Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggie Leung
I've seen some people dismiss those who use multipurpose devices, saying or implying that they're not serious readers and such. To me, that's just an advertisement for narrow-minded thinking.
It's obvious that a multipurpose device will attract a wider market -- readers as well as nonreaders. I doubt readers form the majority of buyers, of course. Many people don't read, as we all know. But we're all on this forum and similar ones because we're readers. So there goes the illogical idea that those who own multipurpose devices can't be serious readers.
I've spent about 20 years earning my living with words. Reading shaped my life, starting as a kid learning English as a second language. I'm as much a reader as anyone. I prefer multipurpose, backlit devices.
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The usual critique of multi-purpose devices is that they can't do everything well. This seems to get equated to "they do everything badly", which isn't the case.
Any multi-function device will have things it's intended for, which it is likely to do well, and other things it
can do, but won't do as well as another device intended for that. If your primary use case for a multi-function device is ebooks, you qualify choices based on that. The next question becomes "What is required to view the books I want to read?" That resolves to "Is the ebook viewer software I need available for the device?" If it is, the device may be a decent choice.
My usual reader is a multi-function device - a PDA. One advantage is that I can read just about everything on it. It lacks an ePub viewer, but no matter: I can convert ePub to something it can read. I have volumes in Plucker, MobiPocket, eReader, PDF, Word, RTF, and plain text on it, and it handles them all. (It does not handle DRMed material, but I don't
get DRMed material, and don't care.)
But while half its purpose in life is to be an ebook viewer, it's also a PDA with standard PIM functions, can view/edit Word docs and Excel spreadsheets, can be used as a writing engine with a folding keyboard, displays digital pictures, views MPEG and AVI video, plays MP3 and Ogg audio files, lets me play with code in a variety of languages, can get online via wifi, and oh, yes: it plays games.
Something like an Android based tablet may be my next device for similar reasons, as reading ebooks isn't the only thing I'll do with it.
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Dennis