Thread: E-readers

Opinions? I won't listen but I'm sure everyone will still give them.

Personally, I like books, and I'll continue to buy them. But I'm going to do some travel, and I want an e-reader for that.

I decided on the Sony PRS-650, but as Harveys and JBhifi don't stock them, Darwin doesn't have any. On top of this, Sony website is all backordered and shit so they won't give me one.

So only fuckers with a myers or a david jones can buy them, or maybe people with real angus and robertsons/Borders, for the moment anyway, till they go out of business. Shitballs!

The biggest problem with E-readers is the cost. Add $100 extra and you can pick yourself up a low of the line Apple Ipad, or one of the new Android based tablets that are coming out this year.

Now you have to answer the following questions:
1) When was the last time you where outside reading a book in direct sunlight?
2) When was the last time you where reading a book at night time?

For me, when the decision came to getting a E-Reader I asked myself those questions and the answer was mostly I do reading indoors or near direct sunlight but not outside in the open (where E-readers) really work well.

The biggest problem with E-Readers is for the similar price range you can have so much more functionality for very little investment.

Formats?
Consider if you go down the E-Reader path you will be vendor locked into their store, e-reader format, copy right, drm and a whole lot of other shit. And its very common for outside the mainstream books that formating and picture problems will occure. For this reason I went with PDF as the standard for reading books and have never looked back.

So, you have the following E-Readers
1) Vender lock in
2) All-most the same price as Apple Ipad, or Tablet's out on the market HP
3) Advantages of E-Ink when in direct sunlight (when was the last time you where in direct sunlight reading a book?)
4) Format restrictions, cannot up and move the format to another E-reader
5) Limit functionality, and you will leave it on the shelf collecting dust.

Get yourself a Ipad, Galaxy Tab or any there other touch devices coming out this year. There saved you $200

wtf even suggest anything with an LCD for? there's no comparison. Harb, I bought my wife a PRS-600 for Christmas and she's gone through maybe 2 dozen books on it since. She loves it. I've sat and read stuff to her from that as well and have found it really good on the eye - unlike reading from this LCD screen right now.

eInk is flat out BETTER than LCD when reading text - sunlight or not (to argue against chad's stupid: when was the last time you read a book in the dark?). I think the PRS 650 has a toggle backlight as well so you CAN read it in an unlit room if you're that kind of tard.

if you want to read comics - sure go with a galaxy tab or ipad. but if you want quality book reading - there's no contest, gotta be an eInk display.

edit: forgot to mention, we've had no issues with vendor lock-in with the PRS-600. Bought an ebook from Amazon the other day and the Sony software on the computer ported it onto the reader DRM and all.

I sell a pile (JB Hifi) but to be honest it looks like the Kindle comes out on top, and is cheap as. I have never seen one so I don't really know - just going on what I've heard. Given they're "the original" e-reader I'd say they're pretty tip-top.

Edit: Ferk. $139. How can you go wrong?

sif buy kindle - fucking wankers are still deleting people's books/magazines when it suits them.

Given that a vast majority of people who post here are pretty nifty with the ol' computer, I'm sure that can be avoided through nefarious means.

Originally Posted by grandinferno

Given they're "the original" e-reader I'd say they're pretty tip-top.

E-Readers been around a lot longer than than the kindle. I had one from Franklin in the 2000/2001ish. Sony was first to market with a E-Ink based reader in 2004 the kindle was available until 2007.

Also been look at a return to e-books as my habit has been getting expensive on the space. TheSony devices do look like the best ones to get just based on inbuilt file support.

a) I don't want to buy from the states
b) Kindle doesn't do ePub which is rapidly becoming default.
c) Sony is shiny. Shiny Shiny Shiny.
d) Sony has SDcard slot, which I want.

Point of this thread is, I want, but can't have. Angry.

Want, can't have. Fucken.

edit: during my travails of hunting this shit down, I discovered that Amazon kindle allows free unlimited 3g access in Australia, allegedly this is done via roaming data charges, for this reason, all books sold to Australian IPs on Amazon are +30%. That's enough reason not to get a kindle.

Also explains why I thought ebooks costed the same as tree books, which is SILLY.

I'm going to Singapore April 1st; and spending (quite) a few hours in Sim Lim Square, Harb.
If you haven't sorted it out by then, let me know. I will buy you one and post it back (it's on my way to the UK).

Im also a book reader but its hard to find some books so i get them in TXT/PDF format so an Ereader would be sweet