Jetbook with New Formats Now at Bed Bath and Beyond

Originally Posted by DaleDe

well perhaps I am mistaken but here is the exact text from their comparison:

Cost of titles: For Jetbook: FREE. Ask us what you need and we will run Internet search for you FREE

For Sony: Requires to buy limited number of books in Sony store

For Amazon: Books at Amazon store. Range from $1 to $30 per download

Exactly what does the word requires mean to you?

Dale

This is poorly worded but it's more an error of omission. It could be taken to mean that you must buy some books from the Sony store. But it does not state that that you must buy all your books there or that you can not get books from an outside source.

[Kris777]

Some History (January 6th, 2006 ): Sony "confusing the world about formats"
http://www.teleread.org/2006/01/06/p...med-pdf-files/
...
eBabel confusion in action

There’s no doubt that Sony is now confusing the world about formats. Even a Sony tech person was convinced that the Sony Reader could read DRMed PDF.

If Sony people are confused–along with BusinessWeek–what about consumers? I know Sony wants to make a killing through its use of a proprietary format and be the Kong of e-books. But so do Adobe and Microsoft! Better to settle for a smaller share of a much bigger market that OpenReader will make possible.
...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by akira28

This is poorly worded but it's more an error of omission. It could be taken to mean that you must buy some books from the Sony store. But it does not state that that you must buy all your books there or that you can not get books from an outside source.

By comparison with the column for jetbook it implies that this is a difference between this product and the Jetbook product. Context is everything. That is why I included the Jetbook description. It is saying exactly that it is required to buy your books from Sony in comparison to the free books available for Jetbook and implies that there are no free books available from Sony since the price does not include 0.

YOu can certainly interpret this anyway you wish out of context but what it says in context is what it means.

Dale

[wodin]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Exactly what does the word requires mean to you?

Dale

I have a PRS505 and I'm not required to buy ANYTHING from the Sony Store. In fact I refuse to now that I have found out how to strip DRM from Mobi books and convert them to LRF or ePub to read on the Sony.

Since I can do the same thing with a JetBook, any advantage in that regard the Sony had has been rendered moot.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Context is everything. That is why I included the Jetbook description. It is saying exactly that it is required to buy your books from Sony in comparison to the free books available for Jetbook and implies that there are no free books available from Sony since the price does not include 0.

Dale,

Actually, context is not everything. As you indicated things can be implied without being said. But in this case you are inferring an exclusive relationship between Sony and its store that is just not mentioned (or implied) there. Had Ectaco used an exclusive word such as "only" or "solely" you would be correct. However, it only states "Requires to buy limited number of books in Sony store" not "Requires to buy books only in Sony store" or "Requires to buy books solely at Sony store". There is a big difference there. Any conclusion inferring an exclusive relationship from Ectaco's sentence is false.

I have had my say on this subject.

Originally Posted by wodin

I have a PRS505 and I'm not required to buy ANYTHING from the Sony Store. In fact I refuse to now that I have found out how to strip DRM from Mobi books and convert them to LRF or ePub to read on the Sony.

Since I can do the same thing with a JetBook, any advantage in that regard the Sony had has been rendered moot.

Wodin,

I hope you will enjoy your new toy. I think you will like the screen. BTW, I checked with my nearest BBB and none of their stores close to me have it yet.

[sirbruce]

The problem is the sentence is poorly written. They probably meant:

Requires you to buy a limited number of books at the Sony store.

Now, the problem is, does "a limited number of books" modify requires, or the Sony store?

If they mean that you're required to buy a limited number from the store, but then you could buy more elsewhere... well, that's just false. There's no requirement to buy, say, 2 books from Sony before you can buy or get for free books anywhere else. That wouldn't make much sense.

If they mean that you're required to buy from store *which has a limited number of books*, that would make more sense as a marketing point. You're commenting on Sony's limited selection. Notice how they do *not* make the same claim of the Kindle, even though you could, because the Kindle has a much greater selection. Thus, what they meant was that the Sony store has a limited selection from which to buy. Clearly.

However, this is still deceptive. While they didn't use the word "requires" for the Kindle, the implication is the same... you have to buy from those stores. For Kindle it's Amazon. For Sony it's Sony and it's limited. For JetBook: You get books from the Internet for FREE.

And that's not only deceptive because you can get all those free books for Sony and Kindle too, but it also implies that virtually any book can get gotten for free, which is a lie unless it's illegal.

If they had ibstead fully disclosed something like

Amazon: buy new books from a wide selection and as well as free public domain books
Sony: buy new books from a limited selection as well as free public domain books
JetBook: can't buy new most new books, mostly get free public domain books

Well that's just not as impressive, now isn't it? JetBook comes off looking worse, not better. (Of course there are more recent free books you can get, and now I suppose you can read buy new non-DRM MOBI books for JetBook, but these are edge cases.)

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by akira28

Wodin,

I hope you will enjoy your new toy. I think you will like the screen. BTW, I checked with my nearest BBB and none of their stores close to me have it yet.

Somebody posted before that BBB store in Rego Park, NYC has jetBooks

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wodin

I have a PRS505 and I'm not required to buy ANYTHING from the Sony Store. In fact I refuse to now that I have found out how to strip DRM from Mobi books and convert them to LRF or ePub to read on the Sony.

Since I can do the same thing with a JetBook, any advantage in that regard the Sony had has been rendered moot.

You know this and I know this. But, someone who doesn't know this will take what's written as fact even though it is incorrect. This chart was put out when the Jetbook was first available for sale. And for one, Ectaco has never corrected it yet. While the post above says that Sony wasn't clear enough about whether the 500 could ro could not read DRM protected PDF, that has since been sorted. Ectaco has not sort out it's misleading/incorrect statements at all.

If I didn't know much about eBooks readers except that Joe Smith has one and he likes it and it reading The Hobbit and that sounds good to me and I go looking online and find the Jetbook and see the chart, I'm going to think the Jetbook is all that and more because I can get my eBooks for free. Well, I cannot get The Hobbit for free unless Ectaco is willing to get me a pirated copy. And if they cannot get me a copy, then what they are saying in their chart is wrong.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wodin

I have a PRS505 and I'm not required to buy ANYTHING from the Sony Store. In fact I refuse to now that I have found out how to strip DRM from Mobi books and convert them to LRF or ePub to read on the Sony.

Since I can do the same thing with a JetBook, any advantage in that regard the Sony had has been rendered moot.

You do have this all wrong. It's not about what you can actually do. It's about reading the chart and seeing what Ectaco actually says you can do. You know what you can do and what you cannot do. But a lot of people would read that and think that what it says is all you can do.

[dreams]

O.K. The way I see it is that this is being marketed for Average People. Tech savvy people know what to check for and will mostly be O.K. as they can see problem areas. I agree that the average person will not have the background to understand when they purchase it. I posted in the below thread about an average person's experience...

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...621#post436621

Originally Posted by dreams

OK average person: my sister-in-law ordered it for her mother and herself. Surprise! "Now, we all have readers and can share books!"she tells me.

They both like bestsellers and Harlequin Romances. My sister-in-law loved my reader but, we never really talked about formats.
She called tonight about which to download as Harlequin had 3 different ones for the book and was Mobipocket the same as MOBI?

I checked the site and they had:Adobe PDF eBook (which I found out really means ADE), Microsoft eBook, and Mobipocket eBook.

I told her "none" as they had DRM. It took me almost an hour to try to explain: no you can't buy the "kindle" book just because you have a reader, DRM means protected, ADE, PDF, etc.... you get the idea. I only have a basic knowledge myself with the Sony 505 and had to explain that yes I can get some books she can't and off again because she still didn't get it. Then, she asked about library books.. as my mom had said I could get library books too.

I was exhausted trying to explain but, I did advise her to forget them and just get Sony 505's. That way it still meets their requirements: size, bestsellers, and Harlequin Romances (plus at least I can get them started).

So were these "average people" happy? Not even close.
Was I happy? Nope. I don't mind explaining how to use something but, trying to explain the why not is exhausting.

[lemon lime]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

...
Amazon: buy new books from a wide selection and as well as free public domain books
Sony: buy new books from a limited selection as well as free public domain books
BeBook*: can't buy new most new books, mostly get free public domain books

Well that's just not as impressive, now isn't it? BeBook* comes off looking worse, not better. (Of course there are more recent free books you can get, and now I suppose you can read buy new non-DRM MOBI books for BeBook*, but these are edge cases.)

*Jetbook

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by lemon lime

*Jetbook

Thanks. :P

[JSWolf]

the incident that dreams just posted is one I see happening more often due to the Jetbook not being up front about lack of any DRMed formats and the fact that it's sold in a shop that lots of non-techies shop.

[Kris777]

As I wrote before BB&B has a good return policy and if somebody doesn't like jetBook He can return it and get money back. But very possible that 9 from 10 people will like jetBook very much the same as many people on this forum and will keep it, buy non DRMed books from fictionwise or baen websites and download DRMed free books from gutenberg.org, manybooks.net and other websites the same as 500,000 iPod and iPhone owners donwloaded non DRMed books via Stanza. I'm sure that many from 500,000 iPod and iPhone owners are average people who visit BB&B stores. I think that we will see many people with positive experience very soon.
The point is that everybody can buy it and return if they don't like jetBook or keep it and enjoy ebook reading if they like it .