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Originally Posted by A J Edwards
I get the impression that commentators on eBook readers (not members of this illustrious forum) can only see as far as reading novels and classics. A great idea in itself. However, for me the real strength of an eBook reader is for technical papers, text books, and personal written material etc etc. Most professional people need a lot of reference material and text books are HEAVY. Keeping up to date requires a lot of reading and once you have the paper/document/book in one form then one can easily transcribe to another - there is a lot of software our there.
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Although I agree that the academic/technical/business use for eInk devices is potentially huge, it's a
different field to that served by the devices currently on the market (with the notable exception of the iLiad). Those fields need large-screen devices, not the paperback-book size machines we have now, which are (IMHO) ideally sized for fiction reading. Having owned an iLiad, one of the reasons I sold it was the fact that it was too large to conveniently carry around with me everywhere, which I what I do with my CyBook.
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Notwithstanding the above, I still thin k that £199 for the Sony 505 is too high when one compares it with small laptop at around £165 to £185 whic can do much much more.
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That's very much a personal decision. For me, the £200-300 price range of the current readers is comfortably in the "impulse buy" range, and I have no regrets at all about buying any of the (many) readers I've had. They are very much in the same price-bracket as the upper end of the iPod range, after all.