All,

I'm looking to invest in an e-book reader and would appreciate hearing about your experiences with them, good and bad. I have no bias towards any brand or seller. I would like one that will read a variety of file formats including .pdf and has both wifi and (pardon if I don't use the right term here) celluar communications.

Interested in knowing how you handle the "anxiety" of carrying around an expensive bit of kit to read Lee Child novels. I just know my reaction would be different if, instead of my $1 paperback from the Senior Center Bookstore, I drop my $300 Kindle in the toilet.

Thanks, and Happy New Year to everyone!

Andy

I'd wait a little, there are several tablet devices going to be released this year in the same price range so you can do much more than just books.

I'm interested in this thread as well... In my research i'm favoring the Sony Daily Edition (PRS900BC) at this moment over all others.

I'm not interested in the wireless capabilities but everything else i've read about (including the negitives) seems to be ok for me.

If Amazon offer a Kindle model without the keyboard (software version is fine), have a slot for SD cards and open it up for more document formats; they would have a much better product. Well, a product that I would purchase.

That Sony model does have a few issues (boot up is slow at times, etc), but does offer a better package IMHO.

But thats my opinion at this time and i'm sure others will chime in with their experiences/research. I maybe persuaded to change my mind!

Would you know who is releasing the new tablets?

I did a lot of research on e-books for Christmas gifts. The Kindle, Sony and Barnes and Nobles Nook are the three big sellers right now, but the Nook has still not officially released active units, they come out next week. They have demos in most stores.

After much debate I purchased a Nook for my mom. Selfishly if she doesn't like it, it will come back to me. So maybe it was for both of us

I may get some of this mixed up and apologize for it, I am sure others can correct me. All are roughly the same size and shape. All use e-ink that mimics book paper. The Kindle I believe has a keyboard along the bottom while the Nook uses a touchscreen. The Nook also has the distinction of having a color screen along the bottom that lets you scroll books by their cover.

The Nook also supports the widest variety of digital book formats. The Kindle is primarily an Amazon.com only product. The Nook can hold 1,200 books on internal memory and 17,000 off SD card. The Nook also is open source software so you can expect all sorts of applications such as weather and MP3 capacity, alarms, etc. The Nook is also wifi, the Sony and Kindle must be plugged into your computer. Also when you take a Nook into a Barnes and Noble, their stores have free wifi which downloads coupons and deals you can use in the store for coffee, food, discounts on products.

To be honest the deciding factor for me to get the Nook over the others was the font size. My mom needs large print books for her eyes and the Nook by far has the largest variety of fonts to read.

I have considered how to protect the unit if it comes back to me. Nothing they have designed as of yet protects from water damage or dropping. I love to read in my hot tub and would want to protect it from splashes or water. I have some ideas that could work for any of the e-readers, something as simple as a double thick freezer ziplock bag to fitting a waterproof cover over it and seam sealing a thick clear plastic face to the front. The issue with a rigid clear box like Otterbox is that you need to be able to touch the unit to change pages.

Hope that helps.

I would also advise to wait a bit if you can. IIRC both HP and Toshiba are going to release some new tablets that will be very competitive and more versatile than what is out now.

Whatever you get, make sure you have a "no questions asked" return period. Use it hard during that period. Test EVERY function, do everything with it you think you might ever do.

If you're happy with it after that, you now know it inside and out. If not, you can return it and you know what you want in a replacement unit.


Water safety tip:

If you're in the habit of reading on the pot, set it on the FAR side of the sink or put it in a pocket until AFTER you are settled and all "hazards" are "sealed".

Return it to that safe place BEFORE you "unseal" anything.

You may want to get in the habit of keeping the toilet lid down when not in use to reduce that hazard overall. (Closing it before flushing will also reduce "toilet plume".)

There are a few android based ones coming out soon. Over on the android forums there are those of us that would like a non phone android device so we can have them for family members without data plans.

I just can't see buying hardware thats only an ebook reader since you can read ebooks on nearly everything, just seems way too limited to me.

I have two friends that are all hot to trot on these ebooks. They keep asking me for my opinions on the features and what I think of them (since I'm the resident electronics and computer geek).

Honestly, I want to ask - what is the appeal of an ebook reader? Maybe they do more than I imagine. After a long day in front of a computer screen (my work), I don't quite understand sitting down at night and reading from another computer screen for recreation. I already spend way too much time in front of a computer.

I am asking sincerely, what are the draws of these things that make them so popular?

For me its two fold, I like the e-ink screen as it's really easy on my eyes instead of the typical monitor, especailly for long periods of reading (so far i've used the Kindle for about a 4 hour stretch and it was quite different then a usual LCD screen). But the big advantage is the sheer volume of material that I can store thats separate from my usual electronic devices which is mainly my work pc's.

I am too in the computer industry and have a large number of reference material that I go through and use quite often; Making notes in the margins etc. I am finding that I need this stuff when I am out of the office which is where my mini library is. Its just easier to carry one device instead of a couple reference materials with me at any one given time.

I like the sony devices as I can hand write notes and highlight at will (from my understanding). Two things I do quite often with books.

As for novels, yeah I probably will have a few on there for general time killing, but thats not my primary use of the device.