decision time. hanlin vs cybook? anyone who's tried em? can you search in a book?

[HarryT]

I would have just said "a Python interpreter" myself. No big deal.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by JWLaRue

re: Books on Board

As of Wednesday......they're now out.

Yep. Luckily I convinced myself on Tuesday that the Cybook was the device I wanted and ordered it from BooksOnBoard. Arrived yesterday, and am enjoying it quite a bit so far.

Glad I didn't wait any longer.

[JWLaRue]

Originally Posted by bwaldron

Yep. Luckily I convinced myself on Tuesday that the Cybook was the device I wanted and ordered it from BooksOnBoard. Arrived yesterday, and am enjoying it quite a bit so far.

Glad I didn't wait any longer.

Yup...looks like that's what I should have done......

-Jeff

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by nairbv

I think I read somewhere on here too though, ... that some of these, (maybe the sony?) claim they can take 2gb SD cards but people say if you put more than 5-10 books on it, the device freaks out and won't work, or slows down to the point of being unbearable. false advertising in my mind. I'd like to put a few gigabytes of documents on SD cards and always have them with me.

Well, I've currently got 245 books on my 505 with no sign of slowing. The reports have been when you get >400 or so (using SD cards). Note that there now are also SW utils that will let you copy from SD cards to the Sony memory and delete from the Sony without needing a PC to do it...

[nairbv]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So when are you going to actually be able to read 85 books before you have access to your computer again to sort out content? Why is it you need a few gigs work of eBooks at one time to carry around?

Well, I sail for long distances. I pretty much can't use my laptop at sea or it freaks out from being shaken by the motion of the boat... so I have regularly gone long periods of time, more than a month, without using a computer. I read a lot of books when I'm at sea.

But also, I just like the idea of having my book collection in my pocket. I'm not reading 85 books at once, but if I have an electronic book reader, and, SD cards being as cheap as they are, I don't understand why I shouldn't be able to have, for example, the complete works of shakespeare in my pocket to reference whenever I want. I should be able to read a quote or some speech I liked anytime I want. (of course, with current devices, this will probably assuming I know where in the book the speech/quote is).

I expect that out of an ebook reader. I want hundreds if not thousands of books with me at all times.

I'd like to keep math books for reference, poetry books, books I want to read, books I've recently read and might want to talk to someone about or show to someone, anything and everything I find. I don't want to have to think "what are all the books I might want to glance into in the next month," and then hope I've picked through correctly. My reading style isn't a one-after-the-other novel reading kind of thing. I probably have at least a hundred books stuffed in the v-berth of my boat, and it never seems nearly enough.

Have you tried emailing Bookeen again? They do respond. Did you check your spam filters? The ones on the actual website where your mail comes from? It's not Bookeens fault you move too much.

no, I emailed them a while ago and never got a response. It not just that though, it's my impression from other people. I see people complaining on their own blog (partly about unresponsiveness, partly about some update a long time ago that stopped their device from working), and it seems like bookeen was just ignoring their own blog.

Either way though, it looks like they bill on order, and then send months later. That just doesn't even seem... even legal to me. It increases their cashflow and allows them to operate essentially in debt. That's essentially a loan/investment from the customers if they just take your money and deliver way in the future... and if they need that kind of loan from the customer I don't trust them. Who knows, maybe it's just a bad translation on their web site and that's not really how it works. it sounds shady though.

I mean, I admit, they probably wont go belly up, ... but I can invest in companies in the stock market that also "probably" wont go belly up, and I get a dividend. I shouldn't have to practically invest in the company just to buy something from them.

You're right in the case of the iliad or something, that, if I move around a lot it's not their fault... but a company like bookeen that isn't even going to deliver until months after I order, ... I hold that against them. I can order something when I'm going to be in one place for a little while, ... but not when it doesn't even ship for months.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Who said Amazon is shitting on their customers? BooksOnBoard bought eReader and yet they also sell the Gen3 which does not handle eReader at all DRM or not.

I said it. what do booksonboard, ereader, or gen3 have to do with amazon? Amazon owns a good multi-device DRM system (mobipocket), but decided to introduce a new incompatible DRM system... along with a new device (the kindle) that none of their existing customers would be able to use with their old purchased books. In my mind, that amounts to shitting on customers. they could have at least included mobipocket support in the kindle. I don't even own mobipocket books, but the fact that they produced the kindle without mobipocket support makes me want to stop buying pbooks from them.

OK, maybe DRM can be stripped with some hack software and then used on the new device... if you're somewhat tech savy and, depending where you live, willing to break the law. That level of hassle being imposed on customers though, .... I see that as not very nice of amazon. it makes me angry.

It's not like permitting both encryption schemes to run on the kindle would have taken a day more development effort. it's essentially the same format but they deliberately made it incompatible.

Am I completely alone in this? Is there something I'm missing here?

According to what someone found out, the Sony may be being sold in the uK sometime in April (We hope).

well that's exciting. I mean, I don't live in the UK, but I like that it's at least being sold internationally. It makes the sony look a little better in my eyes.

I know with he 505 you can hack it to change the fonts. There is a hack now that will do a temp font change which does work. So you don't have to risk bricking it.

another sony++

Why is the research a waste of time? Do you just want to plop down $300-$450 just to get something you won't like because you didn't do the research?

well, ... time is money. I spent more time than anticipated thinking stressing and posting on this board trying to figure out what to buy. If I'd spent all that time working I probably could have just bought two of these things at random.

Why is it you have such a negative attitude toward all of the available eink devices?

but yeah, I am feeling negative. I'm pretty bummed I don't have one of these things still. maybe it's my own fault I didn't just go ahead and buy one. I was really particularly bummed out about not being able to buy the hanlin though. I had my hopes up I guess, and now I'm just kind of feeling let down.

btw, I see roslindale on your profile thing. I'm from dedham. Hi.

[nairbv]

gwynevans:

good to know, thanks

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by nairbv

I expect that out of an ebook reader. I want hundreds if not thousands of books with me at all times.

It's perfectly feasible to have a few hundred books on the CyBook. It gets a little slow to page through the library screens to find them, but that's the only downside. There's no slowdown in actual "reading" whatsoever.

Either way though, it looks like they bill on order, and then send months later. That just doesn't even seem... even legal to me. It increases their cashflow and allows them to operate essentially in debt. That's essentially a loan/investment from the customers if they just take your money and deliver way in the future... and if they need that kind of loan from the customer I don't trust them. Who knows, maybe it's just a bad translation on their web site and that's not really how it works. it sounds shady though.

That is how it operates, and it's perfectly legal. As long as they tell you about it in advance (which they do), there's no problem. "Months later" is an exaggeration. "A few weeks" is more realistic.

I said it. what do booksonboard, ereader, or gen3 have to do with amazon? Amazon owns a good multi-device DRM system (mobipocket), but decided to introduce a new incompatible DRM system... along with a new device (the kindle) that none of their existing customers would be able to use with their old purchased books. In my mind, that amounts to shitting on customers. they could have at least included mobipocket support in the kindle.

With respect, you are a little misinformed about that.

The Kindle does use MobiPocket book format. Any MobiPocket book without DRM can be simply copied to the Kindle and read. Any MobiPocket book with DRM can be trivially processed by a freely available Python tool which allows it to run on the Kindle.

[Alisa]

Though I think it matters in this context that without bright and generous folks like igorsk and thedarkreverser out here in the user community, we would not be able to read these files on the Kindle or Amazon books on any thing else. Amazon's intention for its customers is that we don't and it seems to me it was Amazon's treatment of its customers that nairbv was criticizing.

Personally, I wonder if that decision had more to do with Mobipocket's agreements with the bookstores that use their DRM. Mobipocket itself is not allowed to charge less for books than the other sellers. I'm wondering if Amazon might be left open to action from these resellers if it used Mobipocket. I doubt the Kindle would be much of a success if they had to charge full price on every book.

[HarryT]

But there are lots of DRM-free MobiPocket books which can be read directly on the Kindle with no conversion whatsoever required.

[nairbv]

Harry:

well, you haven't pointed out anywhere were I was missinformed yet.

A lot of people are basing purchasing decisions based on the DRM books available. DRM that's has been removed is not DRM... and so is irrelevant to anyone's buying decision. If you're willing to strip the DRM, then the book can be read on any device at all whatsoever, and I can just as well read mobipocket books on a hanlin v3.

If amazon had written a better encryption algorithm (which was their full intention) then you wouldn't be able to run drm mobipocket books on the kindle. The fact that their attempt to completely screw existing customers failed, does not redeem them in my mind.

I mean, I'd consider it false advertising if a company said they "supported" html, but that actually meant they had some hacky tool that would convert html into some proprietary book format. wouldn't you? but in this case they don't even give you the tool, use of the tool is illegal, and average customers probably don't even know it exists (I didn't know until yesterday).

But even if use of this tool is as "trivial" as you suggest: If you catch someone trying to steal your wallet, does the act of catching him redeem him in your mind? suddenly he's a wonderful person trying to help you out?

Alisa: I agree, this is probably their reasoning for introducing a new encryption scheme... but technically they could have trivially supported both mobipocket and AZW books. in terms of agreements with publishers, I dont' think they'd be violating any price agreements on AZW books if they ran both.

They were probably afraid that if they supported both, then the AZW format would be more likely to flop to internal competition. i.e., the revenue directly received from the kindle store wouldn't directly entirely pay for the development effort involved in building it. The revenue would instead come (at least in part) in the form of increased mobipocket sales, which they probably don't see as their core business. Lower sales received from the worse DRM system might have also affected their ability to get low prices that were based on high volume... but if they sell a crap product, that should be their problem.

[Alisa]

Actually the agreement I was speaking of is between Mobipocket and bookstores that sell books in Mobipocket format. Mobipocket (owned by Amazon) has an agreement not to sell books that compete price-wise with these stores. That's why if you go to mobipocket.com, the prices will strike you as outlandish. I was wondering if they don't make enough of a distinction between the .azw/Kindle market and the Mobi market, if some of those stores may try to sue. It has nothing at all to do with publishers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

Well, I've currently got 245 books on my 505 with no sign of slowing. The reports have been when you get >400 or so (using SD cards). Note that there now are also SW utils that will let you copy from SD cards to the Sony memory and delete from the Sony without needing a PC to do it...

I don't think they work if the eBooks in question are part of a collection.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's perfectly feasible to have a few hundred books on the CyBook. It gets a little slow to page through the library screens to find them, but that's the only downside. There's no slowdown in actual "reading" whatsoever.

But has anyone tried to put say 500 eBooks on the Gen3 via SD card and seen if it slows down? What about in internal memory (if they'd fit)? I'm just curious what limits in the amount of content one can have at one time before these devices slow down.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by nairbv

A lot of people are basing purchasing decisions based on the DRM books available. DRM that's has been removed is not DRM... and so is irrelevant to anyone's buying decision.

Not totally. If I were (hypothetically) to remove DRM from my mobipocket files, and they remained in mobi format, and I had a large library of such files...I'd probably be more inclined towards purchasing a device that could read them directly, rather than requiring another conversion.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But has anyone tried to put say 500 eBooks on the Gen3 via SD card and seen if it slows down? What about in internal memory (if they'd fit)? I'm just curious what limits in the amount of content one can have at one time before these devices slow down.

There's no reason whatsoever that the Gen3 should slow down as you add content. The reason the Sony slows down is because it paginates the books as you add them - the Gen3 doesn't do that. Your PC at home doesn't slow down if you put more files on its hard disk; nor does the Gen3. All that DOES slow down is the selection of a particular file, just as on a PC it's slower to choose a file from a folder containing 1000 files than from one containing 10 files.