People are praising e-book readers as a green alternative to books. I'm not so sure.

[liam_on_linux]

E-book readers are full of electronics. These require large expensive factories, which use a lot of resources. Then the devices are shipped, consuming resources - such hi-tech manufacture is expensive, therefore is done somewhere cheap, meaning international shipping. Books are cheap to print.

Then you need a computer with Internet access to get

Comments

[geoffcampbell]

As ever, your (claimed, potential) usage is extremely atypical, and so the device you want will never be made. Hell, I'm not sure there are mono LCDs of a size and resolution for a decent tablet still being made, and I can absolutely guarantee that the sort of sales such a tablet would achieve wouldn't justify even the cost analysis for the setting up of such a production line, let alone actually doing so.

The typical usage of a tablet is to watch video and surf the web, and as such a high resolution colour screen is absolutely central and key to their existence. There will no more ever be a mono tablet than there will be manufacturers starting to sell black and white televisions again, and for most of the same reasons.

For your eReader, have you discovered Calibre? Makes the management of ebooks vastly nicer and opens up a range of new sources as it does format conversion on the fly.

GJC

[ext_1701041]

I mostly agree with @geoffcampbell; there is an A4 size kindle, designed for reading larger format textbooks, papers and magazines. Been around for years, but still very much a niche product

[liam_on_linux]

Someone's made the same point about shipping on FB. I have to concede.

As for the Kindle DX, yes, that's the one model I fancy. Ideally tho' it'd have wifi as well as 3G -- and that doesn't exist, apparently.

I'm very surprised by your comments about both ebooks and physical ones, but I have to take your word.

[liam_on_linux]

Yeah, the mono LCD supply problem is the deal-killer, I think.

I'll have to take your point about tablet usage. I don't have one and don't want one -- I like notebooks, me; I'm just trying to hypothesize what _I'd_ like in such a device. Notion Ink's Adam looked promising but seemed to be vapourware.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_tablet

Apparently it did eventually ship but in badly compromised form, mainly due to the company's deeply stupid idea of a _radical_ custom front-end to Android.

Yes, I have Calibre. I use it occasionally for format conversion. As a tool for managing and transferring a library, I find it absolutely woeful, TBH. /Terrible/ UI.

[lostcarpark]

As you hunt in your article. The main thing against e-readers bring considered "green" is obsolescence, which is built into most devices, either by design or accident. I suspect your Sony e-reader won't have drivers fir current versions of Windows. You can get around this with the sd/me card, but that's too complicated for many users

[liam_on_linux]

I think there's a phone-derived word substitution in your first sentence? I can't guess it.

I take your point about DRMed ebooks, which is why I totally avoid them. I only use free ebooks as a matter of policy.

[liam_on_linux]

I guess so...