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sborsody · 06-07-2007, 01:14 PM

Hi Everyone,

I'm not a big fan of carrying around a lot of different little devices, but I recently became interested in purchasing an ebook reader because I have a ton of PDF files I haven't read yet and I don't want to sit at the laptop or desktop to read them. I've become rather fond of the e-ink displays due to their readability and the fact that I'll probably be reading outside in bright sunlight a lot while the little one plays at the park. So this week I found this site and started to read up on all the different devices. I checked out the Sony Reader at my local Border's books and was quite happy with the display (which was incidently on sale for $50 less).

But now it is time to vent. These manufacturers are completely missing the mark by not having good PDF support. Instead they are busy trying to peddle their own little obscure ebook formats with DRM. Almost my entire collection of "ebooks" are in PDF (one is compiled html), even the journal articles downloaded from sites like JSTOR or articles from tech publisher O'Reilly. Because of this I'm not wanting to purchase an ebook reader until these guys get a clue. Why should I spend over $300 for a device that won't properly display my current ebook library and doesn't even support Unicode? They'd sell a lot more of these devices if they didn't assume potential customers are going to be hopping up and down to purchase their unexciting book titles. They should really build these devices to cater to the tech and educational markets that have pre-existing PDF ebooks first where customers are not recreational readers.

Anyone else feel this way?

06-07-2007, 01:14 PM	#1
sborsody Member Posts: 15 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Northern California Device: Sony Reader	Am I allowed to vent here? Hi Everyone, I'm not a big fan of carrying around a lot of different little devices, but I recently became interested in purchasing an ebook reader because I have a ton of PDF files I haven't read yet and I don't want to sit at the laptop or desktop to read them. I've become rather fond of the e-ink displays due to their readability and the fact that I'll probably be reading outside in bright sunlight a lot while the little one plays at the park. So this week I found this site and started to read up on all the different devices. I checked out the Sony Reader at my local Border's books and was quite happy with the display (which was incidently on sale for $50 less). But now it is time to vent. These manufacturers are completely missing the mark by not having good PDF support. Instead they are busy trying to peddle their own little obscure ebook formats with DRM. Almost my entire collection of "ebooks" are in PDF (one is compiled html), even the journal articles downloaded from sites like JSTOR or articles from tech publisher O'Reilly. Because of this I'm not wanting to purchase an ebook reader until these guys get a clue. Why should I spend over $300 for a device that won't properly display my current ebook library and doesn't even support Unicode? They'd sell a lot more of these devices if they didn't assume potential customers are going to be hopping up and down to purchase their unexciting book titles. They should really build these devices to cater to the tech and educational markets that have pre-existing PDF ebooks first where customers are not recreational readers. Anyone else feel this way? Last edited by sborsody; 06-07-2007 at 01:34 PM.