Britons Rejoice - eBooks are coming

[BrotherBenny]

Britons rejoice. Sony have finally deigned to release the PRS-505/SC in the UK and for a mere £199.99. It comes out on the 20th September 2008 and I'm seriously thinking about picking it up.

Cue JWolf for the lowdown.

[tenmei]

Meh, no more likely for me to get an eBook reader than I am now. I just like the way my books line up on the shelf.

[BrotherBenny]

As do I, but the only reason I didn't get one before was the price and size of the reader.

I will be buying this and getting the ST eBooks to go with it.

[JoeZhang]

I prefer my phone - slips straight into my pocket.

[Dimesdan]

Thats half the bloody price of my lap top!

But even if it was a lot cheaper, I'm dead tree all the way when it comes to my pleasure reading, although when that smart plastic stuff like in Minority Report is developed, I might get that for my daily newspaper.

[JWolf]

JoeZhang wrote:

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I prefer my phone - slips straight into my pocket.

And while you read your eBooks on your phone, you sit there and drain the battery so when the time comes when you need to make a phone call, you sit there and curse the dead battery.

[JWolf]

Dimesdan wrote:

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Thats half the bloody price of my lap top!

But even if it was a lot cheaper, I'm dead tree all the way when it comes to my pleasure reading, although when that smart plastic stuff like in Minority Report is developed, I might get that for my daily newspaper.

Might be 1/2 the cost, but it's not even 1/2 the usefulness for reading eBooks on the go.

[JoeZhang]

JWolf wrote:

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And while you read your eBooks on your phone, you sit there and drain the battery so when the time comes when you need to make a phone call, you sit there and curse the dead battery.

Never happened so far.

[Dimesdan]

JWolf wrote:

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Might be 1/2 the cost, but it's not even 1/2 the usefulness for reading eBooks on the go.

I know from observing previous posts you've put, you are very passonate about ebooks, but I find having a hard copy book in my pocket or bag far better on the go than something I don't have a need of nor can I actually justify the cost, so, until thay make that fancy plastopaper, I'm sticking to my dead renewable sourced tree books!

[Idoliside]

I have a compaq ipaq, bought it for notes and organising my complicated life (heh), it also reads microsoft .lit files. Handy

[T'Leisha]

There's something about the feel and smell of the pages of a book that makes the experience what it is.
I don't think i could give up the pleasure i feel in actually reading, and turning the pages, for something flashy and convenient. I enjoy the simple tactile sensation involved far too much.
Someone once told me that digitalised... Everything, is the future. That's probably true, but i think it would be a real shame if actual books with pages become obsolete. I think certainly some people might push for that, in the name of being forest friendly or some such. I'd probably only read an ebook, if my chosen read was no longer available in print.

[Deano2099]

Ebooks will take off eventually, but they don't offer any major advantages over dead-tree books at the moment. And for each advantage there's also a disadvantage.

Now if they were half the price, that might not matter. Or if paperbacks were sold with a redemption code for the eBook thrown in for free they might be able to slowly slide into greater use.

But at the moment they're just not viable. £200 is a lot. I might consider though if it did what my iPod did - let me carry my entire book collection about with me. But it doesn't. In fact I'd have to re-buy every book I want to read on it. Would the iPod ever have taken off if it'd only play albums you bought off iTunes? And they were the same price as the CDs. And you'd have to rebuy all the old ones. No chance.

The convenience and ease of use of an eBook reader really appeals to me. But I have 100s of unread books. If I can't read those on it it's no use whatsoever.

[JoeZhang]

you are mixing up the cost of a particular reader with ebooks.

[JWolf]

Deano2099 wrote:

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Ebooks will take off eventually, but they don't offer any major advantages over dead-tree books at the moment. And for each advantage there's also a disadvantage.

Now if they were half the price, that might not matter. Or if paperbacks were sold with a redemption code for the eBook thrown in for free they might be able to slowly slide into greater use.

But at the moment they're just not viable. £200 is a lot. I might consider though if it did what my iPod did - let me carry my entire book collection about with me. But it doesn't. In fact I'd have to re-buy every book I want to read on it. Would the iPod ever have taken off if it'd only play albums you bought off iTunes? And they were the same price as the CDs. And you'd have to rebuy all the old ones. No chance.

The convenience and ease of use of an eBook reader really appeals to me. But I have 100s of unread books. If I can't read those on it it's no use whatsoever.

Imagine carrying the lastes SCE/CoE omnibus around with you. In fact, imaging carrying two of them. Can you do it? Do you want to do it? Now imagine carrying around a device that is about the same size as a regular paperback, slightly wider, not as thick, and slightly heavier. Now imagine the SCE/CoE eBook on it able to be read when you want without the hassle of having to carry such heavy omnibuses. It's well worth it.

[tenmei]

But, you say imagine carrying around two SCE ominbuses around with you. The point would be - would I want to and would I ever need to? I'm terrible for taking books on holiday - as I read fast and can usually get through about three or four average paperbacks during a two week holiday - and that's more than most people I know may want to carry on holiday. But in other circumstances, I'd not want to carry two SCE omnibuses around - maybe one at a time, because that's all I'm going to read on the bus.