CNET UK ~ Don’t Buy An eBook Reader: The Sorry State Of Digital Slates
Here’s the book-jacket synopsis: no ebook reader is worth buying yet. No ebook store is adequately equipped to fulfill your needs, and no one product has matured to the point at which we can unquestionably recommend it. These readers are slated to be the future foundation of book-distribution empires, so what’s the full story?
I happen to totally agree here.
As someone who buys and reads eBooks and understands the way things are right now. I will make do with my laptop and my iPhone and my desktop apps till a true eReading hardware solution is for sale that is “worth the expense”. Nothing now available in eInk readers is really worth the money and what I would recommend you buy such as the Apple iPhone or a Verizon Droid you should be buying for several other reasons not in particular eBook reading.
The market itself is holding it’s breath waiting for the Smart Tablets which will be the “real solutions” provided by strong established computer companies with real customer support structures and real industry knowledge like an Apple: Smart Pad or a Microsoft: Courier and this will be when we see the serious Techies and Reviewers start supporting what is now still mostly a joke of expensive floor display hobby kits and monochrome samey-samey eBook readers and laughable backwards thinking low level technology.
We need the heavy hitters to enter the market really before anything worth recommending is worth recommending plain and simple. I will not suggest buying overpriced stupid fad gadgets made by Sony or Amazon or that bankruptcy waiting for it’s court date Barnes & Noble. The hardware is laughable, the user interfaces clunky, and their prices are down right silly and none of it was ever meant to be supported for any length of time. These companies right now are just treading water waiting for the hurricane to hit and they know it and you should know it too.
Tags: eBook Commentary, eBook Readers
Lissa Matthews wrote,
I, too, happen to agree with this. No ‘eReader’ is worth the cost yet. I bought an iTouch more than a year ago because it could read PDFs with Readdle, but for several other reasons as well. I could do so much more with the iTouch than the Sony reader, or Kindle. I can check email, IM, Tweet, make shopping lists, download tons of free apps that I use all the time, including the Kindle app, recipe sites, Directv which I can use to program my DVRs, weather, maps, dictionaries, American History, etc… And I can read other formats on it by downloading Stanza. Between Readdle (which does have a price tag of $15) and the free Stanza, I don’t need a dedicated eReader that is only a glorified book cover which doesn’t look anything like the hot yummy book covers adorning the ebooks I read. There are too many gadgets I can’t justify the cost of when they are single-purposed like eReaders and considering ebooks are all I read anymore…
Just my two cents worth.
Link | November 9th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
AnneD wrote,
I know your vehemently against single use devices – and I don’t have a problem with that, I’m an iphone user myself cause it does all that stuff and things! – but it’s that its only a single use device is exactly why I like my Sony…and why I really need to download http://macfreedom.com/ so I can write instead of surfing the internetz all day.
While the tech whore side of me likes shiny new devices that do lots of cool things, the ‘just wants to read’ side of me enjoys not having the temptation to do all those other things. (I also like the no back light, but each to their own on that front).
But that said, I didn’t fork out the $299 (at the time I got my 505) as I was sneaky and used my credit card points and got it free …sort of *cough* checks interest rate and dies *cough*. I’d probably only be thinking now of getting a dedicated reader with the $199 pricepoint of the Sony Pocket otherwise, or making do with my TX, the computer, or just recently the iPhone.
Link | November 9th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
elfwreck wrote,
I read ebooks for two years on a PDA before (it died and) I got a dedicated ebook reader, a Sony PRS-505. I’m very happy with it–daily use and then some–but I agree that the tech just isn’t there yet for mainstream use. They’re only worth the cost if your reading habits fit nicely with the tech limitations involved–mine do, in part because I have years of experience with doc conversion and can convert one ebook type to another on a whim, including converting & re-formatting PDFs for the small screen. (I don’t want a larger screen. Fits-in-purse is an important part of what I like about an ebook reader.)
The tech limitations of the e-ink screen may prevent multifunction ebook readers from dominating the market; the combination of eyestrain and short battery life on LCD screens balances against the slower page turns and color limitations fairly well. E-ink is lousy for websurfing–but if your goal is 20+ hours/week reading in addition to internet time, that may not matter.
Since some readers are now as little as $200, they’ve caught mainstream attention. (And far too many people think Amazon invented the dedicated ebook reader, when they’re actually more than 10 years old. This is tech that’s been trying to sort out its options for a long time.)
Expect to see about three years of bizarre competition to provide the ebook reader with the most bells and whistles while *useful* tech development languishes. After that point, expect Apple to jump into the market with a device that combines several of the most useful options with a sleek exterior and a cool name and walk away with full market control, while all the predecessors are consigned to legacy-device status.
Link | November 9th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
Anne I am not against single use devices if they answer the whole question. If they met every need a eBook Reader has and did it all with ease and transparent pricing and services I would have something to recommend right?
I don’t!
That’s the whole point. To admit otherwise, to ignore the lack of support customers accept daily and even the lack of available and reasonably priced options out there would be a lie that we see repeated again and again by yet another company trying to scam the public into thinking that they have the final solution for only $300.00 or $400.00 or more.
When really they are locking people in to their particular DRM and their particular delivery channel for eBooks that in the end is really not a good deal.
BUT! You have to know that from experience and that experience is too costly in my opinion.
Link | November 9th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
the combination of eyestrain and short battery life on LCD screens balances against the slower page turns and color limitations fairly well.
I don’t think LCD technology has been given the chance due to lack of interest and lack of newer screens really.
OLED is the mind blower of pure display goodness with both color and clarity.
In other words the whole eye strain deal that eInk got people sold on is already being shown for the myth it is in the smart phone market and the media pads being produced now. It was not that brilliant a plan anyway and even battery life is a simple matter of new technology versus old.
eInk uses more old tech than the new products coming out in the Smart Phones which are already showing up as better eBook Reader options than eInk devices.
Link | November 9th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
AnneD wrote,
“they have the final solution for only $300.00 or $400.00 or more.
When really they are locking people in to their particular DRM and their particular delivery channel for eBooks that in the end is really not a good deal.”
I can’t disagree with you at all there. Thank goodness for indie epubs!
I have been lucky thus far – of hundreds and hundreds of ebooks I have, I’ve not had to work hard to convert them in any way (touch wood)…but I know all to well it’s not the case for others. So sometimes I feel a bit of a fraud, LOL! so far I’ve just downloaded and pressed go, so I’ve got no tragic story to tell. Might (actually, probably guaranteed) not be that way in the future though.
Link | November 9th, 2009 at 3:18 pm