e-Readers

I've been putting a lot of thought into e-readers recently, largely because I just purchased one myself and did a bit of market research before I decided which one I wanted to buy. I ultimately went with the Sony Touch for a variety of reasons, some of which Jason Griffey disparages in the article we read for class. I tried out the Kindle, the Nook, and a few e-readers that Borders keeps in stock. The biggest problem that I had with all of them is that they aren't intuitive. Quite the opposite, in fact; they worked against what I was trying to do half the time. Like Kindle having a page-back button on the right-hand side. Or making me use a D-pad as the clicker button, on top of the screen not refreshing fast enough for me to see when my cursor had actually moved. With the Sony Touch in particular, that's not a problem, because all you do is touch the screen to access the book you want. While Griffey is right about the overlay causing some "issues" with the touch, a little bit of glare is the only problem I've noticed (which is not one of the problems he mentions), and I haven't noticed any reduction in sharpness of my text. One other feature that could be nice would be wireless access on my device, but I'm perfectly fine plugging it into my computer if I need to download something.

One problem I had with the presentation on Wednesday was that the group presenting didn't seem to make the connection that Sony's "proprietary" epub format is not really proprietary at all, considering that it's becoming the de facto open source format. Speaking of formats, I think Amazon is rather ridiculous in their use of proprietary format. On top of a physical layout that defies all forms of logic, it also makes it nearly impossible to use the most popular formats without going through the rigmarole of e-mailing it to yourself or to Amazon to convert it for you. Further, I have no intentions of actually buying books for my e-reader. I mean, if it's a textbook that's significantly cheaper than the paper copy, then I might purchase it; but there are so many public domain books at this point (including many classics that have been on my reading list for years) that I see no reason to start buying e-books that actually cost more than the same book in paperback form. Plus, I have this fantastic thing called a "library card" that saves me from having to buy more than a few books each year. Actually, not one library card...I actually have four public library cards and three university library cards (Madison; Minneapolis; Lexington, KY; and North Central West Virginia. UW-Madison, Transylvania University, and University of Kentucky. I plan to get Bridgeport, WV, while I'm home for Christmas break, since my parents moved there last year). I'm not lacking for electronic reading materials, particularly free ones.