ebook readers and price drops

[sad_winslow]

I coulda sworn I'd replied earlier but maybe I forgot to hit submit.

Steve: too late, I got a Kindle, see the rest of the thread. Thanks for the input, though. I do like the android nature of the nook, and wish the kindle had an SD slot. plus I have a B&N membership so the tie-in would get me some more discounts. But the kindle price was too good to pass up that one day. I don't think I'm sorry that I got it, overall, though. i could've gotten a wifi-only nook for the same price, but the 3g is what sold me.

I didn't like the nook touchscreen one bit from when I played with it in the store a couple times. The kindle keyboard isn't too bad, though a bit slow to update. it's definitely not for speed typing. and i think i would have absolutely detested the keyboards on the older models, they look horrid. the new DX looks downright sexy, I have to admit, but is waaay too pricey.

Agreed that the ipad is a totally different beast. it's a nice beast, though. i have an previous-gen ipod touch already and i have to admit that i really, really like it. reading on it or an ipad, though, isn't the easiest thing. i've played with several book apps and they're.. ok, but the kindle is a thousand times easier on the eyes. ibook is painfully slow on my older itouch. stanza is nice but again the backlight thing just makes it hard to read for long periods of time, whereas i sat down and read an entire book (admittedly a shortish one) on the kindle with no eyestrain like a regular backlit display at all.

i also discovered that target is selling kindles now. i was checking out the cases that they sell, but the ones at the local store were all crap and overpriced to boot, plus none of them even had a hard front to protect the screen. cases for the damn thing are awfully expensive in general. i think i'm going to save up my pennies and get the moleskine one off amazon as soon as i can. it's only a little bit more than the cost of a really crappy one from target. probably shell out for a silicon skin and screen protector, too. i'm nervous about carrying the thing around without a case and don't think i will til i have one.

i am also admittedly a bit jealous of the apps on nook comparatively. amazon just isn't thinking in that direction so far, to their own loss. i am shocked at the so-called 'functionality" of their twitter integration.

and friggin' minesweeper, man. It's just plain insulting. Gomoku is slightly less so, but sudoku and chess are just plain more stimulating to me.

i also wish that amazon had an alternate payment system besides one-click, like a store credit system where i can charge it up with some dollars. it'd help with budgeting so that i don't, eheh, overspend on books, because good grief i do read a *lot*. i am almost never without at least one book or at least a magazine. and it'd be waaay too easy to drain my bank account by going "oo i wanna read that *click*" and bam, money from bank account straight out gone. i wonder if i can buy an amazon gift code and tie the one-click to it, that might be a workaround.

and nobody seems to have any of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently books in ebook format yet i lost my print copies ages ago and would dearly love to have them to read again. I've read the Hitchhiker's series literally about 20 times over in my life.

[fargon]

I'm still addicted to ink and paper, so I think I will keep buying books.

[sad_winslow]

Read the rest of the thread and you'll find that nobody else is going to quit buying paper books either, at least from those who have chipped in their 2 cents, and that includes me

That being said, I bit the bullet and bought an issue of Analog last night, and actually? Reading it on the kindle was really kinda nice. If I subscribe, paying my $3 a month and having the next issue automagically appear will be pretty neat. The formatting was decent and it read just fine.

More importantly (to me, anyways) is that I don't think I even noticed I was reading on a digital device, which I definitely can't say about a backlit screen. I was able to actually engage myself with the text like a book without the hardware being in the way, which is kind of amazing. I think there's a niche in my reading life for this device, and that pleases me.

I'd love to have the room to have a gorgeous shelf of the paper copies of my favorite fiction rags, but I just don't. Plus, versus newsstand the digital edition is a) a bit cheaper and b) i don't have to go to an out of town bookstore to get it. Double win for me.

If my bookshelves weren't in such horrific disarray, I'd take a picture. Maybe when I clean them up I'll start a "share a photo of your bookshelves" thread

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by sad_winslow

Plus, versus newsstand the digital edition is a) a bit cheaper and b) i don't have to go to an out of town bookstore to get it. Double win for me.

Damn lazy whippersnappers, why in our day we had to go out and chop papyrus reeds, with a toothbrush, or we'd never have anything to read... or wipe with.

[sad_winslow]

Ahh but with the silicon slipcover and screen protector it's fully washable, so not only can you use it like traditional bathroom paper products but it's reusable and eco-friendly! Right? Right? This is the future! And if you want the real retro "frontier experience", try the first-gen model with the large-button keyboard for that authentic corn-cob feel!

Now about those three seashells...

[wolf]

The "Alternate Payment System" you seek is to use amazon.com gift cards as your primary method of payment.

Actually, if you have a gift card linked on your account, kindle purchases will spend that before they charge a credit card.

I like my clunky old keyboard, and do not feel the need to wiki from the Kindle at all. I haven't even loaded any music on the thing yet.

I've read a damn lot, though.

and the DX Graphite has been ordered. I will report back.

[sad_winslow]

Originally Posted by wolf

The "Alternate Payment System" you seek is to use amazon.com gift cards as your primary method of payment.

Actually, if you have a gift card linked on your account, kindle purchases will spend that before they charge a credit card.

I like my clunky old keyboard, and do not feel the need to wiki from the Kindle at all. I haven't even loaded any music on the thing yet.

I've read a damn lot, though.

and the DX Graphite has been ordered. I will report back.

I was wondering if a gift card could be linked. that may be the convenient way to keep on a scheduled budget. Thanks for that tip!

well, i thought the wikipedia access would be a handy thing to have, but i thought it would be through some sort of customized interface rather than a crappy WAP browser and wikipedia's mobile site. gross.
Also I will never, ever put music on the thing. Ever. I have an mp3 player already, I don't need a kindle to take over the job - poorly - from a device that already does it quite well, not to mention wasting the fixed, limited amount of storage space on the kindle.

Ooh I eagerly look forward to any thoughts about the DXG. That is a nice looking piece of hardware, I have to admit. too expensive for my taste and budget, though. Nice that it's got twice the storage of the regular, too.

I'm still tickled with this thing though and now just desperately want the dang moleskine case for it so i can carry it around outside the house, but it's like $40 that i definitely don't have right now. :/

[wolf]

Spend $75 and get the Oberon Designs cover.

You will not regret it.

[Griff]

MIL used her kindle as an anchor at the river. That is not good for it. Pete bought her a new one. Good thing prices are dropping.

[sad_winslow]

oh my. while those are very nice covers (and i have a paper journal with a similar kind of cover, gifted to me ages ago), that's far out of my price range. i'd as soon spend $40 for the moleskine one that will protect it at least as well, and spend the remaining $35 on content. i'd not be able to afford books if i bought that!

[wolf]

I will consider a KindleKover for the Graphite once I determine whether or not the standard DX covers will fit it. I don't know that I'd go the $130 for one I really like.

[sad_winslow]

I ended up ordering the Moleskine case. I like their regular notebooks and carry one at all times, and this case has a slot inside that comes with one top-opening notebooks and a spare to boot.

And for what it's worth I still like my Kindle, a week later.

One thing I've been thinking though is that these things may never fully catch on and become truly ubiquitous without some sort of public library functionality or similar. Even if you had to physically go to a library with your ereader - or maybe even be able to rent/check one out there - to "pick up" and "return" digital books. Which would be a little silly but at the same time might be a deterrent against piracy, which the publishers would pitch a fit over. If only they'd learn from the MPAA/RIAA what *not* to do.

Or imagine if there was a Netflix for books - a few dollars a month and you can download X number of books at a same time (or maybe per month). That would be brilliant.

I kind of think that Amazon should give you some sort of major discount(like next to free, a buck or two at most) or just outright freely give you a digital copy of any paper book that you buy from them. It'd be the best of both worlds.

[SteveDallas]

The Overdrive system is the one most commonly used by public libraries that lend ebooks (and audio books, etc.). It uses Adobe Digital Editions DRM to enforce the lending period.

I understand it's possible to remove the DRM, after which the ebook can be converted for reading on a Kindle. This would, however, violate license agreements and most probably the DMCA.

[sad_winslow]

Huh, I had no idea such a thing existed already. We don't have it in the local system, that's for sure - and it looks like Kindle isn't directly supported. Bummer, big time. One of the Sonys and the Nook seem to be supported by Overdrive. Yes, removing DRM would violate the DMCA as circumventing an access control device. Although I want access for myself, what I really want is overall simple, ubiquitous access for anybody, and that's not going to be found through an arcane technical process (or even one that people think is, even if it's really 'simple' to someone like you or me). The less steps involved, the better.

However I just discovered we do have something called NetLibrary which has about 7k modern, free titles in PDF, which isn't too too bad. Looks like it's mostly academic, professional, or general public information stuff(childcare and resume-building, skeezy 'how to succeed!' books, etc). Still, at least that's something. Though it's not the direct-to-device lending I had in mind - that's what I want to see. And libraries renting e-readers, too.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by sad_winslow

One of the Sonys and the Nook seem to be supported by Overdrive.

The Kindle and the iPad both support their own DRM. Almost everybody else out there supports Adobe's. (It would be easier, in the short term, if everybody supported it, and there are certainly market-based reasons to do so. But that would still leave the "standard" in the control of one company, which isn't fabulous in the long term.)


If you like science fiction or fantasy, and you've never been to the baen.com site, check it out. They offer many of their books for free, especially early volumes of long-established series, and the ones that aren't free usually have the first few chapters available as a teaser.