MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - What was your first e-reading device?

catsittingstill · 08-04-2010, 06:49 PM

My first e-book I read on a laptop screen. I was having back problems at the time and couldn't sit very long, and wound up reading it lying on my side on the floor with the laptop likewise propped on its corresponding side. I probably wouldn't have finished the book except it was a new one by one of my favorite authors and I had to see how it came out.

Ebooks didn't seem very convenient or comfortable then. Queue a year or so of hiatus.

A friend at a science fiction convention was mentioning e-books and I told her about the laptop. She had just upgraded her palm pilot thingie about six months before and gave me her old one so I could experiment a bit more with the concept. E-books on the palm pilot thingie were somewhat better but I had format troubles--the html kept showing up in the text, which was distracting. I read a few (free) e-books but it wasn't something I did regularly.

Then I got a Palm T|X of my own for the whole calendar and contacts in your pocket thing. Presently I discovered that with Baen Free Library I could (with some amazing squirming through ill-placed and poorly designed hoops) get actual books that I cared about on it. I discovered Mobile Read. I discovered Manybooks.net. I discovered that it is uncomfortable to have to get out of bed in the middle of the night and huddle in your bathrobe over your reader so you can plug it into the wall so you can finish _Pride And Prejudice_ because the battery is absolutely positively out of charge.

And then I discovered e-Ink and specifically the Kindle. (I later learned that Sony had it too, but I'm a Mac user and this was back when Sonys only borderline worked with Macs.) I had heard about a predecessor to e-Ink twenty years before and now finally--FINALLY it was actually available on the market. I wanted one.

Six months later between some generous Christmas checks and the tax return, I could afford one, and bought it. Five weeks before the first price drop. But you know, I was happy to have had it for those five weeks.

About 8 months later I got a Kindle 2 from MobileRead's giveaway. After exhaustive testing and comparison of the two readers I elected to pass the Kindle 1 to my husband and kept the Kindle 2.

Now I'm eyeing the Kindle 3. :-)

08-04-2010, 06:49 PM	#80
catsittingstill Guru Posts: 643 Karma: 551634 Join Date: Dec 2007 Device: Kindle 1.0.8, iPod Touch, Kindle Keyboard	My first e-book I read on a laptop screen. I was having back problems at the time and couldn't sit very long, and wound up reading it lying on my side on the floor with the laptop likewise propped on its corresponding side. I probably wouldn't have finished the book except it was a new one by one of my favorite authors and I had to see how it came out. Ebooks didn't seem very convenient or comfortable then. Queue a year or so of hiatus. A friend at a science fiction convention was mentioning e-books and I told her about the laptop. She had just upgraded her palm pilot thingie about six months before and gave me her old one so I could experiment a bit more with the concept. E-books on the palm pilot thingie were somewhat better but I had format troubles--the html kept showing up in the text, which was distracting. I read a few (free) e-books but it wasn't something I did regularly. Then I got a Palm T\|X of my own for the whole calendar and contacts in your pocket thing. Presently I discovered that with Baen Free Library I could (with some amazing squirming through ill-placed and poorly designed hoops) get actual books that I cared about on it. I discovered Mobile Read. I discovered Manybooks.net. I discovered that it is uncomfortable to have to get out of bed in the middle of the night and huddle in your bathrobe over your reader so you can plug it into the wall so you can finish _Pride And Prejudice_ because the battery is absolutely positively out of charge. And then I discovered e-Ink and specifically the Kindle. (I later learned that Sony had it too, but I'm a Mac user and this was back when Sonys only borderline worked with Macs.) I had heard about a predecessor to e-Ink twenty years before and now finally--FINALLY it was actually available on the market. I wanted one. Six months later between some generous Christmas checks and the tax return, I could afford one, and bought it. Five weeks before the first price drop. But you know, I was happy to have had it for those five weeks. About 8 months later I got a Kindle 2 from MobileRead's giveaway. After exhaustive testing and comparison of the two readers I elected to pass the Kindle 1 to my husband and kept the Kindle 2. Now I'm eyeing the Kindle 3. :-)