E-Readers

[Jaevric]

Wouldn't it be suboptimal for an art history book? All the texts I've ever seen were full of full-colour illustrations.

The newest Nook is full-color with a full touchscreen. I checked one out at Barnes & Noble and was impressed, but the reviews suggested the battery life is poor and that it's hard on your eyes after a while.

[Freefall]

The Nook color isn't a replacement for the old Nook. It doesn't have an e-ink screen, just a normal LCD. The e-ink is what allows people to read on these things for hours without fatigue, and it is also what allows them to have battery charges of weeks instead of hours (they only consume power when you actually turn a page, or in the case of the Nook, use the touchscreen).

The Nook Color is designed more for reading magazine articles or children's books (at least, that's what their marketing campaign would seem to indicate), which tend to include lots of full color pictures. I imagine it would also work well (a lot better than a regular Nook or Kindle anyway) for reading digital comics. But otherwise, it very much seems to basically be an android tablet. It is probably better likened to an oversized iTouch or an undersized iPad than it is to a dedicated e-reader. From what I can tell, they're trying to fit into the niche of people who are shying away from the iPad because it is too expensive and perhaps a bit too large to carry around comfortably, but who also feel most available smart phones are too small for reading on. I'm kind of wondering how large this niche is going to turn out to be.

If you're getting one of these mainly with the idea of reading ordinary novels and books, then the old Nook or Kindle 3 are still the way to go.

[MKSheppard]

Get a kindle 3 wi fi -- the price is absurdly cheap and you can load non-DRMed books on it. Just need to convert them to mobipocket format first.

[Stark]

The current Kindle is a pretty attractive combination of cheap, small, and light.

EDIT - Holy shit, Shep's right, they're ludicrously cheap now. Everyone who bought the old ones = ruled.

[Freefall]

Yeah, I finally buckled and got the Nook back when it was still $269, and about a month later they came out with the Nook wifi for $149. That was pretty irritating, especially since I have hardly ever used the 3G.

[Shortie]

Got the Kindle 3 and I love it more than I can say. Got the 3G version, which I can't really justify on cost vs actual use, but is kind of cool. Had some long flights recently, and it made them so much more pleasant. Upping the text-size is neat, and you don't need much light to read it easily. It's ridiculously small, mostly very easy to use, and the dull screensavers don't bother me too much.

Get a decent case, because dropping it is kind of scary (mine still works fine so far). I second the recommendation for using Calibre to organise documents, it makes up a little for the pretty terrible file organisation software on the Kindle.

If you're going to print to pdf then you do need to do them as A5 pages, or very large font - I did think about the DX, but it's still way too expensive. If it dropped to say $100 more than the basic it'd be worthwhile, even it it quite big to carry.

I don't miss a touchscreen, and colour isn't relevant for plain text books, which are 95% of what I read. The refresh is still a little slow for convenient browsing, but it works surprisingly well, and for normal reading you don't notice it.

It's still a bit expensive for me to take to the beach, but everywhere else it'd replace a real book for me, with no regrets.

[MKSheppard]

The Kindle 3's only shortcoming is PDFs, the screen is just too small and the speed of the processor is just too slow.

[MKSheppard]

The current Kindle is a pretty attractive combination of cheap, small, and light.

I actually got the lighted case, which is actually pretty well made, because I might need to read during a power outage, or in a car at night. Plus, the lighted case also doubles as a screen protector and makes it just feel a bit more....solid.

With the case-less K3; it just feels....horribly light and flimsy to me; particularly since the screen doesn't have any kind of protective cover.

Holy shit, Shep's right, they're ludicrously cheap now. Everyone who bought the old ones = ruled.

Well; a while ago there was an iSupply teardown of the Kindle 2 which estimated that it's total cost to Amazon in parts and some rough manufacturing estimates was $180-190. Amazon at the time was selling them from $356 then to $299 then $259.

The Kindle 3 seems to be when Amazon said "Okay, we've made back our initial investment in the supply lines and infrastructure we've set up for the Kindle Series; now lets sell them at break even price to corner the market so we can control ebook profits.

[Stark]

I'm not even going to touch the idea that someone selling a product for more than it costs to make (while still being competitive) is bad in some way.

Apparently the K3 handles low-end pdfs alright, but I bet the HoMM5 manual would destroy it. Just designed for PDF books and newspapers etc I guess.

[MKSheppard]

I'm not even going to touch the idea that someone selling a product for more than it costs to make (while still being competitive) is bad in some way.

Umm, what?

I pointed out that Amazon's most likely decided that they've made back enough of their initial investment in the Kindle to switch to a razor-blade model, where they sell the e-reader at near cost in order to lock in market dominance and thus corner a big slice of the very lucrative e-book distribution market.

[Stark]

Oh, I thought you were whinging about how it's cheap hardware but they charged heaps for it anyway. When I was poking around last night it seems that they've reduced the cost of books to a more reasonable level too, which makes it a lot more attrative.

[MKSheppard]

Oh, I thought you were whinging about how it's cheap hardware but they charged heaps for it anyway.

I also seem to recall that the Kindle was one of the first real big users of E-ink. Before the Kindle, E-ink was a pretty novelty. Amazon must have paid a lot up front to e-ink to help set up those production lines.

When I was poking around last night it seems that they've reduced the cost of books to a more reasonable level too, which makes it a lot more attrative.

It's still set largely by the publisher; and some regions have higher prices than others.

[Stark]

I dimly recall prices for new releases being only slightly cheaper than physical books, and the standard seems to be much lower now. I guess someone from Amazon gave a powerpoint presentation on the huge numbers of cost-free sales they produce.

[MKSheppard]

I've recently read a bunch of blog posts by Charles Stross on book publishing -- and it seems that for a publishable book, the overhead costs involved in converting a manuscript from an author to a publishable book are $7 to $20 grand. These may shrink a bit over the next couple years as more of the workflow is automated.

But a first run book in "new release" is still going to cost more. What's ridiculous is that in many cases a dead tree version costs *less*.

Where the real changes are gonna occur is in the back catalogs of publishers -- they'll be able to make money off of older books without the huge expense of having to order new print runs; particularly for niche SF publishers, and they'll keep the profits; instead of used book stores.

For example; someone could buy up the rights to Hans-Helmut Kirst's novels; the Gunner Asch ones; Night of the Generals, etc. They were published in the 1950s and 1960s; and in many cases the last published editions were in the early 1980s, so only used book stores are getting the money on sales of those.

[Alyeska]

Just got myself a Kindle 3 this week. Wifi model. For $139 it is absolutely awesome.

Ars Technica noted that Kindle owns the eBook market right now. That said, Apple has taken a big bite with the iPad and is steadily growing. Sony and Nook are distant contenders at 5% and 4%. Kindle has the largest book collection. And the funny thing is I bet most people reading eBooks on the iPad are actually using the Kindle app.

I just wish eBooks would grow faster. I got all my Clancy novels on the Kindle. Now I would love to start hunting down other collections. Turns out not a single one of my favorite Star Wars novels are in Kindle format. So I guess I will have to start hunting down other copies and convert them.

[Flagg]

The awesome thing about the iPad is the amazing Kindle app.

[Freefall]

I wouldn't think that the iPad is a direct competitor though. I mean, how many people are going to spend that much just to read digital books on the go? Most likely they got it for a number of other reasons, and just make use of it as an e-reader because they can. Kind of like how you can play video games on an iPhone, but people don't actually buy it just for the sake of gaming like a DS or PSP.

I'm actually surprised how well the iPad has done, given that it is basically an overpriced luxury item released in a recession. Apple has some fucking leprechauns working in their marketing department or something.

To address an earlier point: Sony had a couple of e-readers out before Kindle (probably a few other assorted companies did too), but the Kindle is definitely what put the things on the map. Considering how much business Amazon does, and that all of it's already online, it's not surprising they were able to so grossly overwhelm Sony in market penetration, and they had a couple years head start over the Nook (which was only released about a year ago, and apparently was terrible until they fixed a ton of problems with firmware) to build the brand, so it's not surprising they are still overwhelmingly in the lead.

I personally still feel most ebooks are a little much, but maybe I'm just cheap. Maybe if you compare them to hardbacks they're a good deal, but they don't seem that much less than paperback most of the time. I haven't actually purchased a single ebook yet, but fortunately the public domain should keep me occupied for years to come.

[Dahak]

I absolutely love my Kindle, it's perfect for me since I often have to travel in trains and I don't have to carry around all the books I would like to read
And e-Ink is the king. LCD, iPad or whatever device you use, is not nice for my eyes; e-Ink is...

[Alyeska]

The iPad has taken a serious bite out of the Kindle.

In Feb 2010 the Kindle had 68% of the eBook market. In August the Kindle was down to 62% and the iPad was already at 16%. By November the Kindle dropped to 47% market share with the iPad now at 32%. Of course thats not entirely accurate as the Kindle App is probably the single largest use of eBooks on the iPad, but it is a drop in sales on the Kindle hardware. Sony and Nook are a fart in the wind with 5% and 4% market shares.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/ ... antage.ars

The new low prices on the Kindle 3 are certainly going to help. I bought it solely for reading books and it is wonderful at that. The iPad is going to be more serious concern for the Kindle DX.

[Phantasee]

I don't know why anyone would include the iPad in the ereader market. Unless they're counting downloads of iBooks and the Kindle app, it's not really relevant, since Apple is going to sell a bajillion of the things no matter what. Even iBooks is iffy: doesn't it come preloaded on the iPad? I just downloaded it for my iPhone to read some iTunes U PDFs (PS don't do what I did, it's terrible), and I'm sure as hell not touching it again.

[Stark]

Theres crossover, because people with iPads are less likely to buy kindles. The iBook app sucks but there are ebook/PDF readers that don't around.

[Questor]

Theres crossover, because people with iPads are less likely to buy kindles. The iBook app sucks but there are ebook/PDF readers that don't around.

I use several different ones on my iPad, including the Nook and Kindle apps, as well as Bookshelf (not the best e-reader out there, but I got used to it.).

I really wish there weren't so many different distributers. I added apps as books I wanted were only available on that format.

The iBooks interface is at best OK, and at worst (PDFs) horrible.

[Stark]

I only use Stanza, but I don't buy books, just reading old out of copyright ones. If I bought books I'd probably use the Kindle app.

That said, my partner reads on her phone a lot and I'm considering buying her a K3.

[Questor]

I only use Stanza, but I don't buy books, just reading old out of copyright ones. If I bought books I'd probably use the Kindle app.

That said, my partner reads on her phone a lot and I'm considering buying her a K3.

I tried Stanza a while ago. I ended up using Bookshelf because it was recommended by Baen and has a link to their free library.

[Phantasee]

I'll look into Bookshelf. Stanza was the first one I tried and it was so great I couldn't find anything to replace it. Getting books from Baen is easy enough; the Stanza desktop app opens the LIT files just fine (I used the LIT files from their CDs).