E-Book readers (5)

1 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2006-02-20 10:54 ID:WmzwKxVQ

Anyone have one? Looking forward to the new Sony Reader? http://products.sel.sony.com/pa/prs/

I wouldn't mind a light, about the size of a book reader with decent battery life and support for images aswell. It even seems like you can go without DRM. It would be really nice if ebooks took off. The price seems to be prohibitive though (for both the hardware and the 'renting' of books). Will ebooks be the doom of libraries?

2 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2006-02-20 17:48 ID:kV1A/ysI

I'd love a good e-book reader. However, if it's from Sony then I beleive they will surly ruin it with DRM.

3 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2006-02-20 21:34 ID:cyPDqzdL

I'd like a reader that would just display plain text and simple HTML, nothing fancy. So I could download various reading material off the web and read it at breakfast, or on the train, or...

I would never buy one that uses DRM or a proprietary file format (this claims to have the latter), as it probably wouldn't be all that useful. The bottom line is that if it's designed to sell me books I'm not interested, but if it's designed to let me read the books and papers and articles I already have on my computer, then I'm listening.

4 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2006-02-21 14:24 ID:t8ZkTd0z

>>3, have you considered Palm's offerings?

Though I think I could possibly read a novel on an e-book, there are some things for which paper books will not easily be replaced. Textbooks, for example; I want to be able to scribble notes in margins, to flip back and forth quickly between different pages and sections, and so on. Unlike digital music files vs CDs, I don't really see ebooks ever completely replacing paper books.

5 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2006-02-21 21:30 ID:qpdG/8hN

There is another "electronic ink" ebook reader thats supposed to come out in mid 2006:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/shop/products/iliad.htm
Native support for txt, html, pdf.
Hopefully it won't be vapourware.

>>4
I'm not >>3, but I find both screen size and quality of every handheld I've seen so far unacceptable for prolonged reading.
Battery life is another issue. With my reading habits a charge might be enough for an average weekday, but on weekends or when travelling I'd already run into problems.

Re: textbooks. I'd love to have electronic textbooks. Notes in the margin would be far more convenient if I could expand the margin at will. In addition I would have bookmarks, hyperlinks, and full text search.

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