Why so many ereaders???

[Chi Cygni]

Netronix, my first one, which was resurrected (replaced) I hope to sell. (unopened box since delivery)
Opus my prrrrrecioussss I will use until it falls apart.
Kindle 3 to travel with because of 3G (bought for 3G specifically as the only reason, to travel in Europe, proved extremely useful but while at home sits in the cupboard and gathers dust)
iPad to roam around MR these days (also tribal newspapers as I'm an expat)

Also, in the before-Alf days, Opus was for epub, Kindle for mobi/azw to have access to both worlds. I decided to stick to Opus and try to fend off upgraditis (will have back up Opus soon though just in case)

So, basically I use only Opus and iPad every day. Kindle occasionally. All of them I find useful.

[laughingdragons]

I'm guessing some people just have to have the latest reader.

I'm thinking of getting a kindle touch now that they got rid of that awful keyboard and have gotten a lot of thier free books the past few years. Plus they have a good selection of books.

So I might end up with 2 readers because I'm not giving up my sony 350.

[NicholasV]

Alot of people are taught to be incomplete, or are incomplete without this teaching, but falsely think they can bury away that void with consumerism by buying new products. They feel something is missing and they always search for as the Dalai Lama puts it: "something new, something more, something more, something more." But it can only be a false palliative. Guy Debord invented a theory of spectacle. To use the Kindle lineup to explain, if I was a e-ink consumerist hoarder, I would follow this paradigm:
1.)spectacle of Kindle 1 > 2.) buy kindle
3.)spectacle of kindle 2 > 4.) purchase Kindle 2
5.)spectacle of Kindle 3 > 6.) purchase Kindle 3
7.)spectacle of Kindle 4 > 8.) buy Kindle 4
In his theory, consumers are taught to lust after what they cannot have, an intangible spectacle, the spectacle of a product, not its mere physical embodiment. If they just wanted the product, they would find their telos after possessing it, but that is not the case, they are left without telos because what they want is the spectacle itself, but that they can never have. So they are left to follow as close to an infinite buying loop as their monetary station will allow.

In the early 20th Century, almost all products were purchased because they served a need. Back then advertising was based on features, utilitarian considerations and the needs they fulfilled. However the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays invented a new discipline called marketing and public relations. Thanks to him this trend of utilitarianism was abandoned, to appeal instead to the irrational side. He was paid handsomely by companies to associate their products with a positive mental state, an amazing experience, a sense of being. His marketing paradigm has such a huge foundation in modern society, I absolutely cannot explain well to anyone what Erich Fromm succintly observed that "having is not being." Most people believe what they have, what they consume, constitutes the greater part of their personal identity!

I am gonna make alot of new enemy stalkers for what I wrote above already, so I will close this post out by saying check out the the short 20 min. free Documentary The Story of Stuff. That Doc. will help you understand the social and environmental consequences of consumerism on steroids. If you really feel you need to have so many 4-5 e-ink devices just for yourself, probably you need a type of help I cannot provide. Practicing such extreme attachment to your possessions is self defeating. Probably you will also get extremely upset if any product you own is destroyed or perhaps scratched. I am sure you have seen or heard of materialistic people who have new cars, the car gets scratched and they are pissy and in a bad mood for quite a bit of time over the petty aesthetic condition of a material object. It is best to let go and sell them, give them away instead of adopting a hording mentality.

[kennyc]

+1 for the story of stuff!

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by NicholasV

If you really feel you need to have so many 4-5 e-ink devices just for yourself, probably you need a type of help I cannot provide.

I don't need them. I want them. I enjoy them. I would think that most of my fellow eink enthusiasts feel the same way. I'm not much of a collector in any other way.

[David58117]

I only have 2. T1 is my main one since I prefer epubs and like the library feature, also microsd is useful. Kindle 4 nontouch is my second..its smaller so I can easily put it in my pocket and go about my day. I like browsing amazon and not needing to remove drm is nice...also the cheaper price is nice, and I think the build quality is perfect for a toss around device.

I'm increasingly curious about the kobo though...

[shootingMaNs]

I mainly read on my Story HD, but I use the 600 to read the news. It's a lot easier to skip around in a newspaper with a touch screen.

[sufue]

As I said in another thread, although it was somewhat off-topic there, each of my e-readers has a niche to fill - think of Darwin's finches...

iPaq PDA: used to be my main e-reader (and calendar/e-mail/etc.), demoted since I got my Android phone, getting VERY long in the tooth now so I use it as my gym/exercise bike reader, and I don't worry about it getting sweat on it - if it dies, so what!

Android phone: most of my reading since I carry it everywhere already, backlit and small so I can read it it bed easily (backlit screens don't bother me)

PRS-300: e-ink, read in sunny places, long battery life - so good on trips

Nook Color: rooted - use to read .pdf's that don't fit well on smaller devices, use as a tablet to take notes, and sometimes to read normal stuff when I'm carrying it anyway

Kindle keyboard SO: new, only had it a few days (how could I pass up $89 at Best Buy last weekend) - e-ink and long battery life so it fills the same niche as the PRS-300; thinking about "demoting" one of the two to replace the PDA as the gym/exercise bike reader; also I was curious about the SO, some of which have sounded pretty good

BTW, I CAN resist e-readers - I really really wanted also to try the Nook Simple Touch that was on sale at BN on Black Friday, but couldn't figure out any justification to buy it AND the Kindle

[Tony1988]

Originally Posted by NicholasV

Alot of people are taught to be incomplete, or are incomplete without this teaching, but falsely think they can bury away that void with consumerism by buying new products. They feel something is missing and they always search for as the Dalai Lama puts it: "something new, something more, something more, something more." But it can only be a false palliative. Guy Debord invented a theory of spectacle. To use the Kindle lineup to explain, if I was a e-ink consumerist hoarder, I would follow this paradigm:
1.)spectacle of Kindle 1 > 2.) buy kindle
3.)spectacle of kindle 2 > 4.) purchase Kindle 2
5.)spectacle of Kindle 3 > 6.) purchase Kindle 3
7.)spectacle of Kindle 4 > 8.) buy Kindle 4
In his theory, consumers are taught to lust after what they cannot have, an intangible spectacle, the spectacle of a product, not its mere physical embodiment. If they just wanted the product, they would find their telos after possessing it, but that is not the case, they are left without telos because what they want is the spectacle itself, but that they can never have. So they are left to follow as close to an infinite buying loop as their monetary station will allow.

In the early 20th Century, almost all products were purchased because they served a need. Back then advertising was based on features, utilitarian considerations and the needs they fulfilled. However the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays invented a new discipline called marketing and public relations. Thanks to him this trend of utilitarianism was abandoned, to appeal instead to the irrational side. He was paid handsomely by companies to associate their products with a positive mental state, an amazing experience, a sense of being. His marketing paradigm has such a huge foundation in modern society, I absolutely cannot explain well to anyone what Erich Fromm succintly observed that "having is not being." Most people believe what they have, what they consume, constitutes the greater part of their personal identity!

I am gonna make alot of new enemy stalkers for what I wrote above already, so I will close this post out by saying check out the the short 20 min. free Documentary The Story of Stuff. That Doc. will help you understand the social and environmental consequences of consumerism on steroids. If you really feel you need to have so many 4-5 e-ink devices just for yourself, probably you need a type of help I cannot provide. Practicing such extreme attachment to your possessions is self defeating. Probably you will also get extremely upset if any product you own is destroyed or perhaps scratched. I am sure you have seen or heard of materialistic people who have new cars, the car gets scratched and they are pissy and in a bad mood for quite a bit of time over the petty aesthetic condition of a material object. It is best to let go and sell them, give them away instead of adopting a hording mentality.

Good stuff. Yes people do love to buy. Always looking for that ultimate item that will help make them "immortal"

[odiakkoh]

I bought a KSO just for the offers. I was going to get a Sony for actual ereading but the Kindle kind of grew on me.

[estelle58]

It started with my iPhone and that got me hooked up to ereading. Then I bought a Kobo Wifi because I wanted a real ereader, bigger and easier on the eyes. And a couple of weeks ago the Kobo Vox appeared and I just had to have it... for reading and all the little bonus it does (Internet, games, email access...)

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by NicholasV

If you really feel you need to have so many 4-5 e-ink devices just for yourself, probably you need a type of help I cannot provide.

It's not a case of "need them." The technology is rapidly changing; each new generation does things the previous technology didn't. However, the manufacturers are also *retiring* features they don't think are necessary, and many of those are much-loved features.

If I want to read the LRFs I've collected, I need to keep my Sony 505. If I want to read mobis, I need something else. 5" screen for travel in my pocket. 6" screen for more comfortable reading at home. A different device would be necessary to take notes--but it might only read one or two filetypes. A color screen that played games would be nice (not that I'm going to get one, but someone might); that's a fourth device. It can't replace the others because the battery life is too short for weekend-long camping trips.

Resale value on these is low, because each new generation is lowering the costs. Why get rid of the year before last's model at 1/4 of its original cost, when instead you can have a reader available to loan to a friend who's never used one?

And, of course, if you play the DRM game, you *must* keep your devices, or lose access to the books verified on servers that are no longer active.

Probably you will also get extremely upset if any product you own is destroyed or perhaps scratched.

Most of those I've seen with multiple readers are fairly comfortable with the idea that they don't last forever and sometimes just break. It's just that the utility of having them around is higher than the hassle & small potential benefit of selling them.

Each ereader has different features. Nothing on the market today can replace my Sony 505, and I don't think anything can replace my PEZ; some of the features *that I use* on each are not available on any other devices.

Saying "four devices is hoarding" is like saying "four different bookshelves is hoarding; why would you need one with tall shelves, one with short shelves, a bedside one, and a floor-to-ceiling one in the basement?"

[KunoK]

I like to read on e-ink displays. I want to have a reader for amazon and one for epub. Since english is not my native language, I prefer to have a builtin dictionary.
My first reader was a Cybook gen3. It works fine, but have no dictionary.
I then tried a Boox. The display is kind of greyish and the dictionary support is not that smart. It also has formatting errors for some books. I was never happy with the boox.
I tried a K3, and I liked it from the beginning.
I tried to get a Sony 650, but could not find one, so I finally got a T1. I am happy with that one.

[Tony1988]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It's not a case of "need them." The technology is rapidly changing; each new generation does things the previous technology didn't. However, the manufacturers are also *retiring* features they don't think are necessary, and many of those are much-loved features.

If I want to read the LRFs I've collected, I need to keep my Sony 505. If I want to read mobis, I need something else. 5" screen for travel in my pocket. 6" screen for more comfortable reading at home. A different device would be necessary to take notes--but it might only read one or two filetypes. A color screen that played games would be nice (not that I'm going to get one, but someone might); that's a fourth device. It can't replace the others because the battery life is too short for weekend-long camping trips.

Resale value on these is low, because each new generation is lowering the costs. Why get rid of the year before last's model at 1/4 of its original cost, when instead you can have a reader available to loan to a friend who's never used one?

And, of course, if you play the DRM game, you *must* keep your devices, or lose access to the books verified on servers that are no longer active.



Most of those I've seen with multiple readers are fairly comfortable with the idea that they don't last forever and sometimes just break. It's just that the utility of having them around is higher than the hassle & small potential benefit of selling them.

Each ereader has different features. Nothing on the market today can replace my Sony 505, and I don't think anything can replace my PEZ; some of the features *that I use* on each are not available on any other devices.

Saying "four devices is hoarding" is like saying "four different bookshelves is hoarding; why would you need one with tall shelves, one with short shelves, a bedside one, and a floor-to-ceiling one in the basement?"

Good points. What about the 505 is irreplaceable. I do like the sonys and that looks like a very nice reader.(It was the generation before the blunder with the shiny screen correct???)

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Tony1988

Good points. What about the 505 is irreplaceable. I do like the sonys and that looks like a very nice reader.(It was the generation before the blunder with the shiny screen correct???)

Yes, before the shiny screen. The combination of features I can't get anywhere else:
1) Buttons, not touchscreen. I don't have to navigate through a morass of dropdowns to move around. Some newer non-Sonys have this; new Sonys have gone to touchscreens.

2) LRF and RTF support; I believe both of those have been dropped. LRF is minor for me (I have a few ebooks, but not many); lack of support for an editable doc type is one of my main reasons for not "upgrading" to a newer device. My experiences with the PEZ are such that I won't risk another device without checking how its support works.

3) Docs listed by metadata, not doc title. This also exists on the Kindle, but the filetype support is so different I have no interest in it.

4) Listing by Title, Author or Date Loaded. (Plus, I suppose, tags/keywords, but I don't bother using the additional software it'd take to set those. I move ebooks & other docs on & off the device from several computers; I'm never going to want to filter everything through a library program.)