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Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
#350167 06/14/11 02:29 PM
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Murph Offline OP
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After telling myself I wanted to wait for a technology that eventually would combine the versatility of a tablet with the eyeball friendliness of an e-reader, I bought a Kindle.

Why did I give in? Because I almost always do. However my reasoning was that I have to renew a bunch of certifications for work and one thing I hate is trying to sit comfortably to study from a 50 pound technical book so I thought I would try it out. So far, I am very happy.

I tried and could never study from yet another LCD screen after staring at one all day at work and e-paper is truly like looking at real paper. I do not feel fatigued at all when reading it for hours. It also works equally well sitting out on the deck on a sunny day. No more posturing an awkward hardcover to stay comfortable, holding pages down in a slight breeze, struggling to turn a single page instead of two stuck together. Also, I had the book I was thinking about buying for weeks in under 60 seconds without a 30 minute drive to my nearest book store.

I thought I would use it just for technical manuals but after trying it out for a novel, I'm hooked. I still hold some romantic reverence for a printed book but I have to admit, this is just plain easier.

Just curious if anyone else here has gone this route.


With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.
Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
Murph #350172 06/14/11 03:06 PM
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I haven't, but I have considered it for the reasons you mentioned, bud. My only concern is that the selection is quite limited. Is this the case?

Last edited by Powertothepeople; 06/14/11 03:06 PM.

The only reasonable argument for owning a gun is to protect yourself from the police.
Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
Ya_basta #350175 06/14/11 03:25 PM
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Depends on your tastes and what you are looking for but I think the selection is actually quiet good. Almost all new release are coming out in e-books now and a lot of older have been converted. Before I bought, I wrote a quick list of ten recently published books I thought I might like to read in various genres and I was able to purchase all 10 electronically.

Google and other groups have taken all of the "classics" that have become public domain and you can revisit all of those books for free or something close to it. When it arrives, I needed a test so I downloaded the entire library of Sherlock Holmes books for 89 cents.

Amazon has the most the most books available at over 250,000. B&N claims the largest library (over 700,000) but the trick is that they include the public domain (freebies) in their count. Amazon has over 810,000 if you include the public domain titles.

However, there is shareware that will convert the various e-book formats to another so not a big deal worrying about who has greater numbers.

I had some e-pub book that I downloaded during my tests to see if I could study from my laptop or Sharon's iPad but I couldn't hack long term "reading" on an LCD screen (despite working all day on one). e-Pub is about the only format the Kindle doesn't naively support but I used freeware called Calibre to convert them and they moved over perfect. I didn't feel bad about breaking any copy-writes in converting them as they were public domain books.

The text to speech features might be handy for you too. I might try it out to listen to a novel during my next long drive.

Speaking of which, I coincidentally had just finished another post asking you for some advice on speech to text.


With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.
Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
Murph #350176 06/14/11 03:34 PM
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I was going to get an e-reader, mostly for computer technical books when I thought the price per book was going to be in the $1 to $10 range, like I had heard. Then I discovered the books I wanted were $30 and up. I changed my mind.

Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
CatBrat #350184 06/14/11 04:05 PM
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The ebooks I needed from Cisco were $40 but if you bought them in a combo that included the 48.00 paper version it was only $65.00 for both. That is the route I went and a coworker is working from the paper versions until my e-book experiment concludes.

While I think it is definitely the way to go for novels, the jury is still out for technical manuals. So far, Im happy, but we will see once I get past the point where I start checking it for references and study vs a front to back read.


With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.
Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
Murph #350189 06/14/11 04:31 PM
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Are regular nonfiction books more expensive than an actual book? If so, what would be an approximate percentage increase?

Thanks


The only reasonable argument for owning a gun is to protect yourself from the police.
Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
Ya_basta #350190 06/14/11 04:50 PM
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Fiction books Average from anywhere from 2 to 8 dollars American.
Popular nonfiction can creep up to $10.00, maybe more.

Either way, the end result is still cheaper than a new paperback here in Canada

However, I got a great laugh when I went to the Kindle store and sorted the Non-fiction list from highest priced to lowest priced and found this.

Selected Nuclear Materials and Engineering Systems by Materials Science International Team MSIT (Kindle Edition - Feb 27, 2007) - Kindle eBook
Buy: $6,431.20


With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.
Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
Murph #350193 06/14/11 05:08 PM
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Mrs. Tuttle loves her Nook.


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Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
tomtuttle #350208 06/14/11 06:52 PM
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Snicker.

Mrs. Johnson loves her Sony. She downloads lots of books from the library in addition to the ones she buys.


::::::: No disrespect to Axiom, but my favorite woofer is my yellow lab :::::::
Re: Anyone else moved to an e-reader ?
MarkSJohnson #350235 06/14/11 11:03 PM
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I have both a kindle and a nook (it's a long story) and love them both. BUT, I also still love holding a book on my chest while reading myself to bed at night. So, I'm a winner no matter what media I'm reading.


Jack

"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue." - G. K. Chesterton
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