Subscribe Feed (RSS)Reading so much more
December 25th, 2008 by eyal | Filed under Leisure, Techie. |
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More Readers Are Picking Up Electronic Books - NYTimes.com
“E-books will become the go-to-first format for an ever-expanding group of readers who are newly discovering how much they enjoy reading books on a screen,” said Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer books.
I agree. I love my Sony Reader PRS-505. Since I got it 3-4 weeks ago it has easily become my top favorite gadget. I’ve been reading a lot more, and for a lot less. This includes material of immediate interest, classics and stuff from way down my mental wishlist. I have about 76 ebooks on my device and I’m reading maybe 5 or
6 concurrently depending on mood, time of day etc. Stuff like popular fiction paperbacks, trading related material, and classics by authors such as Tolstoy and Charles Dickens. When was the last time you thought to yourself: “hmm I feel like to go down to the bookstore to buy something by Tolstoy.”
Alas, it’s not a cheap device. Especially if you live outside the USA. The Sony Reader I got is only sold in the US, Canada and recently in the UK. So I had to get mine from eBay, brand new with the cover+light accessory and after shipping it was $400. You could buy a mini laptop for this price, but that would be far inferior to reading from a dedicated reader. So why do I like it so much?
- The number one reason is, of course, the screen. The eInk technology is fantastic. Much more comfortable and easier on the eyes than reading off LCD/LED screens. It looks just like paper, you can read it from any angle, even in normal bright daylight.
- I now carry dozens of books with me in a very slim and lightweight package you can comfortably handle with one hand. Imagine lying in bed late night fully horizontal and holding a laptop, even a netbook, above your head for an hour vs. holding a slim 250grams device.
- Space wise, I put in a 2GB SD card that I had lying around and at 76 books I’m not even using a quarter of it.
- Books are cheaper. The new ones due to bigger discounts and no shipping fees, and the old classics are available completely for free from places like The Gutenberg project
- Because the books are electronic it’s so much easier to just download them instantly and then immediately back them up and not have to worry about losing them, damaging them, or lugging them around when moving.
- They are more environmentally friendly - no dead trees (see, Klaatu, we can change ;-) nice movie btw)
- Battery life is super, you can read thousands of pages without going thru the battery
The downsides?
- Not all books are available in a digital format, but enough are that it’s not a big deal.
- The price, as mentioned is not cheap. But it costs less now than when I bought and will probably pay off for itself in under a year if you read a lot.
- I am seriously running out of USB capacity and have another cable on my desk lol
All-in-all, a really fantastic device. Highly recommended.
Thanks for posting this. Why this Sony one and not the Kindle?
[...] started writing this as a comment in response to Dave’s question and realized it was getting long enough to be a post so here it [...]
Do you find that you read your financial books on it? After all most newly released trading books are available in electronic form.
Robert - yeah I read quite a few of them on the sony. There is a minor downside though to reading those sort of books on an eReader though. As you probably know many of the trading books out there are full of rehashed/old/useless/beginner’s material. It’s easier to skim material and flip quickly thru paper. Some reasonably good trading books I’m reading now are Ari Kiev’s material.
[...] that Amazon releasing this new version and adding to their books selection. Even though I’m a Sony user, it just helps promote competitivenes in the field and the push for better products from all the [...]