prophetik music Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 i recently purchased a sony reader touch, a full-color touchscreen ebook reader. i'll be receiving it tomorrow. i'm an avid reader, particularly of sci-fi and fantasy novels. however, my bookshelf is literally crammed full of books, and for all practical purposes i'm running out of room. i'd had my eye on the kindle for a year or two, but it always seemed impractical to buy a device that would allow me to repurchase all of my books. i found this on woot a week or two ago, and said to myself, "time to spend some birthday money". i've been filling my ebook library between then and now, and i'm up to almost 500 books of free content, be it classics like Bram Stoker's Dracula or free releases like Brandon Sanderson's full book Warbreaker that he released earlier last year. i'm very excited to get my reader tomorrow. this model is particularly cool because it supports me writing notes into it with the included stylus, as well as pictures (for comics online) and audio (for audiobooks and music). does anyone else out there have an ebook reader? what do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenogu Labz Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Yessss, Warbreaker. This is definitely something I've been curious about, but too lazy to look in to. Specifically, has anyone tried reading textbooks with their reader, and is it that a viably practical use for it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie's Angel Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Why don't you sell those old books? Do you read them over? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djpretzel Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Do any of these devices read plain ole, DRM-free, PDFs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcana Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 I bought an iPad for PDFs and textbooks (among other reasons). It works much better than eInk-based devices for PDFs since the refresh rate is much higher than most eInk devices. You can scroll around and zoom in freely and it's about as fast as doing it on your computer, but more natural due to the touch screen and slate form factor. Granted I haven't tried using a modern eBook Reader since they got "big" (I used one that was from about 2007) but AFAIK about eInk, the refresh rates are extremely low and thus are bad for textbooks, comic books, and PDFs in which you have to scroll around. My main problem with the iPad right now is that I don't have a good PDF annotator. I could probably buy one but I don't know which PDF program is "the best" at such things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidd Cabbage Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 I bought an iPad Haha, pud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinus Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 What a coincidence, a coworker brought his Kindle to work today to show it off. It seemed pretty nifty, although I have no experience with other e-book readers (yet) so I can't compare. I think I'd prefer it over the iPad or similar devices for doing lots of reading. According to my coworker the Kindle does read plain PDFs without any hassle. EDIT: just had a little demo. It's pretty nifty, but as others have said, the low refresh rate and lack of zoom are a shame. You can change font sizes on Kindle books, but not on plain pdfs. Also personally I wouldn't be so keen on purchasing eBooks from Amazon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted May 12, 2010 Author Share Posted May 12, 2010 Do any of these devices read plain ole, DRM-free, PDFs? the original kindle didn't, but all of the sony readers do, as well as the kindle 2 and kindle dx. dunno about the others. actually, the sony reader reads most of the drm-free formats, like epub, txt, rtf, word docs, etc. charlie's angel, you're the kind of person who sells your games after you've played them once, aren't you? i save everything i've read, just in case i want to read them again. that way i don't have to buy it again if i want to go through a big series again. besides, how much do you get for a mass-market paperback? a dollar? that book's worth more to me than that =) tinus, sony's readers allow for text scaling, but you have to do it in the program that comes with it, i think =( oh well. most ereaders, due to the refresh rate, suck with textbooks unless you just want to read them like a book. hard to go back and view other stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenogu Labz Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Yeah, I figured that would be the case. It would certainly be better than staring at a monitor all day, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcana Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Haha, pud. Hey it works for what I want it for, which is reading PDF papers and sometimes surfing the web and playing games. (what's a pud?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie's Angel Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 charlie's angel, you're the kind of person who sells your games after you've played them once, aren't you? i save everything i've read, just in case i want to read them again. that way i don't have to buy it again if i want to go through a big series again. besides, how much do you get for a mass-market paperback? a dollar? that book's worth more to me than that =) I was just saying most people who have way too many books to store (like dad) only end up reading them once and never again. It just would seem like you'd either want to read them again or get a library card, but like I said my dad does that too, so to each their own I guess, lol. I don't like keeping things that I don't plan on using again, it takes up too much space for the apartment. I do keep my old Sega upstairs though, thats always fun once in a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted May 13, 2010 Author Share Posted May 13, 2010 i'd like to read everything again a few more times. i'm particular when it comes to what i like and don't like, and that's why i tend to re-read books several times over the course of the years. anyways, i got it in the mail. i'm charging it now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newt Posted May 16, 2010 Share Posted May 16, 2010 anyone have experience with the nook? i've been thinking about picking up a reader this summer, and the interface seems nicer than sony's or amazon's. my only real concern is compatible formats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted May 16, 2010 Author Share Posted May 16, 2010 i'd like to read everything again a few more times. i'm particular when it comes to what i like and don't like, and that's why i tend to re-read books several times over the course of the years.anyways, i got it in the mail. i'm charging it now. sony's software is trash. i'm using calibre (open-source ebook library and converter), and it's worked pretty well compared to the abortion that the Reader Library is. put about 300 pages of reading on it so far, reading the first of the Dragon Age novels. if you do what i did and load 400 ebooks on it at a time, be prepared for it to take forever to process everything properly. i had to let mine sit for over an hour before i could use it. also, sony's reader uses tags for the 'compilations' search function, so i had to go through and tag everything properly. don't bother using calibre's series functionality - just put the number of the book in the title, so you can find it later. also, the reader alphabetizes author's names by their first name. not the best choice, but whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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