Ranadok …doesn't have much better to do

Books come in Electronic now?

I've always thought that ebook readers were a little goofy. E-ink was an interesting technology, but the readers seemed to be there just to give the screens a reason to exist, not to actually solve a problem that anybody actually had. Why would anybody want to read on an electronic device, when they could just read the actual book, which would no doubt be a better experience?  I had read a couple of books on my computer or my PDA over the years, and never really found it to be as satisfying an experience as reading the actual paper copies.

Obviously, my opinions have changed. I had a chance to play around with both a Kindle and an older-model Sony Reader (PRS-505) over a weekend back in March, and was quite surprised. I had heard that e-ink screens were nice to read on, but these were just incredible. I was expecting something like my old grey scale Palm screen; readable even in bad light, but nothing to write home about. However, the e-ink screens on those two devices were really quite impressive. I read quite a bit on the two devices (mainly on the Sony Reader, I liked the device a lot more than the Kindle) over the course of that weekend, and decided to buy one for myself.

After I did the research, I ruled out everything except for Sony's offerings.  In short, the Kindle was too expensive and non-open... and all the other options don't exist, so far as Canada is concerned. Easy decision, I guess. The only hard part was choosing between the Sony Reader Touch or the Sony Reader Pocket. I tried both out at LD, and ended up going with the Pocket. It was $100 less, though it sacrificed the touch screen (obviously), card reader, music playback, and a couple other things that I don't remember and can't be bothered to look up (in-line dictionary and photos, I think). Basically, everything but book reading. The thing is, pretty much every other device I have already plays music and has a touch screen. All I really wanted was an ebook reader. And between the two, the Pocket Edition was by far the better for reading, at least to my eyes. The Touch touch layer added a nasty glare that the Pocket didn't have, and I really didn't want to deal with that. So the Pocket Edition it was. Of course, there have been price drops and new products and all sorts of other things going on in the ebook market that makes my carefully-researched decision woefully out of date, but I still think I made the right choice, and I still have a darned good ebook reader.

This is either blue or black, depending on who and when you ask. Right now, I say it's blue.

The Sony Reader Pocket Edition has an aluminum body and feels very solid in the hand, if a little heavy. The menus are pretty simple, consisting of a list of your books sorted in a couple of different ways (title, author, etc). There aren't many options once you are in a book beyond reading, bookmarking, and changing the font (three size options - I rarely take it off of small).  There isn't really too much to talk about here. The buttons are nice and solid, the screen is incredible, it's fast enough to get around, but by no means a powerhouse (you have to be a little patient navigating the menus). In short, it's simple, unobtrusive, and a pleasure to read on. On the PC side, the official Sony software is pretty forgettable, but it works quite well with the open source ebook management software Calibre, and takes all the main ebook formats without any fuss. It is a little sluggish with PDFs, but that isn't an ideal ebook format, so I try to avoid it or pre-convert it on my PC where possible.

The Sony Reader also shares the usual strengths that come along with any ebook reader. The screen is, as I mentioned before, very easy to read. It's not backlit, so it depends entirely on external lighting. This means it has the same visual limitations and strengths as printed material: you need a book lamp or some other source of light to read in the dark, but it is very natural in pretty much any other lighting condition, even direct sunlight. The power-sipping screen is also the major factor in the long battery life.  The battery life of ereaders is commonly claimed in the specs to be measured in weeks, and surprisingly, that isn't an exaggeration. I read practically every day but only charge my reader every two weeks or so, and it rarely reaches below the half-way point. In fact, most of the time I charge it not because it needs the power, but because I'm plugging it into my computer anyway to move over more books.

The biggest draw, of course, is that you can carry hundreds of books in a package roughly the size and half the thickness of a large paperback. My Sony reader has 512MB of memory, and most novels that I have seen so far check in between .3 and 1 MB, so I can easily fit hundreds of full length books on without much of a fuss. Text is tiny, memory is cheap, and the combination of the two means that you never really have to worry about space. It's great.

This, but in my pocket.

Do e-readers have problems? Of course.

First, there's the speed; e-ink isn't the quickest screen technology around. It takes a half-second or so for the page to change each time you hit the button. It's not terrible, and I quickly get into the rhythm of hitting the button a line or two before I finish the page, but it's not easy to flip through a dozen pages or more quickly (as you sometimes want to do in a book to, say, reread a passage from a few pages back). The page change (on every model of ereader that I am aware of at the moment) is also accompanied by a quick flash from white to black to white again. Supposedly this prevents a burn-in type effect and drastically increases the lifespan of the screen (I've heard as much as six times). It's also something that you very quickly filter out, but it's a little distracting at first, and it's certainly the first thing you notice when you get your hands on an e-ink screen for the first time.

Of course, like any media consumption device, you also have the headache of formats to deal with, as ebooks have yet to settle on a single standard. For example, with music there was MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, and so forth.  Ebooks have EPUB, LIT, BBeB, TXT, DOC, PDF, and one or two others. The Sony reader supports the big ones (ePub, PDF, Sony's proprietary BBeB, and some others that I don't really care about), and it's easy enough to convert from one to another if needs be (DRM aside - which is a whole different discussion). It's still another thing to fight with and worry about when managing your library. In the real world, a book is a book.

But do they have leather covers? I think not (except for the ones that do)!

So, if you haven't guessed by now, I am quite fond of ereaders in general and mine in particular. I used to read quite a bit, but I had been reading less and less as time went on. Not for any specific reason, I just found that I wasn't finding the same time or the motivation to sit down with a book that I used to have. However, I will say that in the few months since I got my ereader, I probably have read more than in the whole year previous. Part of it is undoubtedly the novelty of it; technology is fun, and new technology even more so. However, I find myself bringing my reader along when I would not have considered bringing a book due to size, or turning it on knowing I can easily flip to a new book if the one I'm currently reading isn't interesting me a the moment. I'm finding more time to read, more excuses to read, and more things to read. I just find an ereader to be a better, more enjoyable, and more versatile way to read.

And the people who will never give up their physical paper books out of some romantic ideal of books being the only 'real' way to read? Good for them. They can enjoy their books, the future will still be here when they want to join us.

And it is awesome.