until June. However the specs are amazing and might be worth waiting for.
http://gizmodo.com/5471559/notion-ink-adam-tablet-caught-on-video-specs-finalized
160 hours of battery life. Screen can be switched to B&W mode. HDMI out for 1080p video playback. Open source friendly. etc. etc.
Hint: if they equate eink to ebooks they probably are new to ebooks.
Seriously... while I think the iPad is a poor choice in ebook readers it sure as hell isn't because it has a color screen that doesnt require an external light source to make it readable. In fact, my choice currently is an iPhone. Why? Because I have it with me ALL the time. I can read at night while my girlfriend is sleeping without having a light on and finally, it can do lots of other things besides being a book. Oh, and turning pages doesnt take an insanely long amount of time like e-ink does.
Also, the iPhone offers you many options in terms of ebook readers. Stanza is the one I use, but if you have a kindle, you can use the Kindle reader and read the books you have already "purchased" there. Built in web browser for online repositories.
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Yeah.. but part of the formula is availability of real books.
Many books are available as only DRM'ed eBooks in the first place. And it's not been shown that Amazon DRM is any worse than other DRM, for the customer.
It appears that there are a lot of books available on the kindle store, that are not otherwise available as eBooks, or are much more expensive in other eBook formats. So that actually is a huge advantage of the Kindle over some other readers (easy acquisition of the materials you want to read).
I shouldn't have to forego reading certain books, or read certain alternatives instead just because it's not available for my reader. That would be an inconvenience, and indicate a deficiency of the reading platform. Some eBooks being available only as AZW is a disadvantage all other readers have to count.
My example for the moment is: IPv6 Security - Eric Vyncke (Author), Scott Hogg
There is a kindle edition for $38.40. You can get that particular one as an encrypted, DRM'ed PDF from publisher, but that requires $50 to purchase the same thing as a PDF.
Or a $500/year subscription through Safari.
In any case, that is one of thousands of examples...
You pay more for a PDF, and it is still protected by Adobe DRM and encrypted so it can only be registered on one eBook authorized reader.
it appears to be a lot easier and less expensive to legally purchase and ACQUIRE Kindle format eBooks than to acquire electronic versions of certain books for other readers.
I dunno. I like my Kindle, but all the math books I've bought have been so badly formatted as to be useless. When I read the same books on the Amazon reader for iTouch they're properly formatted, so I'm guessing something is broken with book rendering on the reader.
I've had my Kindle 2 hard reset. The books I'd bought from Amazon I was able to get back, but I lost all my notes and bookmarks on the books I'd loaded over USB -- one of the key buying points for me. No ability to put my own documents on, no sale. But the documentation doesn't explain that when it says notes are backed up over WhisperNet, that's only for books that you have bought through the Amazon store. That had me *pissed*, because they essentially told me they were backing my notes up when in fact they weren't.
Recently my Kindle has been taking a very long time to wake up from stand by or to go to stand by .. fifteen or twenty seconds. Enough to be annoying. At first I wasn't sure the Kindle was responding and so I'd hit the power button again, only to be rewarded by the Kindle turning on and off.
There have been lots of complaints about customer service -- especially where there have been screen problems. Several people I know (whom I trust as truthful) have had screens fail do to what should be normal handling for an ebook. Some people claim that the screen failed after being put through airport security, although that hasn't happened to anyone I know.
Finally, the user interface is really about as screwed up as you can make something that ought to be dead simple. Err. When do you want to hit "back" or "return" or "previous page" exactly? I know what to do if I think it through, but after over six months with the thing I still occasionally do the wrong thing.
Oh, it's a very good device overall, but there is vast room for improvement, even without talking about major updates like color or touch screen input.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I use a Kindle DX for work all the time and have no issues with DRM since I can put whatever I want on it (in PDF but there may be other formats this works with) via USB. If you are worried about "1984"-like issues, you don't even have to turn the wireless on - mine's been off for months. If, however, you want the convenience of purchasing books through their store, then you are locked into their DRM for that purchase no different than a purchase from iTunes.
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...
First of all, I love books. I greatly prefer printed text above everything for reading.
BUT.
eInk is still quite far from printed text for readability - the contrast is not great, the "paper" is rather greyish. I do prefer reading books on an LCD to the Kindle, and I have read whole books on an iPhone.
But - the reason why an LCD might have "melted your eyes" is because eye strain is easily caused when you try to stare at a bright LCD screen in an overall dark room. In short, it happens because it CAN happen. With an eInk display you have no choice but to provide enough ambient light to read in - if you simply provide that same level of light with any LCD they are not actually that hard on your eyes at all.
And with an LCD you have the possibility for real full-color illustrations in an eBook, along with all of the other things you can do on a screen with a high refresh rate.
I love the idea behind eInk, I really like the idea of it in a reader, but I don't think yet it is good enough to beat out a really good LCD for a good reading experience - and the iPad ships with an IPS panel which helps a lot with quality of output. Perhaps it's using cheap LCD's in the past that have "burnt your eyes out" - I can't stand using them either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Regarding the actual numbers, I must admit that I simplified. As Scalzi explains on his blog, "In the course of the production of my book, it is touched and receives positive benefit from (in no particular order): A writer, an agent, an editor, a copy editor, an art director, an artist, a book designer, a marketer, a publicist, a distributor and a bookseller. As an author, if I lose one of those people, the final product — a saleable book — suffers in one way or another." But the point is that up-front costs before the book ever hits the printer are what comprise most of the costs for a typical trade paperback, not incremental per-unit costs. This of course is inverted for best-sellers, where the up-front costs are amortized over far more units, but there were only 157 fiction books that sold more than 100,000 copies in 2008. That's it, according to Publisher's Weekly, and I suspect the numbers for 2009 are little different. And BTW, authors typically get a percentage of the cover price that is about $1.50 per hardback, about half that per paperback. Just in case you're wondering. That gets applied toward their advance until they sell out their advance.
In short, the argument that ebook versions of a novel should cost way less than paperback novels due to a lower marginal cost of production simply doesn't match the actual numbers. The marginal cost of production is not the primary thing driving book costs, whether ebook or otherwise. Rather, it is the up-front sunk costs in the editorial department and the fixed costs for marketing and publicizing the book which drive the costs for most books. Then there are the best-sellers, those selling more than 100,000 copies... but those are a distinct minority and are the only ones on which book publishers make any actual profits. In all of these scenarios, the marginal cost of production is not going to be even $1 for a trade paperback and will rarely be over $1.50 for a trade hardcover (obviously the last big brick Harry Potter novels cost a teeny bit more due to sheer volume of paper needed to print a 750 page novel, but not *that* much more), meaning that if we're talking marginal cost of production as the difference in price between a paperback and an ebook, we're not talking about a huge difference in price. Clearly the expectation that ebooks should cost a lot less than paper copies of the books because of lower marginal costs of production doesn't match the reality that marginal cost of production really IS marginal even for paper books. A little less, okay. A lot less? Well, that money will have to come from something other than marginal cost of production... probably either author advance, or by publishing fewer books by more marginal authors (those who sell less than 20,000 copies). Either alternative is not very good for those of us who enjoy books and buy hundreds of books per year -- mostly *not* the 150 books on the bestseller lists.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I use my Iphone for reading most books these days. Back in the day, I used to travel a lot for work, and usually had a stack of books on my crusty old palm pilot, which was nice for carrying around, especially since I used it for a lot of other things as well.
These days, I don't go anywhere without my phone, and I find the screen just fine for reading books. A lot better than the old palm pilot. Since I'm already carrying the phone, the e-reader is basically free.
Backups are designed to protect against loss regardless of cause...
The "1984 fiasco" caused Amazon to pledge to not ever again delete eBooks from consumers' devices. By contrast, Apple, BN, Sony, and others have not made such a promise.
It's kind of pointless to pick on the kindle about problems that should be ancient history.
You should check the metadata on your link... it's from 2005 and deals exclusively with CRTs.
There is NO evidence because tech routinely outpaces the lifespan of a scientifically meaningful clinical trial.
It would be like trying to measure the effect of modems or Sonic clinically, when they've been phased out of relevance.
What there IS plenty of is unsophisticated superstition on par with fear of microwave ovens.
Light is light.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is up with you e-ink greybeards? LCD does not 'melt your eyes' literally or figuratively. Do you read this page and all other websites using an eink screen? If not, why does an LCD suffice for most computing activities (including reading), but is then suddenly inappropriate for reading?I look at an LCD perhaps 8 hours a day with no eyestrain, as do millions of office workers.
LCD is a much better general purpose screen, deals with colour for photography and diagrams, lets you use the device to browse the web and play games, by sacrificing some battery life.
For this reason I think general purpose devices like the apple slate will overtake ereaders very quickly in the marketplcae. You're welcome to your eink screens though; I won't try to claim that they make your eyes bleed, they're just less useful than an LCD or OLED.
It goes everywhere, it's small/lightweight, 3G coverage, and has great battery life.
Actually, the latest reference in that document is basing stuff on data from 1996 (most of the references are from the 80s or early 90s) and well... LCDs (and monitors in general) have certainly changed a lot since then. Basically... that information is no longer to be taken as gospel and is not about current technology.
Doctors now say that really, LCD displays are not bad for the eyes at all, and what is bad is the setup of the screen (not an issue with a portable LCD like a phone) and the lack of blinking you do when reading for long periods of time (which isn't related to LCDs at all and is a problem for eInk too).
Here is a timely blog post on the NY Times for slightly more info...
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/do-e-readers-cause-eye-strain/?ref=books
Basically... eInk isn't really any better, lacks in contrast, and is not good for reading in low light situations.
I think the eInk industry has done a really good job at making people believe something that isn't true. People's eyes go bad as they get older, your LCD monitor probably isn't the cause though.
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