Quote:
Originally Posted by RickyMaveety
Sorry you think the Kindle is "hideous" .... that makes you a "form over function" person in my book.
And .... only having the page keys on one side of the screen, forcing you to use a cover that only opens on the left side, and having keys that appear somewhat less than intuitive, makes that reader look less than functional.
That said, its form is not all that great. It's OK, but I wouldn't put on par with the other products that are out there.
So, I do hope that those of you who purchase it are as happy with it as I am with my Kindles (yes, I own three of them, and happen to think they are quite beautiful, as well as amazingly functional, and reliable).
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I didn't choose the EZ Reader primarily because it looked better, but it is not an irrelevant point.
The Kindle was third in my top-three list of choices, with Sony being my second option.
The main problem I had with the Kindle and the Sony is their proprietary DRM formats. You are more or less stuck into eitehr buying a Kindle or Sony respectively once you start down that road. Mobipocket is more "open".
The EZ Reader I purchased is my
first reader. It is the portable one that I intend to take with me on the bus to work or vacation. They are going to soon come out with some very nice readers (9.7", flexi-screens, color e-ink, etc.). When these do come out, the odds are that my Mobipocket e-books will transfer to most of these new readers, whether or not the reader is one I purchase from Astak or some other company. And if they don't, I have the capability of converting my e books to another format
as of this moment.
Can the same be said for the Kindle or Sony format books? For those you are tied to that hardware vendor, at least at the moment until they decide to open up their specific technology (or someone comes up with hacks, which they may have already???). And Amazon does not even appear to be moving as fast as Sony in coming out with new and improved versions of their readers. So how long will you have to wait for a 9.7" reader???
Sony and Amazon want to be both an E-Book store and a hardware vendor and corner the market on both.
One thing I should add to my review though is that if you are using a reader for technical docs, reference or textbooks, you probably will want a Sony or Kindle because of the search/highlighting functions. The EZ Reader is primarily for reading (novels or non-fiction books) and not reference. But then there are other technologies that are probably better suited for reference docs (I have a Palm Pilot) anyway as opposed to an E reader.