eBook reader
I have tons of eBook in my computer, but I hate reading them on my computer screen. This new toy from Amazon might be able to help me if it’s not this ugly. Texas Instrument from the 80s much? (I have a thing with the 80s era. Don’t really know what it is.)
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Dude, this blog post was made on my Birthday…so I HAVE to comment on it.
Anyway…WOOHOO, FIRST COMMENT! I’ve always wanted to do that. Man…all I’ve said so far is unrelated to your blog post.
So…eBook reader EH? Dude…for $400 bucks, I’d rather spend the money on an OLD school Fujitsu Tablet PC for about $100 and use it as an eBook reader. Plus, I’d be able to use it for other applications. Of course, it would be a bit on the heavy end, but hey…it’s a tablet PC. Wouldn’t you like to be able to do much more than just reading eBooks?
Well, when you’re reading a book, you don’t want to do more than reading, do you? (unless it’s some kind of books with lots of pictures…)
If there’s a cheaper eBook reader, and it can only let me read, browse, flip, create a bookmark, and do whatever I want to do with a real book, I would definitely buy one.
While it would certainly be convenient to have a cheap eBook reader that only reads eBooks, this device from Amazon doesn’t do much more than that and still costs a shit load.
Sony’s reader (PRS-500) costs a bit over $200 and the new model (PRS-505) is about $300. It can sing and dance too (I’m exaggerating). The screen is the same size and it uses the same kind of “electronic ink” technology. Anyhow, it’s STILL a piece of junk because it can’t resize PDF docs and if the text is too small, then you can’t do anything about it. Of course, you could always resize it in Acrobat, but that’s a pain in the ass.
Sony’s getting there and Amazon’s device is F-Ugly. The point I was making in my last post was that it’s a lot cheaper to get an old school Fujitsu tablet and turn in into an eBook reader + extras vs the current competition. I would be more than happy to drop $100+ (would I REALLY?) on a decent 8″ display eBook reader that only reads eBooks and can sync with just about any popular file format I choose. Or at least include some software conversion that’ll do the job. Does the Amazon reader even read .lit eBooks? I got a ton of those and would like to read them on a practical portable reader.
Another thing–with a $400 price tag, how can anyone afford to buy any eBooks? They need to make a cheap reader with a subscription service to SELL EBOOKS. Why can’t anyone understand that? A Netflix type eBook service bundled with a cheap reading device. Who wants to pay $10 a pop to read a book that you don’t really own. I like having a physical book with cover art. That’s why people are willing to spend $7 for a paperback or $20 for a hardcover. Who wants to spend $10 for a corruptible piece of data? Much better to charge $10 for a subscription service with the OPTION to buy (DRM-free of course). Besides most people take several days to read a book, so the more avid readers get a better deal.
Maybe you want to suggest the idea to Paperspine.com, bookswim.com or booksfree.com.
You know who would buy a $400 eBook reader piece of junk? People in a country like Thailand. The first reaction I got from a friend of mine after I told him about the eBook reader was, “$400? That’s cheap. I would buy it if it could give me an ability to read a flash eBook.”
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