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Why I’m not recommending an eBook reader this Christmas

by Brad Grier on November 30, 2009

in In the life,Lifestyle Technology,Marketing,Opinion

This hol­i­day sea­son it seems that the eBook reader is the must-have tech gift.

I can under­stand why:

  • Port­able — it’s easier to carry one eReader loaded with a few hun­dred (or thou­sand!) books
  • Search­able — some of the eRead­ers can  scan and search for text pas­sages, let­ting you book­mark them for future reference
  • Annota­tions — in addi­tion to book­mark­ing your pages, some eRead­ers let you make notes ‘in the mar­gin’ so to speak. These can be saved out, expor­ted to other docs for use

But even though eRead­ers are the rage — you may want to wait another few months before you invest;

  • Tech­no­logy is improv­ing — the nifty eInk pro­cess used to dis­play highly read­able text on an LCD-like screen is improv­ing. The refresh rate and pixel res­ol­u­tion is improv­ing, so the annoy­ing (to me, at least) flicker when you flip pages will be reduced when eBooks adopt newer eInk tech.
  • More options — Barnes & Nobel has integ­rated a col­our touch screen in their Nook eReader — in addi­tion to the eInk text display.
  • More choice — Apple’s much pre­dicted (yet never announced) Tab­let device could arrive in the first half of next year. If so, this’ll be the ‘must-have’ eReader. Not only an eBook reader, the device will likely have all the func­tions of a cur­rent gen­er­a­tion iPod Touch. If you think of it as a port­able com­puter then you’ve got it. Though, many don’t like the back­lit dis­play of the iPhone and iPod touch for read­ing — too bright and hard on the eyes for long-term use — I’ve not noticed a prob­lem in long session’s I’ve had.
  • Cur­rent eRead­ers are not dis­coun­tedIn this Com­puter­World art­icle, it seems that eBook read­ers have the highest markup of all tech­no­logy avail­able this hol­i­day sea­son:
    E-book read­ers aren’t really get­ting swept up in the cost cut­ting. While some stores are actu­ally pay­ing you to take free Black­Berry phones, for example, e-book read­ers still cost hun­dreds of dollars.
  • Pro­pri­et­ary eBook stores — I’m not sure how this will shake down. Google, Sony, Amazon all have (or will soon have) online eBook shops, and there’s a host of inde­pend­ent ones too. The selec­tion of books avail­able at (or lim­ited to) cer­tain eBook stores may decide which unit you get…but it shouldn’t. I’d look for some­thing that sup­ports the widely accep­ted  ePub standard.

My recom­mend­a­tion — if you don’t already have one, wait a bit. You’ll get new fea­tures, per­haps a bet­ter price, per­haps a bet­ter unit, and more selec­tion to choose from.

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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Ellis November 30, 2009 at 10:29 am

I agree completely. My biggest show-stopper hasn’t been the technology, but as you also concluded, the lack of an open-standard. I don’t want to be stuck with DRM protected books from a single source. Oddly, I have less of a problem with this model on music (such as iTunes) because quite frankly, the only device I would ever want to play the tunes on is an iPod/iPhone. But, a book? There is no dominant device. I don’t want to be stuck with text on “yesterday’s architecture”. When a new, better device comes out I want to be able to migrate my books.

With the current limitation I will simply hold out until an open standard (ePub?) emerges, or until that dominant device becomes apparent.

2 Brad Grier November 30, 2009 at 10:53 am

Thanks Ellis,
I didn’t really think about document portability, but yeah, if you’ve invested in a novel, you shouldn’t be locked into reading it on one device type. I have this issue currently with some docs on my Palm TX. I’ve had to kludge an HTML export and manual import process to get them moved to my iPod Touch.

An open standard like ePub should eliminate this hassle if it’s adopted by all eBook makers.

3 ebookcraft (Dirk Cajada) November 30, 2009 at 11:33 am

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RT @bgrier: Blog Post: Why I’m not recommending an eBook reader this Christmas – [link to post]

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4 Katharine_A (Katharine Anderson-D) November 30, 2009 at 12:42 pm

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I tried to see a #nook demo this am. RT @bgrier: Blog Post: Why I’m not recommending an eBook reader this Christmas – [link to post]

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5 bgrier (Brad Grier) November 30, 2009 at 3:37 pm

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Blog Post: Why I’m not recommending an eBook reader this Christmas – [link to post]

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6 merlin67 (Todd) November 30, 2009 at 4:37 pm

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@bgrier cuz if you’ve got an iPhone or other smartphone w/ a large enough screen, you don’t need one :) (saying this before reading blog)

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7 bgrier (Brad Grier) November 30, 2009 at 5:40 pm

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@merlin67 Also will be looking for a good ereader, want a larger screen format than my iPod Touch offers. it’s OK, but larger would be best

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8 bgrier (Brad Grier) November 30, 2009 at 5:41 pm

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@merlin67 Heh, Actually I don’t touch on that…you could comment ;) I do use my Touch as a reader though.

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9 merlin67 (Todd) November 30, 2009 at 6:39 pm

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@bgrier is that an age thing, perhaps? ;)

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10 bgrier (Brad Grier) November 30, 2009 at 7:36 pm

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@merlin67 Heh, yeah, it could be an age thing…though I refuse to believe it (denial) :)

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