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I like e-readers now

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Re: I like e-readers now

#231

Post by MivLives »

noneeeed wrote: post #228
_moof wrote: post #192

I long preferred "real" books, despite having an e-reader for over ten years, but the e-reader has a killer feature: the backlight. Having a backlight means I can turn the light off on my nightstand, and read at night without keeping people up. (Yes, I know they make reading lights. No, I haven't tried one. They look like they're a pain.) I also realized after looking over my (physical) bookshelves that I don't actua…

I'm the same, I very rarely read a book twice. I think some of the Pratchett books are the only ones. Perhaps if I had a lot more time, or was a faster reader, I might, but for me there's always a new (for me) book that I would rather read. I can see why people keep lots of books, but for me a book on a shelf is just a wedge of paper, I'd rather give it away and let someone else read it.

For me most of the books I keep are one of two things: - Books I want to lend to people - Books with visuals/ other weird structural things that need to be books

A few examples of the second are House of Leaves, S., and Understanding Comics

Re: I like e-readers now

#232

Post by sandyarmstrong »

valarauko wrote: post #224
sandyarmstrong wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, yes. However, libraries typically have a very small number of "copies" of ebooks available to loan, which means there can be quite a queue. Add to this that there is literally no incentive for the person who checked it out to "return" it when finished, which means ebooks are always kept out for their maximum borrowing time. As a result, it can be months before a popular book is available to borrow. It's a ve…

> However, libraries typically have a very small number of "copies" of ebooks available to loan, which means there can be quite a queue. Add to this that there is literally no incentive for the person who checked it out to "return" it when finished, which means ebooks are always kept out for their maximum borrowing time. As a result, it can be months before a popular book is available to borrow. My public library net…

Good, I'm glad your network is trying to fix this.

The other thing I do is return whenever, and just put my Kindle in airplane mode and read the book at my leisure. Sure, I can't add any content for a bit, but they can't remove anything either.

Re: I like e-readers now

#233

Post by vincent-manis »

_moof wrote: post #225
orionstein wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All e-readers can read DRM-less books. It's trivial to convert from a DRM free epub on calibre to a mobi or azw3 to use on a kindle, even. I've never felt too restricted unless I buy books directly from Amazon, because their DRM is far more strict.

I guess my point about DRM is more that the books I want to read are generally only available in DRMed formats. But maybe that's not true? I don't use an Amazon e-reader, for what it's worth.

There's a calibre plugin that removes DRM from most epubs and some Kindle books. It's a pain to set up, because you need old versions of Adobe Digital Editions and/or Kindle, and those run on Windows (I haven't tried them on Wine). But once it's set up, it works fine.

Re: I like e-readers now

#234

Post by dmart »

I've found that e-readers are perfect for novels or nonfiction books meant to be read linearly from beginning to end. I don't buy paperbacks anymore because the experience is superior (lighter weight, backlight, word definitions).

But I do still buy physical copies of technical textbooks or reference-style works. Ebook formatting is still just not good enough in my experience for things like code blocks and math formulas. Also, for those types of books, the ability to quickly scan through the pages to find something is important, and e-readers still do a very poor job at this.

Re: I like e-readers now

#235

Post by selykg »

visarga wrote: post #118

I like e-writers even more, I have a Remarkable 2. It's a great writing tool.

Their return policy is insanity. While I was okay with the device itself, the lack of search-ability in the notes (GoodNotes on iPad can do it just fine) was a deal breaker for me.

The return process is just stupid. I had about a dozen different issues with the return process and their support is simply awful.

I would not suggest getting one unless you plan to keep it, or write it off as a $600 mistake and keep it anyway.

Re: I like e-readers now

#236

Post by dmart »

andrewingram wrote: post #153

One thing I noted after using a Kindle for the first time (about 10 years ago) is that I was reading without a constant physical sense of how far I was through the book, to the point that the ending almost caught me off-guard. It was certainly an interesting experience, I'm still undecided as to whether it's a pro or a con.

Kindles have an option to turn on a time estimate for progress through a book which sort of simulates this, but I don't really like it (the constant changing/recalculation is anxiety-inducing).

Really wish they had an option for a small low-resolution visual indication of progress, like most devices do for their battery indicators.

Re: I like e-readers now

#237

Post by berkut »

I've almost exclusively switched over to a Kindle now as well (occasionally get physical books that aren't available electronically), and the one experience/workflow I haven't been able to re-create with the Kindle is very easily going back a few pages (or maybe more) for things like timelines in novels (i.e. with historical dates per chapter or something) to re-gain context.

With a physical book, you just stick a finger between the pages of where you are, and start going back pages until you find what you're looking for, then switch back. With the Kindle, the best I've found is using bookmarks, which works to a degree, but isn't as easy...

Re: I like e-readers now

#238

Post by valarauko »

fullstop wrote: post #89
dominotw wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Gene I read this book but i had to take huge amounts of notes/scribbles on the pages to keep track of various acronyms. I go back and lookup stuff that i forgot about. I thin an ereader is less amenable to going back forth and refer things. I feel like ereaders are designed more for linear reading .

Look into Kindle X-Ray [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Ray_(Amazon_Kindle)

X-Ray is great, if your title supports it. I did find it to be a bit of a spoiler, since it shows you all the occurrences of a character in the book - including in the future (?) - at least this is how I recall it.

Re: I like e-readers now

#239

Post by MikeTheGreat »

_moof wrote: post #225
orionstein wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All e-readers can read DRM-less books. It's trivial to convert from a DRM free epub on calibre to a mobi or azw3 to use on a kindle, even. I've never felt too restricted unless I buy books directly from Amazon, because their DRM is far more strict.

I guess my point about DRM is more that the books I want to read are generally only available in DRMed formats. But maybe that's not true? I don't use an Amazon e-reader, for what it's worth.

If you live in the US then you might check your local, public library. They've often got volumes of e-books (pun intended :) ), and you can borrow them for a while. Still DRM'd but an easy and free way to access books

Re: I like e-readers now

#240

Post by georgewsinger »

0des wrote: post #168
arsome wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference is they use e-paper displays which reflect light rather than emit it. Less eye strain due to less difference in amplitude to ambient light.

At least in the case of the new ereader amazon just released, some of them include LED backlighting.

So in some sense do eReaders with backlights defeat the whole purpose (i.e. increase eye strain back to normal display levels)?
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