Ebook or paper?

[psikeyhackr]

Jeez. 3 1/2 years since I posted to this thread.

I mostly do text-to-speech now or listen to audiobooks one way or another. Sitting and reading text, be it paper or electronic, seems so unproductive. Listening while driving or washing dishes makes the task much less boring and keeps dishes from piling up in the sink. I do like my shelf of old paperback books lining one side of the hallway but I mosly just dust them off now and then.

psik

 

[Vertigo]

I find it strange how many people are talking about how they love the smell of paper books. Whilst I agree it is nice, I don't read books just so I can smell them. In fact if I'm still noticing the smell two minutes after I've started the book then the book is clearly no good! So....

I spend up to 3 months at a time away from home; my ereader has all my unread books on it and it's easy to get more wherever I am without overloading for travel. Yes!

Eink readers are much easier on my eyes (I'd suggest those who complain about treading on screens being difficult on the eyes are probably using phones, tablets or laptops). Whenever I'm reading paper books I find myself screwing up my eyes reading what is often a very small font; on my reader, when my eyes are tired, I can bump up the font. Joy!! (Note I also work with computer monitors all day and the eInk experience is so similar to reading a paper book that it doesn't bother me in the least).

I'm still on the first ereader I bought (Sony) back in about 2007 and it's still going fine, I've only had to replace the battery (cheaply) a couple of times and it just keeps going on. If I now divide the price I paid for it by the number of books I've read on it I would guess it would be no more than pennies per book. Yes!

When I read a paper book I now get grumpy about having to hold it open all the time and even more grumpy about its weight, especially if it's a particularly heavy book. The joy of always holding a lightweight book no matter how big it is!

When a character who hasn't appeared for a while reappears and I've forgotten who they are or what they were up to a quick text search back finds their last appearance in seconds. Yes!!

When I'm starting a new book in a series and I'm a bit confused about what is happening it only takes seconds, wherever I happen to be, to reopen the last book and remind myself of the last chapter or two. Yes!!

There are only two downsides in my experience:

1. Maps or other illustrations are rubbish. I would expect this to be resolved in time.

2. Flicking between appendixes, glossaries, character lists and your current place is not very friendly.

3. I still find technical reference books better on paper but I also so wish I could do a text search on them.

On aggregate I much prefer ereaders and don't see myself ever switching back to paper.

 

[Overread]

Vertigo the funny thing is all 3 of your downsides are the same as mine; yet its been 10 years. Honestly I think the problem has to be that e-ink devices are stupidly expensive and thus sold as a lossleader; that or the developers of them don't want to put serious hardware or investment into them to improve performance for things like images and the like.

That and I think most image/table resolutions would require ebook publishers to change ebook formats so that the format itself detects that its an image and displays it appropriately - I think at present ereaders are a bit like windows word when it comes to images ; they are a feature but by heck does it get confused in dealing with them.

 

[Vertigo]

Vertigo the funny thing is all 3 of your downsides are the same as mine; yet its been 10 years. Honestly I think the problem has to be that e-ink devices are stupidly expensive and thus sold as a lossleader; that or the developers of them don't want to put serious hardware or investment into them to improve performance for things like images and the like.

That and I think most image/table resolutions would require ebook publishers to change ebook formats so that the format itself detects that its an image and displays it appropriately - I think at present ereaders are a bit like windows word when it comes to images ; they are a feature but by heck does it get confused in dealing with them.

You're right I'm sure. I think that, though development of eReaders began as a standalone business, the Kindle is definitely marketed as a loss leader and that's pushing out any competitors that aren't operating in the same way. Also more and more people are moving to reading on devices like phones and tablets, despite how much worse that reading experience can be. And that undoubtedly depresses innovative development of new ereaders. I suspect we'll not see any significant improvement until a technology comes along that gives the visual benefits of eInk with the flexibility (and colour) of monitor displays.

 

[Overread]

Colour e-ink alone would be a huge step forward; however for the speed of a regular monitor that might be harder; eink is essentially a static display so its refresh is very low. I think it might be possible to have fast refresh but it would likely come at a cost to battery performance and unit price.

 

[Cathbad]

Colour e-ink alone would be a huge step forward; however for the speed of a regular monitor that might be harder; eink is essentially a static display so its refresh is very low. I think it might be possible to have fast refresh but it would likely come at a cost to battery performance and unit price.

Oh, I so don't want colour!!

 

[Overread]

I'd love it - just think you could have colour print versions of books (Granted that kind of mostly just means Lord of the Rings) and if coupled to larger e-ink-readers you could easily have a nice comic format. Granted a tablet does well for comics, but colour e-ink would be the next step up.

 

[mosaix]

Last Christmas I bought Mrs Mosaix a Kobo e-reader. It's a great little device (she's only had to charge it 3 times in the last 11 months!). She really enjoys using it.

I'm a staunch supporter of paper but I do have sight problems. Two or three years back I tore the retina in my right eye and this has left some 'debris' in it. The specialist told me that my brain would 'tune this out' over time and she was right - with the exception of reading. It isn't so much the debris itself, it's just that with close-up vision (reading falls into that category) the right eye sees things slightly differently to the left (adjusted spectacle lenses make no difference) and there's a constant battle of adjustment and re-adjustment between the two eyes. One seems to think that the page is blurred slightly and the other one disagrees. This is very distracting when I'm trying to bury myself in a good story.

The great thing about the Kobo (and as has been said about e-readers in general) is that you can adjust the font size. With a large font the problem with my vision is much reduced so I'm hoping to get a Kobo myself this Christmas - even though circumstances have forced this on me.

BTW if any of you get red flashes in the eyes (a bit like lightening flashes), when your surroundings are dark, get medical advice - the earlier the better.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I'm hoping to get a Kobo myself this Christmas

Just a heads up that Amazon are currently doing a big discount on their Kindle eReaders and their Fire tablets. Just in case of interest.

And though I do like my Fire tablet, and also have the original Kindle, I'm very tempted to get the latest paperwhite - I expect to do a lot more eReading from now.

 

[Vince W]

Funnily enough I just read a quote from Neil Gaiman about what Douglas Adams told him about books:

'Books are sharks.

I must have looked baffled because he he looked very pleased with himself. And he carried on with his metaphor. Books are sharks … because sharks have been around for a very long time. There were sharks before there were dinosaurs, and the reason sharks are still in the ocean is that nothing is better at being a shark than a shark.

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books and no matter what happens books will survive.’

 

[Overread]

Brian - I've got a 3rd gen Kindle (the one with the keyboard) and I semi-recently upgraded to the paperwhite version and really love it. The touchscreen works better than I hoped and whilst I still like the paddles on the original, the touchscreen generally does what I want (most annoying is sometimes turning back a page by accident but its not so often to be a huge hindrance). The light makes a huge difference even in decent indoor lighting and it also makes reading in bed effortless (no more having to clamber out into the cold of the night to turn the light off; or spending time contorting your position to get the best light from a stand lamp).

 

[The Bluestocking]

It's now 3 years since I last commented on this thread.

I have completely changed my tune - I'm now a convert to e-books. Haven't read anything in paperback or hardback at the last 2 years.

It's stopped my house from overflowing with books, that's for sure.

 

[J Riff]

There's half a dumpster full of books up the block today, maybe 300 books? lotsa bestsellers but no room left here. My best find last year netted 200$, but that was a really rare one, you can't get one nickle from the stores anymore, not here. Obsolete cellphones show up a lot too, and they often have eBooks on them. Found a laptop, it had a thousand tunes on it, all rubbish. But free! So, yes, books will survive, temporarily at least - in our homes, and at the dump. * )

 

[Parson]

Funnily enough I just read a quote from Neil Gaiman about what Douglas Adams told him about books:

'Books are sharks.

I must have looked baffled because he he looked very pleased with himself. And he carried on with his metaphor. Books are sharks … because sharks have been around for a very long time. There were sharks before there were dinosaurs, and the reason sharks are still in the ocean is that nothing is better at being a shark than a shark.

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books and no matter what happens books will survive.’

Okay, true to a point. But.... the analogy breaks down. First, of all "nothing is better at being a shark than a shark." Yes, but what is really significant is whether there another predator which is better ocean going predator than a shark. I'm not a biologist of any sort but I don't think that question is necessarily answered by shark, and evolution might evolve a better answer.

I would say the same thing about paper books. They have been a wonderful answer to the need to have something portable to read and save, whether stories or simple information. And their simplicity and longevity indicate that their run is far from done. But there may be a better answer to the question evolving. Give us another few decades and we will then see if paper books are a large percent of what is saved and read or whether they are a niche market (think vinyl records).

Humorous aside: I've just bought my first paperback in a couple of years, and in the first 60 pages I found myself 7 or 8 times touching the right edge of the book to go to the next screen.... See, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but you can't expect them to easily go back to the way things were.

So, yes, books will survive, temporarily at least - in our homes, and at the dump.

We recently moved and yes I threw away at least as few hundred books.

 

[Vince W]

Okay, true to a point. But.... the analogy breaks down. First, of all "nothing is better at being a shark than a shark." Yes, but what is really significant is whether there another predator which is better ocean going predator than a shark. I'm not a biologist of any sort but I don't think that question is necessarily answered by shark, and evolution might evolve a better answer.

I would say the same thing about paper books. They have been a wonderful answer to the need to have something portable to read and save, whether stories or simple information. And their simplicity and longevity indicate that their run is far from done. But there may be a better answer to the question evolving. Give us another few decades and we will then see if paper books are a large percent of what is saved and read or whether they are a niche market (think vinyl records).

Humorous aside: I've just bought my first paperback in a couple of years, and in the first 60 pages I found myself 7 or 8 times touching the right edge of the book to go to the next screen.... See, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but you can't expect them to easily go back to the way things were.


We recently moved and yes I threw away at least as few hundred books.

I guess what you're saying is that sure books are sharks, but e-readers/books are orcas.

 

[Parson]

I guess what you're saying is that sure books are sharks, but e-readers/books are orcas.

I did indeed have Orcas in mind, but I thought perhaps the predator had to be a fish, which orcas decidedly are not.

 

[J Riff]

What's terrible is when you find expensive, big, mint coffeetable books that used to be 20 bux used without blinking. On subjects you are kind of interested in, say, Art Deco, or ancient Egypt. Dozens of quality plates, inserts - $39.95 cover price. You gonna leave that in the tip? Nah, I move it over to a nearby donation bin, or take it home. Then you read later, in the bathroom, about art deco and Egypt, with pictures that aren't online, and then you give it to someone, or just leave it on their porch, and it survives another day at least.

 

[Hugh]

I've had a kindle for around three or four years and have only ever downloaded a couple of minor reviews, though I do use it for checking receipt of any emails. I can see why people are keen on them, and I've been surprised by how little use I've made of it. However, I rarely travel significantly, and the books I buy don't really fit with kindle use. I either read old used (and usually) very cheap paperbacks or more expensive specialist stuff which I resell within a year or two on Amazon, and I can't resell an e-book.