Did anyone else love their ebook reader at first but start going back to paper?

[Blue Tyson]

Not a chance.

[hansl]

Agnostic of any ebook formats, I loved the device initially until I learned that PDF is not really supported as it is layout-centric. So I spent most of my time for it with format conversion tricks. This was an interesting and sometimes rewarding learning phase. But in the end the handling of the PRS-500 was too clumsy (no search, no commenting, no reasonable keyboard replacement, bad navigation, battery consuming stand-by mode, display too grey for my taste) and I didn't want to spend more money on such devices before they are mature i.e. art-book-capable, much more comfortably usable and cheaper. So in theory I was set for reading paperback-like ebooks but actually had lost the fun reading with it.

Then there was a phase with the Nintendo DS Lite (without camera) on which I could read non-DRMed epubs, but the display resolution was too bad for long reading.

Currently I'm reading copyright free Gutenberg etc. books on my cellphone with the Mobipocket reader and keep my hands off converting anything but epub to prc (and only if really necessary, but I don't know of an epub reader for Symbian S60 5th generation - touch screen edititon).

This is fun and most of the dead tree books I read are not available as ebooks. Also, I hardly buy new paperbacks. I'm also not buying DRMed ebooks because I'm not sure this is a good idea since Amazon rolled over Mobipocket and I don't have an iPhone.

My stock of unread paper books is large but going back to paper on the long run - NO, although the unlimited joy fo reading ebooks without any obstacles has not yet arrived.

Hansl

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

> Did anyone else love their ebook reader at first but start going back to paper?

No.

BOb

I could not put it better !


Yes, Okay there are annoyances, Geo Restriction being the main one - BUT there are plenty of books in an electronic version to enjoy....

But I have (yet) to see a device (that I would like) that can adequately replace many non-fiction books that I like ...

[d.culloch]

I have being reading ebooks for the last two years. I have modern writers and the not so modern writers on my reader. I occassionaly buy colour print pbooks.

After two years I now know why I prefer ebooks over pbooks and that is that I love searching through Feed Books and other such sites that have bygone authors who I have not heard of before.

So for me the ebook has opened up another world of authors that I am pretty sure I would not have discovered by going to a book shop.

[Ravensknight]

I'm still in transition. I have about 1000 books of fantasy, scifi with another 1500 of non-fiction and "other" [mainly my wife's]. I've been darknetting most of what I already own.

and I belong to the SFBC. I love hardcovers :-) they just take up too much space. and in a condo, space is premium!

but the only time I read a pbook is when I see a new release at the library...

[mikemc2]

I've only purchased one pbook (James Ellroy's "Blood's A Rover") since getting my Sony 505 last September and only because there was no ebook available. I received a paperback novel from my Secret Santa at work and that's it. I tend to have several books going at once and it's nice to have them all in one convenient package.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

I've had my Kindle 1 since August 2008 and really threw myself into and really do like it. I have something like 600 ebooks right now and haven't bought a single dead tree book since (though I did receive one at Christmas).

But...

I'm hitting a little bit of a bump with regards to ebooks. Frustration with formats and DRM and format shifting (for future) and archiving...and so on and so on. It is so much simpler to just buy a book and put it on the shelf.

Then their is pricing and the recent Amazon/Macmillan struggle. Well, pricing in general. I was surfing Amazon today and for many of the books I'm interested in right now they are part of Amazon's 4-3 promotion. So they end up cheaper in DTB format. Example: 4 DTB's in the 4-3 promotion at $7.99 each = $31.96, but one of them would be free so the price would actually be $23.97. The same 4 books for Kindle at (usually) $6.39 each = $25.56. Ok, it's not much of a difference, but still...

I do love being able to carry multiple books with me in my purse via the Kindle; I like being able to download samples; I like some of the freebie books; but given some of my frustrations, when my K1 dies, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

Anyone else in the same mindset or have these thoughts on occasion? Any suggestions to snap out of it...or not?

I e-read or buy paper--depending on the price. I've yet to pay more for an ebook if I can buy a used copy cheaper. Now, I can see the day it might happen--for convenience or instant gratification (gotta read NOW) but I do use Amazon's 4 for 3 a lot...which means not getting it in ebooks. Now if those prices were 1.99 or whatever, I'd just get the ebook.

It's actually kind of frustrating to have to bother with a regular book when I find an ebook that is priced too high...but I'll read whatever format!

[Harmon]

I never stopped reading pbooks. I just shifted some of my pbook reading to the ebook version. What I'm finding, over time, is that my pbook reading tends to be non-fiction, and my ebook reading, fiction. Not entirely, though - the two ebooks I'm reading now on my iPhone Kindle app are both non-fiction, albeit somewhat lightweight - one is This Book is Overdue, about being a librarian, and the other is The Cello Suites, about the author's encounter with Bach & Pablo Casals. (What's cool about this is that I can listen to the suites while reading the book, anywhere I am! The book is organized to parallel the movements of each suite.)

One book I am reading in paper because it's not available in digits is The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies. I have that at work & sneak in a few pages now & then. It's a very awkward book to hold, and would work much better on my ereader.

These days I spend most of my reading time on my Sony 300/505 with Instapaper articles. But my bedtime book is a diary written by a Jew in Nazi Germany (I Shall Bear Witness, by Victor Klemperer), and my dining room table book is a small book on economics by Jane Jacobs.

I think what's happened to me is that my serious reading is still in paper, but my entertainment, whether fiction or non-fiction, is digital whenever available. I don't think that this is because the serious stuff isn't available electronically. I think it has something to do with the physicality of pbooks, but I really haven't figured out why that should be.

I read a lot of magazines, in paper, but when I get my iPad I expect to migrate all my subscriptions except the food magazines to digital.

The bottom line for me is that paper and digital are not an either/or. They are a both/and.

[Gogolo]

I think it has something to do with the physicality of pbooks, but I really haven't figured out why that should be.

I have the feeling I can memorize better with pbooks. It would be interesting to investigate this in a study. I think the more different information available (grip, different look of pages, position of the book in a room, smell etc.) the better the memorizing.

[Nakor]

I think it might have something to do with the fact that it's a bit easier to mark pages, flip back and forth, skim for the parts you're interested in, or even just scan up and down a single page you're reading through with a physical book than with a digital one. None of that is terribly important for the vast majority of fiction, but for non-fiction works it's handy to be able to jump about.

[Victoria]

I've had my sony reader for 2 years & much prefer ebooks to paper. I used to have a steady stream of pbooks coming in the mail, but rarely buy them now, unless they are art books, magazines, or say a computer manual, where illustration is central. I hope to convert entirely when the iPad takes off.

I am now bothered by many things about paper books that I didn't notice before. My art books are beautiful, but very heavy, and give me a crick in my neck. The cheap paper of paperbacks dry out my hands. Holding stiff books open puts pressure on an arthritic thumb. Plus there is the whole issue of storage. I'm like the princess sleeping a pea in her mattress - a complete conversion can't come soon enough.

[omk3]

I try to avoid paper books completely.

Room is a major consideration. My house in Greece is still full of books (though I've given away a full carful of them...). I divide my life between different countries and different houses, and have to move rather frequently. Carting loads of books around, especially with the speed I read, is a major problem.

Secondly, I'm spoiled by the extra options the readers offer. Suddenly I hate it when it's difficult to keep a thick paper book open, and I have more than once tried to double click a word to see its definition Funny the things you take for granted for a lifetime, and then suddenly they start to annoy you...

But I still like going to bookstores and browsing. Only now, instead of leaving with tens of newly purchased books under my arms, I leave empty-handed. That feels strange.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by omk3

Secondly, I'm spoiled by the extra options the readers offer. Suddenly I hate it when it's difficult to keep a thick paper book open, and I have more than once tried to double click a word to see its definition Funny the things you take for granted for a lifetime, and then suddenly they start to annoy you...

Exactly! And the print in p-books now seem so small and hard to read (and it's not beacuse I need new glasses). Even if the contrast on an e-ink screen could be a little better, the whole experience of an e-book reader still affords too many conveniences compared with paper.

[texasnightowl]

Originally Posted by Nakor

... flip back and forth, skim for the parts you're interested in...

This I definitely agree with. There are often times I remember some word or passage from a book that I want to re-read and in DTB format I usually remember about how far thru the book it was or what surrounded it. I know that the kindle, and other readers, have search functions, but sometimes you don't remember an exact word that was used...sometimes you just remember the scenario or context and flipping thru a paperback/hardback is easier in this case than trying to figure out where it was in the ebook form.

[tomsem]

I have a stack of books that I have not touched since getting a Kindle. I've purchased a few more, but these have all been books with lots of graphics. For those that are just text, there's no question that I prefer the ebook version for its convenience. It's true that you can't easily 'flip through' an ebook to find a passage (especially given the low page refresh rates of current e-ink readers), but I find that text search is usually more efficient and powerful than this anyway, at least on Kindle.

I've never been one to mark up or highlight books or take notes, but if I were, I probably wouldn't like ebooks as much, at least as they exist today. Kindle has annotation features, but I think these need to be developed more before they represent a replacement for, or improvement over, paper-based annotation. For example, it needs to be easier to share book notes with other people, across different reading platforms. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to 'overlay' some literary critic's (or the author's, or a friend's) commentary with the book you're reading? Or to create these for others? sort of like directors' commentary tracks on DVDs...

We're still in the infancy of electronic books. I trust they will continue to evolve and move beyond the metaphor of 'book' and bring us new ways of navigating the info-sphere and connecting with each other.