1. Unlike paper-based books, eBooks can be easily updated. A eBook can even have a link to a website which contains the latest downloadable version of the book.

2.If you need security, eBooks can be compiled so as to disable printing, can be password protected and can prevent individual files from being copied (although no-one has found a way of preventing anything from being re-typed!)

Cheers,
viewsonic v150p

Currently, I read them on my laptop because none of the readers I’ve looked at support PDF. I find the Kindle very appealing with it’s large screen and battery life – and if the next generation model supports PDF, I’ll buy one. Until then, I’ll continue to carry my e-books around on a jump drive.

Joe turned the light on. Suddenly, I envisioned all sorts of ways to use the Kindle beyond just buying e-books from Amazon.

Last week, I bought one. And I love it. I could never stand to read from a computer monitor (either my laptop’s or the excellent, large one on my desktop PC) for very long. I can read on the Kindle for hours with no eye strain. The only slight irritation is the flash during page changes, but I quickly stopped even noticing it.

But I actually buy very few books for the Kindle from Amazon. I do read PDF, TXT, DOC, and several other formats on it all the time. How?

You see, the Kindle will easily support TXT format. So, a lot of the material I used to copy-and-paste off Web sites to print out and read later I now just save as TXT and put on the Kindle using the USB port.

The Kindle will also easily read Mobi’s PRC format (without DRM), so I use the free Mobipocket Creator software to convert PDF files to PRC. Takes a minute or two. Then I put that on the Kindle, too.

At Slipdown Mountain Publications, we publish most of our print books as both Kindle editions (on Amazon’s site) and PDFs. We will soon also be offering the PRC format (for Kindle and Mobipocket users) and EPUB format (for Sony Reader users).

Until you’ve spent some time with the Kindle, you just can’t appreciate how much different it is from a backlit computer monitor. Of course, it’s not perfect…but it is a big advance over standard monitors.

Color would be nice. And a faster refresh. It doesn’t “feel” like a book, but it fits nicely in hand. I can switch between books/files easily without ever losing my place in any of them. And I’m saving a lot of paper and toner now.

Count me as a Kindle Konvert. (I’d probably like the Sony device, too, but haven’t tried one and there are more Kindlized books at this time.)

perfecting the hardware side will not solve the impediments to ebook reading for many individuals.

I’m sure that’s true for some readers, and I expected to be one of them. But in reality I’ve been surprised how important the hardware is to my use of ebooks. For me the iPhone screen is too small to read fiction, and I don’t want a backlit reading device. But I’m not sure I agree with this:

E Ink technology, but it's very nature is crippled as a multi function device. It cannot be backlit because of the way in which the technology works.

You may be right, but using the Sony Reader started me dreaming of future multi-function gadgets with eInk (or its next generation, really). So maybe it’s possible for eInk to develop in that direction without backlighting.

I love reading books on my iPhone, and I find the e-reader app works really well. LOVE the ease of purchasing books and then later adding them to my bookshelf with one click. On the minus side, for non-fictionwise/ereader books, the app Bookshelf works less well (I keep having issues with it quitting in the middle of books) and converting books is a pain. Some books I wanted were only available in MS Lit format and it was almost too much bother to convert them. Also, I find the iPhone a tad too small for comfortable reading.

I like my ebookwise as well. However, it’s somewhat heavy, and loading files can be a pain if they aren’t in ebookwise format. I hate looking for things on ebookwise or fictionwise and not finding them in the ebookwise native format or an easily convertable one. Basically, getting material on the device is not fun.

So far my Kindle is the best for actually reading books. It’s the perfect size, lightweight, and I lovelovelove the “sample” feature so I can check out books before buying. I don’t really mind the lack of other features. I haven’t tried reading other formats on it so I’m not sure how that would go. (I just use my iPhone or ebookwise.)

I’d like to only have one device, but I can’t imagine it handling everything equally well.

I’m a born romantic who reads omni-voraciously, but I’m not sentimental about old fashioned, musty, dusty books. Has anyone else noticed that books are freaking heavy? I hate lugging around my whole library every time I move. Even tossing just my Jane Austen anthology in my already overstuffed suitcase increases my odds of hernia when I travel. The advent of paperbacks made physical books more or less disposable anyway, yet still curiously expensive.

Besides, can you imagine if people stuck doggedly to their chiseled stone tablets or handwritten scrolls after Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press? I’d love having my whole library, plus access to favorite blogs, newspapers, and magazines all on one, convenient, space-saving, lightweight device. But, sigh, before I give away my freaking heavy stacks of musty books and replace them all with e-versions, I’m holding out for that perfect e-reader to come out, complete with that chocolate feature, please.

And I particularly like not adding to my paper book collection. One move across country cured me…three in two years kept me in remission. And I have a green activist living in my house.

So I started my search for the perfect reading device for me, unfortunately there isn’t one.

Dedicated ereaders were out because no blacklit and yeah I did want a device that would do other things.

I looked at the UMPC but bad battery life and no instant on was a killer. Looked at mini pcs like the eee but bad battery life again and no instant on and also I don’t know why they can’t make those cheap ones with a swivel screen to fold over the keyboard to convert it to a tablet.

Other pda/smartphones, most only go up to 4 inch screen, I wanted 5 inch at least. That’s when I looked at the HTC Advantage that has a 5 inch screen and runs windows mobile.

This was as near to my perfect device as I could get, it is a bit heavier and thicker than I would prefer but that is my only real complaint. Battery life is great, windows mobile 6 works really well with mobipocket, the joystick at the front is great for page turning on it, comes with a detachable keyboard (which I don’t really use), also got benefits of being able to surf the internet, play videos, built in gps and camera. More expensive than I wanted too, but oh well…..

And as much as I love Microsoft Reader, its biggest irritation is that shutting off the device in the middle of the book is just asking for the dreaded “… cannot access…” messsage (which means finding and deleting the litpath.lpt file). When I’m in a hurry, I HATE fumbling with my PDA just to get back to my library first before I can shut it off. So the ability to just shut off an ereader and have my page just sitting there waiting for me when I turn it back on is an absolute must. As is the ability to insert text notes, bookmarks, to automatically remember where I left off, my furthest read, etc. and a progress bar showing where I am in the book.

I would want a screen about the same size as a paperback. Even my tired old eyes would be happy with that and I wouldn’t care if it was backlit or e-ink. But it would have to have some kind of light (with adjustable brightness) either behind it or over it. And in addition to adjustable font size, I think it would also be nice to be able to select the actual font- some are just easier to read than others. I want the device to be thin with page buttons in more than one place so I can switch hand positions. And I’d want the option of attaching a keboard or just using a screen keyboard.

I would also like it as lightweight as possible. My purse already weighs enough, thank you very much. Under a pound would be great, but I guess I could tolerate under two pounds. Oh, and forget screwing around with a protective case. I want a cover that opens like a book cover and can be folded back out of the way. That way I don’t have to screw around with putting it back into the case. Wouldn’t it be way cool if the whole thing just rolled up like a scroll? That’s what they did at the Olympics, right?

Let’s see, I would like a USB port so I can back up to a flash drive. And I absolutely, positively do not want to have a wired connection to my PC. Every single problem I have EVER had with PDAs has been when they refuse to talk to my desktop for who knows what weird reasons (I had to trash my old Axim after I upgraded to IE7). So I guess I’m saying I want wireless and direct download as an option. And it has to be updateable– no fair making it obsolete. Make provisions for software updates.

Hmmm… it would be nice to have Office on it. Excel in particular would be useful for carrying around a spreadsheet of what I have in my library. Maybe a game or two– I never get tired of Solitaire and Jawbreaker. But I guess I could skip all that if it kept the price down.

And finally (or at least until I think of more must-haves), I would like all that at a reasonable price. $200-$300 would be perfect, but I’d probably pay up to $500-$600.

keep it simple and cheap and you’ll get my business. Make it impossible to use except through a variety of wild programs I have to download and transfer files and convert files and I’ll pass you by on the way to the paperbacks at my local bookstore.

I think the two main things I would want would be long battery life and solid state technology.

In the meantime, my Palm holds the books I read, all my phone numbers, shopping lists, calendar, reminders etc. I’m not interested in packing round more devices if I can have it all on one.

Further, just last week, Fictionwise made eReader.com mobile friendly, meaning if you load up those two sites on your iPhone/iTouch or other handheld mobile device, you'll get a much faster loading and slimmed down view of the stores.

I really like my eBookWise, but I do wish I could have a calendar and make lists and have a phone book without having to jump through a bunch of hoops.

That said, someone on the MobileRead forum figured out how to hack the eBookWise so you could surf the net with it, which I thought was pretty exciting.

My ideal would be eBookWise with an open format and a calendar, notepad, address book, and/or a functionality like KeyNote

I love the wireless aspect. I’ve been stuck bookless on the tarmac at La Guardia, and I bought a couple of books, which came in handy for the flight (five hours delayed).

I’m torn about a color LCD screen, because I hate charging things, and I love the looooooooonnnnnnng battery life on the Kindle. I would prefer the long lag between charges over the color LCD screen because that takes priority.

After having read newspapers and magazines online, I don’t think they can match reading the paper copy, because I love my graphics there. I don’t like touchscreen, although I haven’t used the Apple touchscreen’s, but every other touch screen gets misaligned too easily. I wish the commenting ability was better on the Kindle, which would make it easy to read and edit manuscripts on the device, but I’ve already noticed that I find editing errors on my Kindle as easily as I do on paper — things that get overlooked on the computer screen, I’m not sure why.

Honestly, I think the Kindle got it right. It’s a device for real, hard-core, ‘I’ve read the cereal box’ read-a-holics, of which I am one.

As you know, I did buy a Sony reader and love reading on it. It is far from the perfect device but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about with the E-Ink technology. I agree that with the technology that’s available now, I don’t think what we want to have is actually even possible.