abccrazy123

Hey is anyone knowledgeable on the new Ebook readers? I read a review on the amazon one which didn't seem that great.

Baraka_Guru

I've been keeping my eye out on these. I work in the publishing industry. The Amazon Kindle looks like crap. You should have seen the prototype. It looked like a Tandy circa 1980.

So far, the best items in the market look to be Sony's Reader and iRex Technology's iLiad. Unfortunately, they are both expensive, and neither are there yet in terms of a viable and acceptable technology for portable ebooks. It's just to early.

There is slow adoption for this technology because most book readers aren't tech savvy like other groups. The early adopters for the Reader, Kindle, and iLiad is such a small group that it makes things move pretty slowly.

I hope to see the "iPod" of ebooks soon, but I'm not holding my breath. But if I had to choose a product right now, I'd lean towards the Sony Reader. It has the advanced "digital paper" technology, which is a huge leap for readability. I haven't seen it with my own eyes (not available in Canada), but I imagine it would help with eye strain. Too bad it's greyscale, though. And it lacks flexibility and some functionality, which is why I say the technology isn't there yet.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Cynthetiq

I've used the sony product and also was looking at the rocket back in the ereader 1.0 days. The sony product is well done, can use PDFs which I have many books and manuscripts in PDF format.

What I don't like is the digital ink technology while it looks good sometimes looks like cheap paper wherein the changed page "ghosts" parts of the previous page. It doesn't happen to all readers, but it does happen.

I have not seen the kindle in person yet, but on it's face the specs are impressive.

I've used my palm for many books and PDFs as well, that seems to work just fine to hold out for a better cheaper solution.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Baraka_Guru

I just got the Palm Zire 72 for free.

I loaded Mobipocket up on it, and I find it works well for sparse things such as poetry. I haven't tried prose with it yet, but I'm sure the small screen would prove tiresome. So far, the only thing distracting about reading my William Blake on the TTC is when I hear Beyonce's beats assaulting my ears from the earphones of the person standing halfway across the subway car. They call that ear spray, apparently. Rightly so. It's pretty bad that I could sing along. Anyway....

I'm sorry to hear about the Reader's performance woes. Maybe I'm too harsh on the Kindle, but you could call me skeptical. I'm a bit of a book purist. I'm a tech geek except when it comes to books. I have high expectations. What I liked about the Sony Reader was the advance in technology, but I knew it was too early. Do some Google searches on "digital paper" or "e-ink" to see what's coming down the pipes. Some if it looks amazing, but some is horrific. Picture animated cereal boxes. Meh.

EDIT: The problem with the traditional book is that it is one of the few "perfect inventions." You can't really improve on it, when you think about it. Ebooks will have their role, but I doubt paper-bound books will go away anytime soon, if at all. I can't imagine reading a 400-page novel on an ebook reader. Maybe the technology will come along where this is feasible, but, again, I'm skeptical.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Cynthetiq

aaah. gotcha, so is Skogafoss, but she got a number of books on her palm recently and isn't looking back. She likes the lightness of it all.

Adobe Acrobat for Palm It's free and converts for you.

I read at least 3 of the Harry Potter books, Da Vinci Code, and a few others that I cannot recall anymore. I use it as a supplement for the physical book. So I'm sitting the waiting room or on the train and I have some time, I can opt to keep reading my book without worrying that I didn't bring it.

I used to use a different reader that allowed teleprompter mode with that I could read books so much faster that I found it very useful.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Baraka_Guru

Thanks for the link. I grabbed Mobipocket because we've been trying to hook up with them at work. Also, I noticed that the very cool site manybooks.net (cheap as free! public domain) has the Mobipocket extension. Actually, they have extensions for everything. Maybe I'll try the Adobe and see how it compares. Mobipocket has some pretty good view options, so I don't know how it could get much better. But, thanks, especially, for the feedback on reading entire books. How big is your screen? For how long do you read at a time? Do your eyes ever burn?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Cynthetiq

I use a tungsten|C with the little built in keyboard.

It's adequate for reading, font sizes can be adjusted as well. I'm not trying to replicate a book feel, I'm just trying to read content, just as I would read the news from Avantgo.com.

I've read the longest on a plane flight from NYC to LA maybe at 3-4 hours. No eye burning, but I can read screens for long periods. I cannot say the same for books.

thanks for the manybooks, there are many PD book offerings. Mostly I get books like many people get mp3s, off the networks. They are growing in scope and offerings. If the publishing companies don't get them locked down at least as a basic offering regardless of reader platform, they may be bogged down just like the recording industry, especially as manuscripts are already easy and portable to leak.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Baraka_Guru

Okay, according to my sources, our screens are virtually the same. Maybe I'll try reading some longer works. I'm always trading books (i.e. I always read various books concurrently). Maybe the Palm will help me lessen the load, or even save time switching. I'm going to try Adobe shortly. Thanks again.


EDIT: I have the perfect trial: George Eliot's Middlemarch. It's 317,365 words. As good a test as any.

EDIT: I tried out the Adobe. I don't like it. It doesn't have anywhere near the flexibility of Mobipocket, and I actually found it a bit frustrating. I guess this is because Mobipocket is designed with ebooks in mind. I think I'll stick with it. I was disappointed at Adobe's limited preferences. Tell me if I'm missing something.

Probably the biggest problem I had was that turning pages is easier in Mobipocket. You simply press over to turn forward, and up to turn back. I like that. I couldn't find an easy way to turn back on Adobe. The only redeeming quality was that Adobe maintains page integrity (i.e. it scrolls through the full page before turning it). I might keep it just for the PDF option, though, especially where images are concerned.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

JStrider

I really like the idea of the ebook...

but havnt seen a solution that I like...

maybe once the kindle is on the second generation and people have hacked it so you can load your own content for free I'll look into it.

__________________
-=JStrider=-

~Clatto Verata Nicto

Cynthetiq

up/down for scrolling and left/right for page turns I think... damn I'll try it again tomorrow.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Redlemon

I'm pretty sure that you can do free loading with a USB connection; it's only the email-to-over-the-air that requires a fee.

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I can't read your signature. Sorry.

samurai_x44

I suggest you look at :
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix
for a list of available e-books.

If it was me I'd probably get a Cybook Gen3 or import a NUUTbook from Korea (but that might be complicating things a lot).

__________________

Baraka_Guru

Nice link. These aren't just e-book readers; they're E Ink readers. I didn't know there were so many of them. This is a good sign. The sooner they develop E Ink into high-res colour and flat & flexible, the sooner e-books will take off.

Imagine something around 5X7 or 6X9 that looks like a page from a glossy, four-colour magazine (but much clearer) and can change like a computer monitor. This will be the future of reading.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot