ebook reader review: Sony PRS-300, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Kindle 3
Why ebooks?
The computer and the cell phone are two high-tech devices that have become essential for people living in developed societies. The third one might turn out to be the ereader.
The ability to acquire hundreds of books cheaply and carry them around on something that fits in your briefcase (next to your laptop and phone) is leaps and bounds more convenient than paper books. The non-obvious advantages over paper books are the lack of page-caused shadow while reading, far less raw material use, and automatic and manual bookmarking. People who read often will save money. Everything before 1923 and many things after are free and ebooks are cheaper to purchase.
Local public libraries now let you "borrow" Adobe DRM (DRM=Digital Rights Management=copy protection) ebooks for free without actually going there, saving more gas and time. The library books stop working after two or three weeks. Reading PDFs is useful. I can see putting Army manuals on it.
The disadvantages are mostly psychological. As there might be people who miss rotary phones and TV\record player cabinet combos, some will miss paper. It's not as impressive to have a list of ebooks on your computer as a reading room filled with bookshelves showcasing your eclectic, refined tastes. Lending books is harder if they have DRM.
Start shopping
The first division in ebooks is between those having a backlit screen and the ones that use the paper-impersonating E Ink. This one's easy for me. A backlit screen like the one on your laptop or iPad is better for magazines, blogs, and news because it can display color, but I cannot read on a computer screen for hours at a time- simple as that.
Apple iPad Tablet (32GB, Wi-Fi)
You can read E Ink in sunlight, something you can't do on an LCD device. If you don't want to bother your husband or wife at night, however, you have to buy a clip-on light with your E Ink ebook reader.
After that, the biggest split is between those devices with wireless and those without. Wireless allows you to download books without a computer. At first, I didn't think this an issue as I'm never too far away from a computer, usually my laptop, and I read blogs and newspapers on my cell phone. I’ve since learned that it comes in handy so I’d recommend getting some kind of wireless.
The second split is format. Barnes and Noble, public libraries, Kobo, Gutenberg, Google, and most ebook stores use the open EPUB format. Amazon uses the proprietary AZW format. You can't use Amazon books with DRM on other devices and vice-versa. This locks you into buying Amazon books. A program called Calibri can convert EPUB into AZW. You cannot legally convert copy-protected EPUB DRM to Amazon and, again, the opposite is true.
The last couple of months have been an e-book odyssey for me. Like the original Odyssey, the journey was involuntary. Unlike the first one, its main cause was having the bad luck to enter the market in a transitional stage for ebooks , not angry gods, I think.
Original post blogged on b2evolution.
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