Sony E-reader PRS-505/Amazon Kindle (and general e-book reader discussion)

[Kid_Eternity]

i guess popularity will bring the price of ebooks down.

I'd bloody hope so, it's not like they can use the old 'making music costs money' either, writing a book doesn't take specialist equipment, studio time or paying anyone else to help (like producers etc)!

 

[Sunray]

I'd bloody hope so, it's not like they can use the old 'making music costs money' either, writing a book doesn't take specialist equipment, studio time or paying anyone else to help (like producers etc)!

Yes, but its a full time job that can take 12 months or more and in that time who pays the bills?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Yes, but its a full time job that can take 12 months or more and in that time who pays the bills?

Don't writers get an advance once they have a book deal? Anyway, it's not comparable at all in terms of costs, you can live on 25 k a year in London, it can take up to a million to make an album...

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Project Gutenberg has hundreds of thousands of books on it for download, all free.

 

[Sunray]

Don't writers get an advance once they have a book deal? Anyway, it's not comparable at all in terms of costs, you can live on 25 k a year in London, it can take up to a million to make an album...

If your Jeffery Archer, you may well get some money in advance, if your nobody then you get nothing unless incredibly lucky. You may not sell that many no matter how good it is.

What it does do is perhaps get it published at all. Publishers may well see value in it but not enough to print stacks of copies. So they may stick it on the ebook selection without actually printing it.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Like I said it's not quite comparable, besides writers do all kinds of things while trying to make their break, JK Rowling managed to live on pittance, in a bedsit and raise a child on her own for example.

But anyway, still really like the idea of the Sony and the Kindle isn't coming here any time soon...

 

[Beepers]

Sony's electronic book reader..

will it kill off the paperback?

It's capable of storing 160 tomes including classics by Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. By connecting the Sony Reader to their home computers, customers will be have a choice of tens of thousands of ebooks to download from the Waterstone's website. It costs £199 and will be available in more than 200 Waterstone’s stores from Thursday.

It is smaller than a hard back and has a battery life equivalent to 6,800 page turns - enough power to read War and Peace five times and when children are more interested in having an iPod than the complete works of Shakespeare, leading publishing houses are offering downloadable versions of titles by authors from Delia Smith to Ian McEwan in an attempt to attract younger audiences.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ronic-book-reader-kill-off-the-paperback.html

Okay, so it's an expensive 'kiddie toy' but will it really catch on and do the job of encouraging children to read more and what about adults, would you pay £199 for one? I've never been one for sci-fi or any sort of fiction for that matter. I prefer technical books, even recipe books, and most of my books have A4 plain paper bookmarks, halved, with pen or pencil notes written on them for reference.

A must have Christmas gift destined for the car boot sale by the end of January, or what?

What do you think?

 

[Woollyredhat]

I dunno about everybody else, but when I read text on a screen for long periods of time my eyes tend to hurt quite a bit.

 

[cliche guevara]

will it kill off the paperback?

No. Even if everyone eventually gets one, which I can't see happening, people will still pick up a paper back while in town.

I dunno about everybody else, but when I read text on a screen for long periods of time my eyes tend to hurt quite a bit.

The screen is made to look as much like paper as possible, and is much easier on th eyes than a standard computer or mobile phone screen.

 

[Crispy]

mergey-wergey

 

[Athos]

I just bought one. Won't be deliverd until mid September, though.

It turned up today, and I'm well pleased with it!

Will let you know what it's like, properly, in a few weeks.

 

[G. Fieendish]

So will Border's be announcing a "Half price" sale on the e-book readers, they currently stock...? (their e-book reader retails for around £350)

 

[Kid_Eternity]

mergey-wergey

I did wonder why it suddenly appeared in this forum rather than the tech ones...

 

[izz]

I saw one of the sonys today - i'd heard it took about a second to turn a page which would make me frisbee it frankly but it seemed a heckuva lot faster - apart from detailed maps which seemed to take a while.

I wasn't keen at all until today and now I'm

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I saw it on the Telegraph video and it was faster than a second to refresh the page. I wonder how fast people actually turn pages and focus their eyes to read?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

A comparison of the Sony and the Kindle (fucking hell the Kindle is ugly!):

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/poll/amazon-kindle-vs-sony-reader-bitchfight-324481.php

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I finally got round to having a play with one of the Sony ebook thingys in Waterstones the other day.

My initial verdict of "urgh" is unchanged, it's horrible.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

What's wrong with it? I'm still very interesting in getting one after ordering a ton of books I want to read at once but can't lug about (I'm so sick of fucking paper!)...

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It's not a book, basically

 

[Kid_Eternity]

It's not a book, basically

Ah....so it is as fucking cool as I thought! Gonna have to check it out soon...

 

[Scaggs]

I'd love one of these but the price will have to come down a bit first. I've seen one on Amazon with a built in dictionary (that would be handy for me) This one looks nice:
http://www.iliadreader.co.uk/product.iLiad_Reader___Second_Edition.htm

 

[editor]

Here's the official photos for the new Kindle 2.
Looks veh nice.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38108s=e4a7428f717c01307d8b5cc0658ab491&

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Meh prefer the Sony's look...

 

[T & P]

I bought Ms. T&P the Sony one for Xmas. According to a review I read somewhere, the Amazon model has more useful features, but come Dec. 23rd I hadn't sorted it out yet so I had to go for the Sony.

Without seeing the other, I must say it's really cool. You need to get used to the idea it's like real paper and does not have a backlight, so if you want to read in low light you'd need a little torch or other light source like you would with a real book. But it's thinner and lighter than any book and feels good on the eye.

Being able to read several books at once and go straight to the page you left each one at is very cool. Other good features too like variable font size and being able to download and listen to audio books. It came preloaded with 100 books as well.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I must say that the lack of a backlight kind of takes away half the point of it for me, which is reading things in bed without having to have the light on.

I had an ebook reader for the Palm, and I have one for the iPhone now too, and I can directly download books from the ten billion that are in Project Gutenberg and also more recent releases. And I can read them in bed. I've read enormous amounts on screen rather than on paper and I can't say it fucks up my eyes any more - I feel just as bad reading paperbacks until 4am as I do reading ebooks until 4am.

 

[Kanda]

What book reader do you use for the iPhone Fridge?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Stanza. Very good imo.

 

[editor]

The screen on the Kindle is infinitely more comfortable to read and easier on the eyes than the iPhone's (or any other phone for that matter).

 

[T & P]

I must say that the lack of a backlight kind of takes away half the point of it for me, which is reading things in bed without having to have the light on.

I had an ebook reader for the Palm, and I have one for the iPhone now too, and I can directly download books from the ten billion that are in Project Gutenberg and also more recent releases. And I can read them in bed. I've read enormous amounts on screen rather than on paper and I can't say it fucks up my eyes any more - I feel just as bad reading paperbacks until 4am as I do reading ebooks until 4am.

I guess the holy grail is an ebook with the Sony/Amazon technology that allows you to read outdoor in bright sunlight, and yet has backlight for night reading. Different technologies apparently, so it could be tricky.

 

[editor]

The new Kindle seems to be living up to the hype:

Among Kindle 2's improvements over the first one:
• It's thinner.
• The original held 150 books; the new one holds 10 times as many.
• 3G downloading means you'll get books downloaded on the fastest mobile network available in the U.S.; download a book in less than 2 minutes.
• It has text-to-speech reading of books.
• It plays MP3 music files.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10170712-1.html