What was your ultimate reason for getting an E-Reader?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Ah, you mentioned "has awful software" so I assumed the software was an issue.

I wouldn't read a PDF on a Sony 505 unless I had no other choice -- I much prefer epubs, and calibre to manage them -- but to each his own. The one thing that may someday drive me to a newer device is the PDF issue. I recently had the joy(?) of sitting in a car in the rain in Pennsylvania trying to read very tiny, un-resizeable print of a picture of a diagnostic chart for my car, which is heavily influencing that decision (also a decision to carry more umbrellas). Zoom was looking pretty good at that point.

I take any epubs I get and rebuild them as PDFs, so they are not as hideous as the original epub. It's a bit of a hassle, but the results are worth it to me since there's no other way to make a decent-looking ebook that I've found so far.

[some call me tim]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

I take any epubs I get and rebuild them as PDFs, so they are not as hideous as the original epub. It's a bit of a hassle, but the results are worth it to me since there's no other way to make a decent-looking ebook that I've found so far.

You lost me there. I'm new to ereaders, but I haven't seen anything wrong with a (properly formatted) epub on my 505. PDFs on the other hand, look like poop unless you want to read them in their ultra tiny native size.

[BookCat]

I haven't read the entire thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating stuff. Going back to the OP's question: I wonder if anyone else bought an ereader because a techie friend of theirs had managed to put PG ebooks: at the time he was reading "The Castle of Oltranto", onto an emulator so that he could read books on his old SP Gameboy? He brought it to a party and it impressed me: I wanted one. Unfortunately, the emulators were expensive.

I was accumulating PG books on my pc and hated reading them on screen. Like many others, I have a clutter of pbooks, so when I heard about the Sony 505, I wanted one in a BAD way!!

It also has the perk that I no longer have to pay for classics, which were difficult to find at car boot sales (garage sales).

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by some call me tim

You lost me there. I'm new to ereaders, but I haven't seen anything wrong with a (properly formatted) epub on my 505. PDFs on the other hand, look like poop unless you want to read them in their ultra tiny native size.

It depends on the page size of the PDFs. For some odd reason, people here assume ALL PDfs are letter or A4 sized. In the past 24 hours, I have created two PDFs especially for my JBL (an address book and a book catalog of all the books I have on calibre so far). Both have the pages sized to be a readable size when the JBL is set to show each page full screen (a setting that, once made, is persistant and doesn't have to be done again unless I reset the JBL itself).

My PDF books were created by scanning my p-books. Each page of the PDF retains the original size of the book; they are not stuck in some corner of a letter or A4 sized screen. When I set the JBL to display the width of the text, all but the largest books are easily read when read in landscape (and even the large ones can be read if the light is good and I'm in the mood; and I have to wear trifocals!). Because of the way the battery bump on the back of the JBL causes it to lean when set on a table, the majority of the time, I read in landscape anyway (that way, the battery bump acts like a kickstand). The two PDFs I recently created are for quick reference which means the JBL will be held while reading them, so I have them set for portrait viewing to cut down on scrolling.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by some call me tim

You lost me there. I'm new to ereaders, but I haven't seen anything wrong with a (properly formatted) epub on my 505. PDFs on the other hand, look like poop unless you want to read them in their ultra tiny native size.

Yes, many PDFs do look like poo. The PDFs that I make (mostly class notes, or greek texts) are sized to fit my 6 inch screen, so they look great on my reader. Also, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well many PDFs (including ones that are scanned with character recognition) do actually look when reflowed on my reader.

[some call me tim]

The only PDFs I've seen have been from books I checked out from the library, and those were teeny. When blown up to the largest setting, they're readable, but of course, the reflow gets all screwy, with the spacing and paragraphs and such. I cringe to think what reading a Cormac McCarthy book would be like on a reflowed PDF!

So, I can see that when making your own PDFs, you can scale it to fit the screen of whatever particular reader. That's cool, but still, doesn't that mean that any PDF ebooks you download or 99% of PDFs period would look janky on an ereader?

I still don't know what makes epubs so bad either...I've seen a couple poorly formatted epubs, and those WERE bad. But, when properly done, they've looked great to me.

[Worldwalker]

I know some people want right justification on their epubs. For good or bad, I'm happy with ragged right, so I don't have a problem with epubs on my 505. I certainly wouldn't prefer a pdf.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I know some people want right justification on their epubs. For good or bad, I'm happy with ragged right, so I don't have a problem with epubs on my 505. I certainly wouldn't prefer a pdf.

I'm happy with the ragged right myself, and I really didn't think I would be, go figure.

[vulcan_girl]

I was going on a trip for two weeks and only allowed one suitcase and a carryon.

[Stitchawl]

I bought my Sony 505 for only one reason; the cost of English language books in Japan. After receiving it, I discovered all the other wonderful benefits of having an e-book reader!

Now I can carry around dozens and dozens of books... in my pocket. I've freed an entire room full of bookshelves for use as 'otherstuffshelves,' and in Japanese apartments, any space is luxury! Then there is the ability to get new books without having to travel for an hour and a half to the only store that sells books I can enjoy reading, and having limited choices at that! God bless you, E-book inventor!

Stitchawl

[joobies]

Originally Posted by Emmaleigh

The main reason why I have an e-reader is because due to my health I couldn't go to the library or book store for quite some time. .

I heartily second this... Ereaders have given reading back to me.... moreover, I can now read the classics again.

[Rich_D]

I started ereading on a pda years ago, just to try the application. Then I started reading more and more when I was in a waiting room or standing in line. I bought a dedicated reader when I got tired of not being able to read my pda out in the sunlight.

[denisek]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

I was running out of space to keep all the pbooks. Ultimately, I was going on vacation and didn't want to cart around a whole bunch of books with me.

Same here. I hated having to buy a book in the airport years ago because I read everything on my trip.

Now I have plenty to read and magazines and newspapers too which is an added bonus.

Borrowing from the library doesn't hurt either.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

In the past 24 hours, I have created two PDFs especially for my JBL ... When I set the JBL to display the width of the text, all but the largest books are easily read when read in landscape (and even the large ones can be read if the light is good ....

I played around with this briefly, too, after getting my first ereader. The problem I ran into is you're still pretty much stuck with a fixed text size. Sure, you can tweak your page size so it displays at a fair size under normal conditions. However, because some days my eyes are better than others (I'm getting too old to pretend my eyes are still young), and I don't always reading in ideal lighting conditions, I've become very dependent on being able to change text size. Two things my current reader (Sibrary G5) does pretty well are text sizes (fourteen steps, from near-microscopic to ginormous -- a dozen words or less per screen), and reflow.

Plus it means I don't have to (re-)create a new PDF for every device I want to read on. The same epub will (depending on the software, of course) look just fine practically anywhere.

--Nathanael

[Mickey330]

My reason was: The capability to combine my lifelong love of books and reading with the somewhat newer ability to "geek out" over a new electronic toy.

Impossible to resist ... and I'm so glad I didn't!

Marilyn