E-bookery

[kate_nepveu]

Because I just know you were all waiting breathlessly for my verdict on Amazon's Kindle e-book reader:

If I had stupid money, I'd get a Cybook instead. [*]

Since I don't have stupid money, I'll stick with my Palm TX, which functions just fine as an e-book reader except in bright sunlight, which is not that often an issue (though if a Cybook showed up my doorstep for free, I wouldn't send it back). Speaking of which, from now until Monday Palm is selling the TX for $200 with a wireless keyboard thrown in, which is so cheap that I'm tempted to buy a spare against the likely day that Palm stops making standalone PDAs.

I love my TX and would absolutely recommend it to anyone who's looking for an organizer, e-book reader, game player, etc., but who doesn't need a smartphone. On the other hand, when this TX eventually dies, I may have other options: Nokia is releasing a Palm OS emulator, and the Nokia N810 looks very cool: bigger screen! Built-in keyboard! GPS! Anyone got one of these, or played with one?

(Because, you know, what I really need is to be gathering information on a tech toy that I neither need nor should have . . . )

[*] References:

• Look At Me, I’m on the Cutting Edge
• 15 Things I Just Learned About the Amazon Kindle - Boing Boing Gadgets
• Amazon Kindle Hands-On and Questions Answered (Gallery)
• The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts) [dive into mark] — Critique of Amazon's Kindle, in the words of Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos and George Orwell, among others.
• Comparing Amazon Kindle to E-Book Readers of Yesterday and Tomorrow

Comments

[montoya.livejournal.com]

Have you played with Chad's Thinkpad as a reading device? It's really for around the home or on vacation (but not commuting or little excursions), what with being bigger and heavier -- but it's only a little bit bigger and heavier than (say) a Neal Stephenson hardcover, so still totally usable.

Download a book in PDF, swivel the Thinkpad into tablet configuration, load it up in Acrobat Reader in full screen view, and voila. Highly usable, and with a hard button mapped to Alt-Tab, you can switch over to Bloglines and keep up on your webbing, too.

[kate_nepveu]

No. In just picking up the tablet, it's a lot heavier than I expected, and the TX is _five ounces_.

Also, I hate reading in PDF. If I'm going to read on a computer, I do it in HTML so I can change the text size and visible width at whim.

[orzelc.livejournal.com]

My guess is that it would be on the heavy side for Kate. I've been doing my evening blorgreading on the couch with it the last couple of days, and it does get a bit heavy after a while.

Also, when I first picked it up, my reaction was "Wow, that's really nice and light." Kate came home a while later, picked it up, and said "Gosh, this is heavy."

[kate_nepveu]

It looks like it ought to be lighter than it is. I think it's really dense for its size.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

See, and I wouldn't think of weight as that big of an issue, since when I'm reading, I usually arrange pillows such that the book (or the tablet in this case) is resting on and supported by things that are not me. One of the reasons I hate paperbacks is that you almost have to hold them up yourself the whole time you read them.

(And it seems light to me, probably because my work laptop is one of those 7-pound 15.4" screen behemoths...)

[orzelc.livejournal.com]

See, and I wouldn't think of weight as that big of an issue, since when I'm reading, I usually arrange pillows such that the book (or the tablet in this case) is resting on and supported by things that are not me.

There's a limit to the number of pillows I'm willing to stack on my lap to hold up my reading material. Holding it up myself is less uncomfortable than sweating under two additional feet of padding.

[kate_nepveu]

I carry my TX with me everywhere. When we were waiting for the Springsteen concert to start? Reading a book. Waiting for the car to be serviced? Reading a book. Etc. I need an e-book reader to be that portable and that light.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

Right, and that's where the tablet doesn't work, and something small and light like a phone or whatever is better.

But for around the house, or in a hotel room, or on an airplane, or whatever, the big high-res screen strikes me as a big advantage. Which is why I think the idea of a book-reading device is crazy, and the whole point is to have MULTIPLE devices, each of which is optimized for particular conditions.

[kate_nepveu]

Generally speaking, I agree--after all, the TX does lots of different things for me. But the Cybook is portable enough that if it were, say, half the price, I'd be really tempted.