Why we started reading with electronic book readers

[Pookeysgirl]

I stumbled upon the Kobo in April 2010. It was my first reader and up until that point I had no idea there were ebooks out there. It was a dream come true. I lived in a small apartment and had no more room for all the books I had. The Kobo was the perfect solution to my problem, and it was gadget, so an extra bonus there.

[SolRaven]

It was pretty simple. I love to read, and I love gadgets, combine that with having recently moved 1,200 mis. and the fresh reminder of how heavy boxes and boxes of books are made me long for the new reading gadget. The Librie was fresh on the scene, but not in the US. When the Sony 500 came to the US, for the cost vs. available reading material, I couldn't justify it to myself. When the Sony 505 came out, I was in love! I still held back after weighing the cost and the fact that ebooks were the same price as hardbacks, but when prices came down, almost 2 years later, I bought my first Sony 505 and was in love! My appetite was not satisfied, so a few weeks later, I bought a Sony 700. I thought I was sated, until Sony announced their brand new 600, with an integrated dictionary, a couple of months later. I couldn't resist! I wanted it! My beau told me I was acting a bit like an addict. I convinced him that I only liked Sony readers and that they won't come out with a new reader for another year or two. Satisfied with my reply, he said he wanted to buy me a present anyway and told me to use his credit card when I ordered it.

After the let down from the 600, I was cured for a while. I picked up a used Kindle 2 a few months later, only because Amazon wouldn't let me buy Kindle books unless I owned one, and they had a couple of ebooks that I wanted. Later on that year, Sony came out with the 650, and of course.... I had to have it. Sony had a trade in program, which gave me a $75 credit w/ the trade in of my broken blue 505. With the price drop of ereaders, and compared to what I was used to paying, I got a great deal.

Since then, it seems, Amazon has been reading Mobileread and listening to what many of us have been asking for, which is a "Sony Kindle". With the blending of my beloved Sony 700, and my eh Kindle 2, emerges the Kindle Paperwhite. Plus, it has a better screen than either of the former readers and I can't wait to get it in my hot little hands!

[Laridae]

I heard about a friend using a Kobo reader a couple of years ago and wanted to try it, for the novelty factor. First I downloaded the free Kobo reader s/w onto my laptop and bought my first book there.

Last Christmas my family bought me my own eReader, and we're now up to 3 7-inch reader/tablets in our household. I like the convenience of downloading ebooks and then reading them on the tablet although we still read a lot of print books from the library since not all publishers make ebooks available to libraries as epubs (but that's another rant!)

[ebusinesstutor]

I came across the Kobo at a local Chapters store and loved the concept.

But I wondered if it would feel like "real" reading. So I decided to test it by reading ebooks on my iPhone 3G. Even with the small screen, I found I was enjoying the ebooks and the wide range of free ebooks made it easy to explore.

Now I read on my Galaxy Note.

My wife was highly resistant to ebook readers, but then her daughter gave her her old Kobo when she upgraded to the Kobo touch.

She says she still prefers print books, but I notice she is reading more on the Kobo than the print books. And it really helped when she recently fell and hurt her wrists because she could hold the Kobo easier than the heavier print books.

[tdonline]

Portability and envy.

I rely on public transportation so I: 1) knew I had "dead" time (waiting for trains/buses, the actual commute, waiting for friends to meet up, etc) that I could use for reading but I couldn't always fit a book in my bag or purse nor did I want to carry around a heavy tome and 2) saw more and more e-readers on the train and thought, "that's the solution!". And the e-readers did look very nifty.

[kacir]

As I said multiple times, I have always been voracious reader. reading mostly library stuff.
After I learned some basic English I decided to read books in English to improve my newly acquired knowledge. That was more than 20 years ago. Since then I am reading books almost exclusively in English.

I have exhausted all sources for books in English here in this country. From a modest selection of English books in our libraries (town, county, ...) I have read all the interesting stuff. I have scoured all second-hand book shops in town, I have borroved books from friends and teachers and almost total strangers. It was more an more difficult to get a decent book in English without paying outrageous sums of money.

At that moment, I have discovered ... drumroll ... an ebook. That was a looooong time ago. Before even e-ink screen existed. So I got an old, small, very obsolete notebook (286 processor (or perhaps 386, I do not remeber), 2MB RAM, no HD, just floppy) and started to use it to read books. You see, I can't really read a book (*) form a big screen. I have replaced the notebook with a better notebook, then even beter one, then with an obsolete Cassiopeia A-10 (with non-backlit black and white LCD screen - one of oldest "PDA"s), then with better model of Cassiopeia, and finally ... with Sony PRS-500. That Sony cost me *lots* of money here, in Europe. At that time it was sold only in USA for 350 bucks. It was the best spent money ever.

And, here am I ...

(*) somehow, I have no problem to spend hours browsing the net here on this big backlit screen ;-)

[RedRufus]

Having a large library on me at all times.

Also My wife (bless her) didnt like me "getting lost" in my print books - I could be "playing" on my phone and she wouldnt know - terrible isnt it!

Truth be told it didnt take her toooo long to catch on and now she is OK with me reading on the phone, strange but I am not going to ask what the difference is!

[jabberwock_11]

I bought a PDA to hold all of my medical stuff (at the time most of us in the medical community used PDAs to easily store reference stuff). The PDA had a few ebooks loaded on it and I liked how easy it was to find and read ebooks on it. I started to do research and stumbled onto ebook readers. I bought a Sony PRS-505, learned how to strip the DRM off of my large mobi library, shifted them to Sony's format, and never looked back.

[Ginwen]

Partly space, partly reading some books like Elizabeth Moon's Deeds of Paksenarrion (3 longish books stuck together in a pretty heavy book) that made my arms start hurting. After that happened a couple of times an ereader seeemed the way to go. Also whenever I went on vacation I ended up bringing about 10 books (especially on a cruise, I get a lot of reading in on a cruise).

[basschick]

it's good to know that i'm not the only one who got into ebooks because my house was filling with books. i have bookcases that are double layered, with books stacked on top of each layer. shelves are packed, boxes are packed, books are on every surface - but at least now the collection is shrinking some (replacing most of my classics with their electronic counterparts) and only certain books are being bought in physical form. at the rate i was going before ebooks, we'd have to rent our books their own apartment!

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by jabberwock_11

I bought a PDA to hold all of my medical stuff (at the time most of us in the medical community used PDAs to easily store reference stuff). The PDA had a few ebooks loaded on it and I liked how easy it was to find and read ebooks on it. I started to do research and stumbled onto ebook readers. I bought a Sony PRS-505, learned how to strip the DRM off of my large mobi library, shifted them to Sony's format, and never looked back.

In my, severely limited, experience, medical literature is filled with illustrations and photos. How does that work when you're reading it on an eBook? I find the screen to small for viewing things like that and I can't enlarge it the way I would need.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by basschick

it's good to know that i'm not the only one who got into ebooks because my house was filling with books. i have bookcases that are double layered, with books stacked on top of each layer. shelves are packed, boxes are packed, books are on every surface - but at least now the collection is shrinking some (replacing most of my classics with their electronic counterparts) and only certain books are being bought in physical form. at the rate i was going before ebooks, we'd have to rent our books their own apartment!

All of my paperbacks are double or triple stacked, depending on shelf height, and have two rolls. This makes it hard to search trough them without taking the first row out.
Apache

[pagansoul]

My first PC was a purple Acer Aspire. It was big and slow by todays standards but I was able to view CDs of Public Domain books and CDroms of comic books. This was over 15 years ago. Several PCs later I got my first iMac around 2003 and really started using it to read. I also got into fan fiction (Farscape ended in 2003 and fan fiction kept it alive for me). The first iphone in early 2007 was when I started reading digital books on-the-go. The first Kindle was late 2007 for $400, and yes, I got one. I also got the Kindle 2 and 3 and Fire. In 2010 I got the first iPad and it was used for all my magazines and comics. Today I don't leave home without my iPad3 and iPhone.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Apache

All of my paperbacks are double or triple stacked, depending on shelf height, and have two rolls. This makes it hard to search trough them without taking the first row out.
Apache

Yep, me too....

[masquedbunny]

Before buying an actual e-reader, I was already reading a lot on the computer. I've been reading fanfiction and copyright-free or out-of-print material on the internet since I was in high school (I'm 29 now).

When I got a smart phone, I started reading on that, too--mainly classics and freebies from FeedBooks or ProjectGutenberg. I won't lie; I wasn't actually keen on a proper e-reading device for a very long time. I thought, I have computers and an iPhone. Why do I need another gadget? But when I started using my phone more and more for reading, especially at night, I would wake up the next morning feeling liked I'd scorched my eyes.

At my dad's urging--he bought the original Kindle when it first came out and loved it--I finally bit the bullet and bought the Kindle 3. No regrets. So much easier on the eyes when you intend to read a lot.

Also: If the books you read might cause you a sense of embarrassment (to purchase or be seen reading in public), any e-reading device is excellent. If you love trashy romance but hate those covers ...

tl;dr -- Clean answer: I bought a Kindle to read without eye strain. Less clean answer: I bought a Kindle to read smut in public surreptitiously.