Very do want

[zerodan]

I'm so tempted to buy one of these.  The only thing preventing me really is the price...  The idea of having my books readily at my fingertips, and being able to download new reading materials 24 hours a day is seriously sexy.  Been talking with friends about the relative merits of e-readers vs regular books, and this device just keeps getting more and more tempting as reviews surface.  Anyone else tempted?  Or, better yet, has anyone else bought one yet?

Comments

[zenostortoise.livejournal.com]

I am severely not tempted, and here's why:

most e-books cost $10. That's quite a bit of money, and much more than an e-book should cost, in my opinion. Music stores like itunes can get away with charging only slightly less than the cost of a cd because it's possible to burn a cd from what you download, and give that cd to a friend or listen to it in many places, etc. Here, you're paying for a book that will essentially only ever be readable on that thing, and you're paying only $5 or so less than you'd pay for a real book.

Secondly: no backlighting. They say that this is to prevent eye strain, but really, the only thing that makes an e-reader better than a book is the fact that you can read it in the dark, on places like dark buses or outdoors in dim light, etc. I might have been okay with this were it not backlit, or had it included some kind of potential surface lighting.

Third: sprint's wireless network is awful. Look at the window for sprint's coverage (it's linked to somewhere on that site). The idea that you can download a new book whenever you want to is absurd. More like you can download a book whenever you're sitting smack in the center of a major metropolitan area, since even their coverage of the northeat is absolutely riddled with holes.

Anyways. I think the new paper-like screen is pretty cool, but I can't see it being anywhere near a useful as one would expect.

[shimryck.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about this thing. firstly it costs $400 bucks. That's a hell of alot of paperbacks. You'd have to read like 100 something books on this thing before it would be worth it. Now being able to download new books is cool, but you miss out on waiting in line at 11:59 the day before a new book release at your local Borders or Books a Hundred. Of course I don't read that much so I'd really have to get my wife's opinion on whether or not it would be worth it=-)

[bored2sleep.livejournal.com]

That price tag is a few times too high. I'm using a Palm m500 as my ebook reader right now, and I'm pretty happy with it. Converting to palm format is a little annoying, but at least the conversion program is on my computer, rather than having to email amazon for it. Battery life is good enough on the m500, and they are still available under $100 on ebay. I guess if the kindling format didn't have DRM, then I'd be more interested, but I hate that crap a lot. The price is still too high, even if it does, for now, include the wireless access. I'm just not confident that they won't decide to cancel "support" for first gen kindles in a couple years, which would hurt the value of the device quite a lot.

[lissalou.livejournal.com]

very do want too.

[skyethebard.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm tempted. I recently realized that I lose myself to the story when paging through on my Treo just as easily as I do when holding a paper copy.

[zerodan.livejournal.com]

I really want to actually see one before I buy it though. Wish they sold these retail somewhere.