The site I wish existed when I was choosing a reader

[VividTree]

Hi Joykins, can you please tell me what exactly did you try to do? The dials will not work if you don't have javascript enabled, but then the site would show you a warning about that. If you don't see that warning, everything should work fine.

The main page just shows most popular North American readers, but then they go away when you start adjusting the parameters.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Good point - but I suspect most would-be buyers will be more concerned with the bottom line from their pocket, rather than how cheaper it might be elsewhere.

No, you misunderstand me - I'm agreeing with you . What I'm saying is that if you're in the UK, like we both are, then we probably don't care what a device costs in the US; we want to know what it's going to cost us here in the UK. Hence a simple conversion of the US$ price is not much use to us.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, you misunderstand me - I'm agreeing with you . What I'm saying is that if you're in the UK, like we both are, then we probably don't care what a device costs in the US; we want to know what it's going to cost us here in the UK. Hence a simple conversion of the US$ price is not much use to us.

Well, prices will never be up to date without an enormous amount of leg work and and multiplying it by the 100 or so first and second world countries make it seem pretty daunting. What if you just categorized the target demographics for a given product. I would think that would remain constant regardless of country. (Categories like "Budget", "mid priced", "high-end" are what I'm thinking of).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Well, prices will never be up to date without an enormous amount of leg work and and multiplying it by the 100 or so first and second world countries make it seem pretty daunting. What if you just categorized the target demographics for a given product. I would think that would remain constant regardless of country. (Categories like "Budget", "mid priced", "high-end" are what I'm thinking of).

Trouble is, though, it's not. Eg, in the US, the Kindle and the Sony PRS-T1 cost pretty much the same. In the UK, the Sony is almost double the price of the Kindle. That's a pretty important difference.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by VividTree

Hi Joykins, can you please tell me what exactly did you try to do? The dials will not work if you don't have javascript enabled, but then the site would show you a warning about that. If you don't see that warning, everything should work fine.

The main page just shows most popular North American readers, but then they go away when you start adjusting the parameters.

Is that useful? It's like a search that yields nothing.

I thought the parameters were supposed to be for filtering the entire list of e-readers. At least that would be useful.

[VividTree]

Originally Posted by Joykins

Is that useful? It's like a search that yields nothing.

I thought the parameters were supposed to be for filtering the entire list of e-readers. At least that would be useful.

It is actually filtering from the entire list of ereaders. You are right, perhaps that's not obvious if only 5 readers are displayed on the main page. I probably should show the entire list of ereaders right from the beginning.

But try it, the filters actually work on the entire database.

[VividTree]

About availability in countries and stores. This is actually a much bigger and much more difficult task to accomplish than gathering information about ereaders. Moreover, this should be an automated task, as it would be impossible for me to track daily prices on hundreds of sites manually. I'm still researching ways of how this can be done.

As for currency converter, I think it's a good idea. I think I can convert the price to the currency of the country where the person is coming from automatically. I will put this on my todo list.

[Kumabjorn]

A better way than automatic currency conversion is to let the user set currency of choice. If I access from Sweden I'd be more interested in USD pricing, because that what I eventually would pay, than SEK pricing.

[cHex]

I enjoyed visiting the site and learned a thing or two.

But I can't shake the feeling that the filters are going to lead lots of people astray. Someone already very familiar with eReaders would be an ideal user of the site, but someone considering purchasing their first eReader will have no idea of the issues and tradeoffs involved.

A real novice might be glad if your site would take them through the features and discuss why a person might make one choice over another, and recommend feature sets based on user profiles, and point out features that come down solely to personal preference.

[GA Russell]

VividTree, it looks great, but I see that you haven't yet included my favorite, the Ectaco jetBook Lite, as well as the original Ectaco jetBook.

[anamardoll]

I love the idea. When I was first shopping for an ebook, I wanted those filters -- I wanted to filter by screen size, touch capability, and so forth. Love it!

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by VividTree

It is actually filtering from the entire list of ereaders. You are right, perhaps that's not obvious if only 5 readers are displayed on the main page. I probably should show the entire list of ereaders right from the beginning.

But try it, the filters actually work on the entire database.

Now it works like I expected it to

[VividTree]

Thank you everyone for taking a look and for your wonderful feedback!

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

A better way than automatic currency conversion is to let the user set currency of choice. If I access from Sweden I'd be more interested in USD pricing, because that what I eventually would pay, than SEK pricing.

Ok, got it, I will provide a choice of currency. Or better a currency setting that can be remembered in a cookie, so that you don't need to change it every time you want to see the price. There's one complication as well - the filtering by price. I should probably make it possible to filter by price in the selected currency as well. But I'll do my best to add that functionality.

Originally Posted by cHex

But I can't shake the feeling that the filters are going to lead lots of people astray. Someone already very familiar with eReaders would be an ideal user of the site, but someone considering purchasing their first eReader will have no idea of the issues and tradeoffs involved.

A real novice might be glad if your site would take them through the features and discuss why a person might make one choice over another, and recommend feature sets based on user profiles, and point out features that come down solely to personal preference.

This is exactly the reason why I'd like to have a wizard mode as well, to guide people through simpler choices explaining the trade-offs along the way. This is already planned and hope I'll be able to add that functionality within a couple of weeks.

Originally Posted by GA Russell

VividTree, it looks great, but I see that you haven't yet included my favorite, the Ectaco jetBook Lite, as well as the original Ectaco jetBook.

Thanks for pointing me to these! Will add the Ectaco readers shortly.

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I love the idea. When I was first shopping for an ebook, I wanted those filters -- I wanted to filter by screen size, touch capability, and so forth. Love it!

Thank you anamardoll! I'm so happy it's useful! Looks like many people have the same trouble I had.

Originally Posted by Joykins

Now it works like I expected it to

[Quexos]

Informative website. Too bad there are no euro prices or a list of devices available in Europe.

[anamardoll]

You know what else would be a good filter? DRM compatibility. I'm guessing that 90% of the "9.7 screen + epub" devices I'm salivating over are Adobe DRM compatible, but I don't see that right off the bat. I'm imaging three drops: Amazon DRM, B&N DRM, and Adobe DRM. (Yes, I know B&N DRM is Adobe-based, but it requires a GUI for entering name and credit card details.)

I'd personally prefer the filters all stacked vertically instead of horizontally scattered like that, but I like everything NEAT UND TIDY.