Electronic Readers, will they ever catch on?

[0iD]

Can you really beat the good old fashioned book? OK, environmental issues aside, there is something deeply satisfying about books, a certain tactile pleasure of flipping a page, or leafing back for reference.

When you look into it, there are quite a few of them on the market these days. Sony have just released their offering into the marketplace, and of course Amazon's Kindle, to mention but two of the more high profile ones. Seems to me they're just not capturing the public's imagination enough yo break our bond with the printed word.

[Lucio]

never understand why companies feel there's a market to be had in making something more expensive and less useful. Unless these come down to virtually the same price as a typical book, then I can't see them ever really catching on.

After all, you have a book, you can give it to any friend you want, you don't need to worry about batteries, if it's dark you just turn on a light to read it (instead of having to avoid bright light to see the screen properly) and no matter what, it's you book, not a book licensed from the company with an entire 10000 page legal document that needs agreeing to.

[capt_cornflake]

What exactly are the benefits of this?
I bought an MP3 player so that I can carry my entire music collection around in my pocket.
Unlike music though, I tend to only read one book at a time.

Plus they expect me to fork out several hundred quid on a reader, and then pay the same price as a paper book, for a proprietry format file file which can only be read as long as they feel like supporting it, on their reader!

Mind you plenty of people buy DRM crippled music, so their maybe enough stupid people out there for it to take off...

[99Flake]

Paper all the way for me, there is something nice about the tactile feel of pages. With a book you get the artwork etc and a feeling of nearing the end as you can see the pages going down.

With newspapers I really like to sit and read them in my local after work, nice to open it up at the bar and have a read. I don't think that an electronic reader would give that same feeling.

[shadowmaster]

Can one of these be reused after you have thrown it at someone? One of the best uses of a book is that you can chuck it at someone, hurt them, but then be able to pick up the book and easily read from it.

[ACiD303]

Most of the benefits of paper books have already been mentioned, which I'd agree with - tactility, convenience, no batteries, no electronic light emissions, price, hitting someone with, crushing insects (though I don't do this!) etc. I also like using a bookmark, you can see how much you've read/how much more you have to go. And creasing pages (depending on the book) to keep a mark on special pages, as well as writing notes on the pages themselves. OK, there are substitutes with an e-book reader (presumably), but it's another case of virtual equivalent just don't match the real experience.

The only practical use, for myself at least, I can think of with an e-book reader is if I were a field researcher who needed an encyclopaedia of knowledge onsite. Or maybe long term travelling with all the lonely planets and novels to keep going. But it would in no way be more pleasureable to read, that's for certain.

[Funkstar]

You can't read an eBook during take off, landing or taxi-ing on a plane.

You can't read an ebook on a chopper going offshore.

You can't read an ebook while on an oil platform (except inside).

I agree with ACiD303, there are uses for them, but not many.

[Saracen]

For me, IF the screen technology was good enough (and those I've seen aren't), and IF the price is right (and it better be a lot less than the "few hundred quid" capt_cornflake mentioned), then yes, they could tempt me ..... for a travel device. The advantages are being able to take a large collection of varied reading material on a trip with me without either the weight or, perhaps more significantly, the bulk, of the printed equivalent.

I also have no objection in principle to DRM, but it MUST be effective, standardised, and non-intrusive to legit users. That means I expect all readers to have common (or at least compatible) DRM software, and that whilst perhaps it is locked to me as a person, it runs on any DRM reader I happen to own. Quite how they do that, I don't know. Some kind of TPM chip in the reader, and a public key pair encryption encoding the books to me when I get them, perhaps. Or perhaps I have a master code on a PC, and it lets me check books out and back in again.

But I'm certainly not buying either e-books or a reader if I'm going to lose access to the books if, for instance, I upgrade reader.

To be honest, I prefer printed books. I much, much prefer printed books. I have a fairly large library, and it's growing all the time. Put it this way, I have sufficient books in that library that I bought database software and use a barcode reader (Symbol Hotshot LS2108) for data entry.

So, to get me interested in e-books, they pretty much either have to be free, or supplied with the printed book at a cost that is, at most, only nominally more than the printed copy. If that can be done in a way that doesn't cause me headaches over DRM, and if all my criteria can be met, then yes, I'd be interested. But I'm not holding my breath, and unless it all works in a way that suits ME, not the seller, then it's a technology I won't be even considering, let alone buying.

[TheAnimus]

the screen on the sony one is great.

As a dislexic i'd say i prefer it to cheap paper.

But, books are cheap and disposable, trying to replicate them with something that costs hundreads is silly. Instead they shouldn't compete head to head.

The thing should be sold like a mobile phone. £30 upfront, then £15 a month. That £15 a month would give you straight immediate access to any e-book, excluding expensive scientific journels etc obviously. That would be quite brilliant.

[Funkstar]

Thats a pretty good idea Animus. Especially if you had access to a library of IT and programing books, they are far too large and expensive. I've read that most of the cost of these large manuals is the low volume and of course their physical size. In these cases, I can imagine that releasing them for a couple of quid, or as part of a subscription model would be more financially atractive to the authors.

[Saracen]

....

The thing should be sold like a mobile phone. £30 upfront, then £15 a month. That £15 a month would give you straight immediate access to any e-book, excluding expensive scientific journels etc obviously. That would be quite brilliant.

That might well suit a lot of people, but I wouldn't buy one like that. I want to be able to buy what I want, not tie myself into a contract and a subscription.

Once I've bought the device, and acquired rights to whatever material I chose, I expect to be able to use both without further cost.

Monthly contract for an e-reader? Not for me, Not a chance.

[TheAnimus]

Saracen, i don't think they would for a second say "no you can't read that", instead they would be simply allowing access to their library on top of what you want to view.

Very much the same business pattern the monopoly that is the iPod works, think put a simple GSM adapter in each reader, and you can at anytime download something from the library you pay a low monthly subscription for. That kind of convience many people would pay for, wouldn't you?

For people like me + funk who need the technical stuff, i'm sure a top up pricing model could be used aswel, no company wants to say no to taking money after all!

Mark my words, if these things work, it will be via a subcription model.

[ShALLaX]

I think it's like the whole iTunes vs. CD thing... people like having something to show for their purchase, be it a bookshelf full of books or CD cases!

[Saracen]

Saracen, i don't think they would for a second say "no you can't read that", instead they would be simply allowing access to their library on top of what you want to view.

Very much the same business pattern the monopoly that is the iPod works, think put a simple GSM adapter in each reader, and you can at anytime download something from the library you pay a low monthly subscription for. That kind of convience many people would pay for, wouldn't you?

For people like me + funk who need the technical stuff, i'm sure a top up pricing model could be used aswel, no company wants to say no to taking money after all!

Mark my words, if these things work, it will be via a subcription model.

I don't know whether the subscription model would work or not. It may be that it would. You say "wouldn't you"? No, I wouldn't. As I said, I want to buy the hardware and material for it, or not, depending on whether it will offer me value for money or not. If it's on a subscription model, it'll work out a lot more expensive in the long run. Mobile phone contracts work either because they're offering people a shiny new model phone with an extra bell or whistle to get them to renew the contract, or because they're a heavy, regular user and get their mobile phone service at a cheap rate by, effectively, buying a reasonably high number of minutes (or texts, or downloads) on a regular basis.

I don't use a phone like that, and haven't for many years. So I won't touch a mobile phone contract. And I'm not interested in a new phone every year or 18 months, which I then pay for with a regular monthly payment for a contract. Nor, for that matter, am I interested in the bells or whistles. All I want to do with a phone is make and receive phone calls. So a cheap phone, that's light and has a decent battery life is all I need, or want.

Much the same logic applies to an e-reader, as far as I'm concerned. It applies to iPods for me, too. I bought an MP3 player, but I went for a 60GB Creative. I'm not in the least interested in iTunes. Again, if the hardware does what I want at a price I'm prepared to pay, I'll buy it. But a subscription model only makes sense if my volume of use is such that it's economic to do it that way, and it isn't for a phone or an iPod, and it most certainly isn't for an e-reader.

As I said, I'd much prefer printed books. The only time I'd use an e-reader is when the dictates of travelling make it a better choice than a printed book, and for me, that pretty much means when I'm away from home. So subscription? Not for me. Not a hope in hell. As for others, well, I'm not interested in iTunes or a contract phone, but enough other people are. What suits me might not suit you or others, and vice versa.

[kingfoo]

i think eBook Readers look good but i dont no if i would buy one

[christiansoldie]

Give a good book any day. Preferably, THE Good Book.