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Thoughts on ebook readers
Jan. 11th, 2019 11:40 amI started typing this as a response on FB but it got out of hand so I thought I'd move it here.
I've been an ebook fan for going on 20 years. My first ebooks were purchased from Peanut Press for the Palm III
This was an important lesson because those books are now completely inaccessible to me. They were DRM locked and only worked on a specific device. As a result of this lesson I have since had a rule that media and reader must be kept separate. I won't buy media that isn't portable to any device I care to use it on, and likewise I won't buy a reader that I can't put any media on that I like.
Thankfully, Calibre exists. Anyone who is an avid reader using eBooks should be running Calibre. It's as perfect a solution for library management and media portability as anything out there. And there are plug-ins that allow a lot of flexibility.
My first proper, eInk reader was a Sony PRS-505. It was very good at the time but by today's standards is slow and heavy.
After that I moved to a Nook Simple Touch Reader. It is actually a perfectly good reader platform. The flaw is that it's not lit. When the Kindle Paperwhite came out, I jumped. For my money for the last few years, the Paperwhite has been pretty much the ultimate reading machine.
I should say at this point that there is a Nook GlowLight, and Kobo Aura, both of which seem to be excellent devices but I have not tried them.
Luckily even though theoretically the Amazon platform is locked in, there are tools available to circumvent this.
The Kindle Paperwhite has been flawless in operation, and works perfectly with side-loaded content from any source. I actually side-load everything - the wifi on my Paperwhite has only ever been turned on to set the device up the first time.
I do buy all my content from Amazon, but it only hits the reader after DRM removal and going through Calibre. I won't buy any content that locks me into an ecosystem - the reader should be a commodity, not a lock-in device and I only bought it after confirming that I could shoehorn that device into that role despite its design.
It is nice buying a very popular device, because of the number of accessories available for it.
I'm on my second Paperwhite - the first one had a couple of dings on the screen that eventually bugged me enough to swap. Then of course about 2 months after I bought a new one, they released the latest generation that's whaterproof.
I've been an ebook fan for going on 20 years. My first ebooks were purchased from Peanut Press for the Palm III
This was an important lesson because those books are now completely inaccessible to me. They were DRM locked and only worked on a specific device. As a result of this lesson I have since had a rule that media and reader must be kept separate. I won't buy media that isn't portable to any device I care to use it on, and likewise I won't buy a reader that I can't put any media on that I like.
Thankfully, Calibre exists. Anyone who is an avid reader using eBooks should be running Calibre. It's as perfect a solution for library management and media portability as anything out there. And there are plug-ins that allow a lot of flexibility.
My first proper, eInk reader was a Sony PRS-505. It was very good at the time but by today's standards is slow and heavy.
After that I moved to a Nook Simple Touch Reader. It is actually a perfectly good reader platform. The flaw is that it's not lit. When the Kindle Paperwhite came out, I jumped. For my money for the last few years, the Paperwhite has been pretty much the ultimate reading machine.
I should say at this point that there is a Nook GlowLight, and Kobo Aura, both of which seem to be excellent devices but I have not tried them.
Luckily even though theoretically the Amazon platform is locked in, there are tools available to circumvent this.
The Kindle Paperwhite has been flawless in operation, and works perfectly with side-loaded content from any source. I actually side-load everything - the wifi on my Paperwhite has only ever been turned on to set the device up the first time.
I do buy all my content from Amazon, but it only hits the reader after DRM removal and going through Calibre. I won't buy any content that locks me into an ecosystem - the reader should be a commodity, not a lock-in device and I only bought it after confirming that I could shoehorn that device into that role despite its design.
It is nice buying a very popular device, because of the number of accessories available for it.
I'm on my second Paperwhite - the first one had a couple of dings on the screen that eventually bugged me enough to swap. Then of course about 2 months after I bought a new one, they released the latest generation that's whaterproof.
