What e-readers do people recommend?
Guided somewhat by A Guide To Ebooks in Australia, I think I'm going to go find myself an Ebook reader. I've been tempted before, but now I'm about to start buying ebooks and the reader in Calibre is, well, pants.
The e-ink based readers are nifty, it must be said. I have a colleague who has a Kindle and it's quite nice. But the biggest problem with the Kindle is that it's run by Amazon. For all their other qualities, Amazon have taken a leaf out of Apple's playbook are trying to Rule The World Of Books which is why the Kindle doesn't support ePub, and why they have the ability to remotely delete books. Even if they've promised to Not Use It Unless Absolutely Necessary. We mean it this time. Really.
Which segues nicely to the iPad from Apple. I've been known to say that the best thing about all the iDevices is that they're made by Apple. Unfortunately (I subsequently say), the worst thing about all the iDevices is that they're made by Apple. This isn't the place to generally rant about Apple. But the iPad is rather overkill for just reading books, I believe. Plus it's too expensive.
The Sony Ereader is rather cheaper. That takes us back to e-ink land. :-/ My mother has one of the smaller ones. And whilst it's good, the thing that caught my attention with both this and the Kindle is that the e-ink refresh takes an appreciable amount of time. I'm not a slow reader and I don't like the idea of the technology being a speed-bump in my reading.
Partway in the middle is the Nook, particularly the colour one. This avoids the refresh problems of e-ink and also the general-entertainment puposes of the iPad. (I also like the fact it supports Ogg Vorbis music files, as that's what all my music is in.) But availability for Australia looks like it means buying it from the US. Kinda hard to try it out first (that's how I know about the e-ink refresh lag). And the price might be a bit higher than I really wanted to spend.
So. What do people use? What do people recommend?
The e-ink based readers are nifty, it must be said. I have a colleague who has a Kindle and it's quite nice. But the biggest problem with the Kindle is that it's run by Amazon. For all their other qualities, Amazon have taken a leaf out of Apple's playbook are trying to Rule The World Of Books which is why the Kindle doesn't support ePub, and why they have the ability to remotely delete books. Even if they've promised to Not Use It Unless Absolutely Necessary. We mean it this time. Really.
Which segues nicely to the iPad from Apple. I've been known to say that the best thing about all the iDevices is that they're made by Apple. Unfortunately (I subsequently say), the worst thing about all the iDevices is that they're made by Apple. This isn't the place to generally rant about Apple. But the iPad is rather overkill for just reading books, I believe. Plus it's too expensive.
The Sony Ereader is rather cheaper. That takes us back to e-ink land. :-/ My mother has one of the smaller ones. And whilst it's good, the thing that caught my attention with both this and the Kindle is that the e-ink refresh takes an appreciable amount of time. I'm not a slow reader and I don't like the idea of the technology being a speed-bump in my reading.
Partway in the middle is the Nook, particularly the colour one. This avoids the refresh problems of e-ink and also the general-entertainment puposes of the iPad. (I also like the fact it supports Ogg Vorbis music files, as that's what all my music is in.) But availability for Australia looks like it means buying it from the US. Kinda hard to try it out first (that's how I know about the e-ink refresh lag). And the price might be a bit higher than I really wanted to spend.
So. What do people use? What do people recommend?