Whats that you have? An E-reader??

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by katysax

I commute to work on the train from a distant suburb. There are a large number of regular train riders using Kindles. I'm the only one I've seen with a Sony reader. Many people read on their cell phones. There are a lot of passengers reading paper books. a few laptops, and lots of ipods. Almost no one reads the newspaper any more and very few read magazines.

Interesting to see the shift from that perspective. Thanks!

[David Derrico]

I say better to answer some questions -- even if a few are silly -- and educate someone about e-readers than be snippy or refuse to answer and turn someone off to the entire eBook universe. The more people reading eBooks and the more purchasers of e-readers, the better the final products will be as more money is thrown at the technology.

I'm always glad to answer questions. In fact, the main people I've been educating are people who got e-readers recently as gifts and don't really know what to do with them. "Oh, I can get free eBooks? There's a built-in dictionary? The battery lasts for HOW long?" Etc.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by David Derrico

... In fact, the main people I've been educating are people who got e-readers recently as gifts and don't really know what to do with them. "Oh, I can get free eBooks? There's a built-in dictionary? The battery lasts for HOW long?" Etc.

Does anyone else find it somewhat astonishing that people will buy and give things like ebook readers as gifts for a minimum of a few hundred dollars without having a clue about them? Just trusting what the seller is saying and only half listening to that?

[mrscoach]

A friend gave her daughter a pocket edition for her birthday/Christmas mostly on my say-so. A very brief mention by DD (darling daughter) made my friend ask me about them because she knew I was interested in buying one for myself. I even went with her and helped her buy one.

I had to go help her charge it and set up the account and show them how to buy books. I even showed her some other places to get books besides Sony. Now I get calls if they don't know something. Fortunately the DD is 17 and would rather just figure most of it out on her own, since I don't own one and don't know that much about its workings.

I did point them in this direction, but I don't think they took my advice to come here.

So, no, it doesn't surprise me TOO much when people just take the advice of salepeople.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by mrscoach

A friend gave her daughter a pocket edition for her birthday/Christmas mostly on my say-so. A very brief mention by DD (darling daughter) made my friend ask me about them because she knew I was interested in buying one for myself. I even went with her and helped her buy one.

I had to go help her charge it and set up the account and show them how to buy books. I even showed her some other places to get books besides Sony. Now I get calls if they don't know something. Fortunately the DD is 17 and would rather just figure most of it out on her own, since I don't own one and don't know that much about its workings.

I did point them in this direction, but I don't think they took my advice to come here.

So, no, it doesn't surprise me TOO much when people just take the advice of salepeople.

Been there, done that.

[Not_A_Crook]

"Wait, you don't like feeling real pages?"

My answer in my head:

"It's technology, please don't start with this. I hate the fact that the alternative to a traditional bookmark would be to fold a corner, and that traditional bookmarks fall out if the book is held without a certain tightness."

Given answer:

"It's just technology ma'am. *shrug*"

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by David Derrico

I say better to answer some questions -- even if a few are silly -- and educate someone about e-readers than be snippy or refuse to answer and turn someone off to the entire eBook universe. The more people reading eBooks and the more purchasers of e-readers, the better the final products will be as more money is thrown at the technology.

I'm always glad to answer questions. In fact, the main people I've been educating are people who got e-readers recently as gifts and don't really know what to do with them. "Oh, I can get free eBooks? There's a built-in dictionary? The battery lasts for HOW long?" Etc.

I agree with this. To most people, ebooks readers are still fairly new type of device and many people are probably not aware of the advances that have taken place in the technology. What may seem to be a dumb question may simply be a question from someone not familiar with the technology.

In some ways I can compare the current generation of e-ink ebook readers to the first Walkman cassette players. When the first Walkman was proposed, one of the pre-conceptions it had to overcome was that a tape playback device also had to be able to record. To those industry, that was simply the way it was and no one would want a device that just played cassettes.

The Cassette Walkman proved that this was not the case, and it became a very successful product. In turn, it led to an entire industry based on portable personal audio players which continues to this day with players like the iPod.

When it comes to ebooks, we are still at a fairly early stage of development. As far as generations go, I'm guessing that we are at the third generation of ebook readers. I break down the generations as follows (please feel free to correct me):

- First Generation: Software for reading ebooks on personal computers, including word processing software. This generation is basically non-portable except for laptops and ebooks printed on paper.

- Second Generation: The first portable ebook readers, including PDAs and some LCD-based ebook readers. With this generation, while portable, battery life is a significant factor in the usability of ebook readers.

- Third Generation: The current e-ink ebook readers. With this generation, battery life is a much less of a factor than with the second generation. Also, this is the generation where a unification of ebook formats began.

I'm always glad to answer questions about ebooks and ebook readers. I enjoy helping people learn about ebooks.

[FBoespflug]

So do I. I've got my ereader in October and use it at home, it's actually my Christmas gift. I told my friends and family of my purchase and it seems they don't understand me, they say they would miss the contact with the paper.
On the next 25. I will show it first to my family, so they can have a look on it and perhaps they will change their mind, who knows?
I love my device and enjoy speaking about it.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HaggisMacJedi

So out of curiosity then, what's the Spanish word for "thingy"?

What I translated as "thingy" would be "cacharro" or "chisme", sort of wildcard words, or just be omitted as "el/lo de Amazón" (the Amazon one).

[davef]

So I was sitting at my son's practice (gymnast) happily reading on my Sony. A group of cheerleaders were practicing at the same gym. One of the cheerleaders walked over and told me her parents bought her one for her birthday, but she can't figure out how to get books onto it.

I tried really hard not to dump her into a cheerleader stereotype. Really I did. But I could see my attempts at explanation were going nowhere fast. So I suggested that perhaps she might know a geek or two who would be happy to help her out. She kinda smiled and said "yeah..." and wandered off. Somewhere there's a geek that owes me one...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by davef

So I was sitting at my son's practice (gymnast) happily reading on my Sony. A group of cheerleaders were practicing at the same gym. One of the cheerleaders walked over and told me her parents bought her one for her birthday, but she can't figure out how to get books onto it.

I tried really hard not to dump her into a cheerleader stereotype. Really I did. But I could see my attempts at explanation were going nowhere fast. So I suggested that perhaps she might know a geek or two who would be happy to help her out. She kinda smiled and said "yeah..." and wandered off. Somewhere there's a geek that owes me one...

[markbond1007]

LOL, yeah he'll owe you a slap round the head ;-)

He'll either sit there in a daze and be unable to function or not realize the fabuolour opportunity but instead be too busy laughing at the typical cheerleader ;-)

The other option of course is that the "older geek" she picked sent her off to a younger geek :P

;-)

[markbond1007]

I don't travel too much (at least not where I'd see these being used), but went through a spate of train journeys a couple of months ago, and spotted several people with e-readers, these were all Sony's though, the obvious reason for that being their presence in a lot of Waterstones whereas the Kindle just hasn't been available, so it looks like the lead for the different readers really is different on both sides of the pond.

Back to the OP topic though, I've been asked about my CyBook several times (my wife says I should ask Bookeen for commission), but to be honest I always find it a pain, I'm happily sitting their reading I don't have any signs saying "feel free to disturb me I'm not really interested in reading my book anyway" on me and people feel free to interrupt me just to satisfy their curiosity, if I weren't so polite the response would be "p**s off and mind your own business" instead I have to waste a good 30-60 minutes explaining what e-ink is and how you can buy most of the books you can get at the book shops, when all I really want to be doing is sitting peacfully reading my book



Mark

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by markbond1007

and how you can buy most of the books you can get at the book shops

Lucky you. I have to say "no, you cannot buy e-books, publishers don't sell e-books, you have to make your own from public-domain stuff or download illegal (and usually crappy) versions from the darknet... unless you want to read in English".

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by troykm

Why is the screen not color? (because most books are not you fool)

Can i watch videos on it? (no, again its an e book reader not a dvd player)

Those a nice counter to the people here who stubbornly think that there's no market for multi function devices.

Most people aren't avid readers, but would read some on a device they buy for other purposes like video, net surfing etc. that's more functional to read on than a laptop/PC.