Ebook Reader

[neonplanet40]

Hi guys can anyone recommend me a good colour ebook reader? All the talk is kindle at the minute and it has everything bar a colour and touch screen

[Saracen]

Isn't it horses for courses?

Isn't a major part of the point of an ebook reader that the "electronic paper" screens are both better for long reading periods, and vastly lower on power consumption than any current colour technology, with the resulting minimising of eye-strain and extended battery life?

I guess it depends on what you want it for.

[Nerval]

There isn't a colour e-book reader at the moment.

By e-book reader, I mean a dedicated device using the "e-ink" technology without a backlight, which means that you can read for hours on end with no eyestrain, just like a normal book.
E-ink technology is newish, and still black and white (or dark grey and light grey, to be precise).

I have a Cybook Gen3 that I use several hours a day for reading novels and the like, and have hardly read a paper book in the two years I've had it. I love it, it's light, portable, easy on the eyes, and has about 300 books on it at the moment. You can get all the classics and all the modern stuff too, and if you're a keen reader, I'd recommend it. But it would be no good for reading comics, science texts or anything with graphics in as it's monochrome and the screen is only 6 inches corner to corner. The new Kindle is supposed to be good, and is cheap at just over £100, but there are lots of 6 inch ones about, including the Sony touch screen ones, if you like touch screens.

If you want colour and/or pictures, then you're down to a backlit display, and something like the iPad or equivalent tablet PCs. But you won't be able to stand reading on it for hours on end, and whereas my ebook reader battery lasts a couple of weeks or more between recharges, you'll be recharging the tablet's battery every day or so.

[neonplanet40]

I thought this was the case Basically why I wanted colour was because If i buy newspapers for it etc I want to be able to see it in colour. And im afraid that if I buy the kindle or equivalant now that this time next year it will be in colour. I know this is how technology works and you can never keep up

I just now have to decide whether I jump in the bandwagon now or in a year

[Nerval]

I thought this was the case Basically why I wanted colour was because If i buy newspapers for it etc I want to be able to see it in colour. And im afraid that if I buy the kindle or equivalant now that this time next year it will be in colour. I know this is how technology works and you can never keep up

I just now have to decide whether I jump in the bandwagon now or in a year

If you want newspaper or mags, then the kindle's screen is just too small. You'd either have to have tiny text adn squint at it, or keep scrolling up and down on each page and it would drive you mad.

You'd need something iPad size - and that would give you the colour too, of course.

There are larger eink devices around to cope with newspapers and mags, but again black and white and very expensive.
Ipads and especially the other tablet PCs will become a lot cheaper in the next 12 months, and that would be yr best bet - as you say whatever you buy will be out of date this time next year.

I can't see coloured eink for a few years yet, but then I thought 1 Megabyte was a lot of storage too, so who knows?

[Saracen]

I thought this was the case Basically why I wanted colour was because If i buy newspapers for it etc I want to be able to see it in colour. And im afraid that if I buy the kindle or equivalant now that this time next year it will be in colour. I know this is how technology works and you can never keep up

I just now have to decide whether I jump in the bandwagon now or in a year

I absolutely hear you ... because I'm in the same situation.

I've ignored e-book readers until now because I felt they (or at least the ones that interested me) were just too pricey. I set myself a £100 max (ish). But the non-3G Kindle hits close to that and has my interest. I'd dearly love a machine that does what Kindle does in terms of low eye strain and battery life, but also does colour and newspapers. I just don't think such a device exists, or will for some considerable period.

That's what I meant by "horses for courses". I either have to go Kindle, and accept the lack of colour, etc, or go for something like an iPad and get the colour,m but lose the battery life and accept the effect of backlighting on my eyes if I use it for hours. And that letter I'm just not up for, even if I was prepared to pay iPad prices, which I'm absolutely not.

For all that the iPad is a wonderfully slick gizmo, it just doesn't give me what I want from an ebook reader. Right now, for me at least, the Kindle is the best game in town. It's just whether it's worth it at all, and for me, it's about getting myself satisfied on issues like DRM and conversion from ebook and PDF formats to Kindle, because I will not buy Kindle-format novels if they're locked to a specific device or type of device. I'm not paying out for a file now that, if I upgrade to a different make of hardware in two, or ten, years time I can no longer access. If that is the case, I'll stick with paper versions.

[Nerval]

Right now, for me at least, the Kindle is the best game in town. It's just whether it's worth it at all, and for me, it's about getting myself satisfied on issues like DRM and conversion from ebook and PDF formats to Kindle, because I will not buy Kindle-format novels if they're locked to a specific device or type of device. I'm not paying out for a file now that, if I upgrade to a different make of hardware in two, or ten, years time I can no longer access. If that is the case, I'll stick with paper versions.

The kindle competitors, and there are now loads with 6 inch screens, are falling in price - they have to now - and most, like mine, aren't limited to Kindle (mobi) format books or DRM.
There are plenty of format converters out there once you've avoided being locked in by DRM.
The DRM and limited format issue was the main reason I didn't go kindle with my reader.

Kindle is far too controlling for my liking - and so is Sony for that matter. I just drag and drop what I like when I like on mine, and that's it. btw..ePub is making claims to be the standard format of the future, don't know whether it will happen.

And finally, if you want PDF, then again the kindle is too small unless you've got eyes like an eagle's or love scrolling. I don't even bother trying PDF on mine.

[mikerr]

An iPad and the Pressreader app (www.pressdisplay.com) is pretty perfect as a newspaper reader.
For £20/month sub I get unlimited newspapers (I get 4 dailies) though there is a PAYG version too.

Zinio.com has an app to do similar for magazines - but the pricing model sucks greatly on that
E.g. £49.99 for a yearly electronic sub to T3 !

Kindle books you've bought can be viewed on any kindle app on any device logged in with your account
- I currently have kindle app on laptops, ipad and iphone and can access my purchased library from any.

[this_is_gav]

An iPad and the Pressreader app (www.pressdisplay.com) is pretty perfect as a newspaper reader.
For £20/month sub I get unlimited newspapers (I get 4 dailies) though there is a PAYG version too.

The iPad is a rubbish ereader though, as it's just a standard screen with the old glossy coat (making it even worse, especially outdoors).

[neonplanet40]

I would love an ebook mass review with say the top 10 ereaders currently available are compared with each other.. That would help a lot!

I dont like apple and wouldnt pay the price for the life of me for an ipad. For that money id get a laptop

[GoNz0]

i was quite shocked to see the price of ebooks, the wife loves reading and i was considering a reader for xmas, but i need a good source of cheap chick novels to keep her happy, where do you guys go (sorry for the thread hijack)

considering she normally buys from charity shops it may not be viable.

[Saracen]

....

And finally, if you want PDF, then again the kindle is too small unless you've got eyes like an eagle's or love scrolling. I don't even bother trying PDF on mine.

That's one of the reasons I haven't .... yet. Unless it does a decent job with an A4 PDF, it's useless to me since that's the main reason I'd be getting it.

[kmac]

I got a Kindle for the Mrs only because it is easy to use and they make it too easy to buy books ( to the point where you can accidentally buy books) from the Amazon site.

If you think you will buy mostly from Amazon then the Kindle makes sense. If it was for my own use I would probably get a more "open" format book reader, but I'm still not sure which one that would be.

Tempted by the Sony PRS-650 touch screen one.

[scaryjim]

hmmm, devices using mirasol colour screens shouldn't be too far off, and will provide all the benefits of e-ink plus colour and faster refresh rates. Next year could be a very interesting year for screen tech, and hopefully OLED will start making it to larger devices at an affordable price (well, I can dream can't I? ).

Personally I use my phone (HTC Magic) for reading e-books and haven't really found any problems with eye strain despite the backlit screen, but I suspect mileage varies greatly on that. And of course backlit devices have the great advantage of being readable in the dark

[kmac]

Hey someone added a shopping link to my post ( linked to word K*n*dle)
Is this a new Hexus feature? Or old one I didn't notice before?

[scaryjim]

Hey someone added a shopping link to my post ( linked to word K*n*dle)
Is this a new Hexus feature? Or old one I didn't notice before?

Shopping Links by Skimlinks