Ebooks

DU.LLAHAN

Has any one got an digital ebook reader? i was thinking off gettin one and want to know how much the books cost to download? what is the best reader out there? Is it worth it? i read couple books every month and i think it would be worth it but i am interested in people experiences are the new titles readly available? Are the available to download as soon as they are in the shops?

Hope someone can help thanks

c - 13

Has any one got an digital ebook reader?

Sony PRS-505

i was thinking off gettin one and want to know how much the books cost to download?

For newer stuff around the same price as in a bricks and mortar store but some older releases can be obtained cheaper. A lot of Classics are available free of charge. However like most digital media filesharing is rampant.

what is the best reader out there?

Unsure, but on a recent flight the lady next to me had a kindle and we compared devices, while the Kindle had nice features the resolution on the Sony was clearer and IMHO has a tidier layout.

Is it worth it?

Personally yes, I love my reader. That said i'm one of the people that avails of the filesharing previously mentioned so tend to not pay for too many of my books.

i read couple books every month and i think it would be worth it but i am interested in people experiences are the new titles readly available? Are the available to download as soon as they are in the shops?

At the moment, no. The ebook releases are slow and far between, this will begin to change soon (hopefully) amazon are probably still the leaders with the new releases.

DU.LLAHAN

Thanks for that i have a ton of books that i want to get

Eoin

I have a Sony PRS-505 as well. I love it, but find some little quirks with the formats annoying.

Some books I buy from somewhere like www.booksonboard.com have strange formatting when you change the font size to make it more legible, lots of blank pages appear and paragraph formatting seems a little off.

Also, some PDFs take an absolute age to open - it can be a minute or two between page turns - I reckon they need to be converted to ePub format which I can do, but then the formatting can go funny again.

I don't "avail of file sharing", and buy my books wherever possible. That said, I completely disagree with charging even close to the price of the physical version, and I think they will need to re-think this strategy.

The site I linked to above can be quite cheap but a pain to navigate, and I am looking at a few other sites as well.

As for the actual device itself - it's great. Really clear screen and nice to hold and use in general. I don't get anywhere near the advertised battery life, but it's still pretty good. I have no need at all for annotations and all that stuff - I just want to be able to keep and grow my book collection without taking up loads of space.

I was a bit sceptical at first, but converted now.

Eoin

Update - I just bought some books from www.diesel-ebooks.com, and it looks like a pretty good site. It's easier to navigate than booksonboard.com, and the prices are the same for US and European customers. However some titles are removed for non-US customers when you get to the checkout.

This coupon will get you 15% off an order, but it can only be used once per customer: coupsite57323.

DirectEbooks

For the original poster:

eBooks are generally equal to or slightly cheaper than their physical counterparts. Theoretically they should be a lot cheaper, but publishers set the prices and are afraid of undercutting their physical sales.
I think this is the wrong way to look at it. Yhose people interested in buying the eBook generally wont be interested in going to a store and buying the actual book, so the publishers are actually missing out on increasing their sales!
We always recommend to our publishers that they sell their eBooks at least 20% cheaper to give them a chance of decent sales.
Another drawback is that in Ireland & the uK, eBooks attract vat at 21.5% whereas books dont! Crazy, but thats the way it is!

tHE vAGGABOND

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I have been thinking about this subject today. Im reading the Dune Trilogy, which is a monster in terms of size and weight. I was thinking life would be easier if was just on an nice little ebook reader.

I have done a search and read old threads here. Anyone got any updated experiences in the last 6 months since the subject came up here?

Most people seem to either have Kindle's or Sony readers from what I can see? Availability of books seems mixed, due to the competing file formats [amazon's versus the open source epub].

Anyone read books on an iphone or ipod touch [even with the small screen?].

landsleaving

ipod touch with stanza is perdectly fine size wise for me, but it's a pain getting books on to it. Buy them through the ipod, don't try to put them from computer to pod if you buy one. I spent about 4 hours in front of my girlfriends laptop on Christmas day doing it!