Ebook readers
 

After reading an interesting article about a new ebook reader from Sony about to hit the shelves in Germany in October, I am seriously considering to buy one myself. It's something I have wanted for years, but to be honest, I don't really know how these things work and don't know anybody who owns one (please excuse my ignorance).
First of all, how does it work with the DRM system on these things? I was really surprised to read that it's apparently no big deal if you simply want to read your own PDF or .doc-files with it. I've always thought that these things were restricted to display only files in some proprietary format so you would have to buy your ebooks from a site that sells them. Since book prices in Germany are the same for both the printed and the electronic version due to legal restrictions, ebooks have never seemed particularly attractive to me.
Also, I can remember that I've read something a couple of months ago about Amazon deleting content that customers had legally downloaded onto their Kindles. (I'm not considering to buy a Kindle, for a whole lot of reasons.)
Finally, display quality. Does it really come close to reading a printed book? I hope that it's different from reading my PDFs on the computer, which I find is somewhat straining to my eyes.
So if anyone could post their experiences here, I'd be really grateful :DL

With a printed book I can make notes in the margin, something I tend to do especially if it is a technical book.

Also pictures are going to look rubbish.

Book falls on the ground, npothing happens. Electronic device falls on the ground: possibly broken.

Paper is flexible. LCD displays are not.

Sand. Water. Shock. High temperature and sunburn.

Limited diversity of titles available. English language.

Lack of tactile feeling and satisfaction a real book can give you. Books even may smell of age and memories after some years.

When would I consider an eBook? maybe when doing a long holiday and wanting to carry a library with me, of English books. and while I am laying lazy at the beach and my hand is searching blindly for the eReader, I again think: sand. Water. Shock. High temperature and sunburn.

Zero interest over here. Absolutely nil. Rien. Nada. I have a huge library of real books. I like it, I love it, I do not want to miss it.

A rare occasion where Skybird and I are in complete agreement.

It comes down to this:

A printed book is a completely self contained, permanent copy that, if properly cared for, will remain fully usable for centuries.

An E-book is a fragile pattern of electrical impulses downloaded onto a soon to be obsolete gizmo that will almost certainly have to be replaced within a decade.

I personally think that the "handheld ebook reader" is going to be a "fad" that's going to fade out pretty quick. Then again, that might just be the "old man" in me talking, "You young yippersnappers ! Now get off my lawn !!!"

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory...wlc=1255679084
http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-a...le-lcd-display
These are just two examples, but granted, the technology is still young and not cost effective yet.Not exactly true and only a mater of timeAgreed, always prefer an actual book to an ebook, but they are becoming viable alternatives. You know, electronics are not all that fragile, but sure they are easier to f up than a paper book.As do I, but I also have a huge library of ebooks and a small library of audiobooks.

Just give me the traditional book over these electronic gadgets...

my main issue wiht E-books or pages of text displayed on screen is that I just can't focus and lose track of the text really quik.
also it isn't a pleasure for my eyes.

and nothing is so pleasurable to sit in a comfy chair, radio soft in the background and a good book.

HunterICX

Also you can fix a book with selotape.

Also Dowly would lose the satisfaction of unsticking the pages of his favourite magazines......lol :rotfl2:

Well, save for Anti's post, the response to ebooks is unequivocally negative here :DL
I primarily intend to use it for a purpose true to its name - reading ebooks, i.e. books / documents that haven't been published on paper in the first place. One reason for this is that I don't have a printer, but I have to do a lot of copying or printing since everybody these days is sending their seminar handouts via email and doesn't bother anymore to hand out paper copies. Printing for me always means a twenty-five minute bycicle ride to the nearest copyshop, or even longer if I want to have them at the university's expense :shifty: Also, I have to copy a lot for myself, manily essays or parts of books, but now we have some newfangled contraption here that allows you to make a PDF file of your scan and copy it to a USB stick. I have used it only occasionally, but I can imagine an ebook reader would come in really handy here.
Another thing: Game manuals. Since this, after all, is a subsim gaming site (which may be shocking news for all of those who thought it was a politics forum ;)) you may feel with me that I'm royally pissed off by the fact that most (or virtually all) games these days don't come with a printed manual anymore. As I've said, I don't have a printer, but even if I had one, I simply wouldn't see the point in printing out whole manuals considering the cost. The last printed manual I've actually owned was that of Dangerous Waters, which I ordered on this site and had it shipped all the way to Germany. I mean let's face it: RTFM is a prerequisite to simulation gaming. I even think that reading the manual and learning the sim step by step is actually half the fun of it. And a great number of manuals that include a tutorial assume that you have it at hand while following the sim while it runs, which simply can't be done in a proper way if I only have a PDF. Open the game, open Acrobat reader, start the tutorial, swith to reader, read a few lines, switch back to game, switch back to reader because I've already forgotten what it says, repeat ad nauseam ... Who hasn't made that experience? It would be so much easier if I simply loaded the manual onto my ebook reader. I had two screens and would save the cost and hassle of printing.
And finally: All of those texts freely available in the internet. I'm not talking about book pirating, but about all of those classics that have been made available through project Gutenberg, the Perseus Digital library and the like.
With all the drawbacks in mind (being more of an indoorsy guy that doesn't go to the beach anyway, or likes to scribble - not even marginally - on his electronic equipment), do some of the points make sense to you?


Jeez, I think I'm spent for tonight :DL

He doesn't buy magazines. That's what his internet connection is for and it's far easier to just use spray and wipe on his screen.:D

Properly made electronic consumer devices generally have a few falls in them. If I drop the book onto a puddle, it is definitely ruined to some extent because it'll be at least SOMEWHAT absorbent. If I drop the electronic device, I might actually be able to wipe it off.

Maybe a cheap paperback. What about the hardcopy version - the paper inside might be flexible but the book as a whole is not. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, sometimes you don't want that flexibility.

I don't think books are that survivable against the first two. To answer your point below - I won't be taking either close to the beach or anywhere that's not at least paved.

Surely, a temporary problem.

And they might have termites or some kind of ant in them too with age...

Consider that your huge library might actually fit onto one E-book, thus leaving that space free for new items, and you might be happier to tolerate it all.

I love the smell and feel of a book. I love to show off my shelves and shelves of books, too.

I doubt I will ever own one of these gizmos.

I could see a use of an E-book for my academic studies. Having all my reference books and journal articles in one "place" where I can quickly search between them would be valuable when I am writing my papers or doing research in a library.

But for my recreational reading it has to be books all the way. I love the library I have in my house. I have books there from the early 1800's and up. The smell and texture of books can't be replicated in bits and pixels. :nope:

Books have been faithful friends of mine for many years. I can't see abandoning them for a computer screen. :nope:

Wrong foot first when raising from bed this morning, eh? That's a nice chain of absurd replies made for the sake of just objecting to what I said - no matter how absurd the objection is. If I wouldn't know that you and me use to have no business with each other anyway I could be tempted to think you want to provoke me for some reason.

Tz.

Yes.

Just wanting to note that I used to compare texts page by page and side by side, sometimes with several open books on the table, side by side. That is faster and easier to overwatch and quicker to switch between chapters than needing to do it all on just one tiny display.

It reminds me a bit on the "revolution" they promsied when elctronic organisers came out. It still makes me chuckle when I see somebody using a Palm or a similiar device to find an adress or worse: to enter a new adress. A simple old-fashioned paper organiser with calender, adresses, and a register lets you find what you need faster, and lets you enter dates, information and adresses quickier. Plus I have seen more than one person now starting to curse when realsing that his precious electornic gadget - has stopped to work when he switched it on. :DL

Leave such things to where they have a good purpose: attach a barcode scanner to them and use them for managing magazine content and items sorted in the shelves. For this and comparable things such devices are great, relieve you of much paperwork, and are much quicker.