E-Book Reading
Jul. 2nd, 2011 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenAfter saying for years that I didn't understand why anyone would want an E-Book reader when a netbook laptop would get you a lot more features... I have to eat my words. I now understand why, since I now own an E-Book reader. Yes, I recently bought myself a BeBook Neo.
Chief regret: I now know that I probably could have gotten an Onyx Boox A60 for less than the BeBook Neo; since they are the same hardware and basically the same firmware, it might have been more value for money. But I didn't discover that until after I'd delved into the BeBook forums after I bought it.
I now can't remember why I was looking into E-Book readers in the first place. Possiblylizbee waxing lyrical about her Kobo got me interested. I did glance at the Kobo, but I got all confused as to whether they were still available/supported in Australia. It's rather hard looking for E-Book readers on the net - one stumbles across a lot of reviews of devices that aren't available yet or aren't available in Australia.
Of course, I didn't do more than glance at the Kindle - Evil DRM is EVIL! I will NOT buy DRM'ed E-Books, only open-format ones; I've bought from http://www.fictionwise.com/ and recently discovered http://www.smashwords.com/ which is where the awesome Kristine Williams has her books.
Why I bought the BeBook Neo:
* Available in Australia (http://www.bebook.com.au). If I recall correctly, I was looking for a BeBook One but they weren't available, it was either the Neo or the Club.
* It uses E-Ink, not an LCD screen.
* It supports a huge number of formats, including plain text and HTML. A number of the other ones I looked at only supported a few formats such as EPUB or PDF. Since I have a lot of existing fiction in HTML and text format (Baen, Gutenberg, and fanfic) being able to read text and HTML is a must.
* It runs Linux underneath. (Go FLOSS!)
* It is a comfortable size, not too big, not too small.
* It uses a tablet, not just navigation keys.
* It uses navigation keys, not just a tablet.
* It has an SD-card slot, supports up to 32G.
* It has WiFi connectivity.
* I have more money than sense. (The extra leather cover was $49, which brought the total cost to about $500, which is really far too much. I could have bought an IPad instead. I am a fool.)
On the other hand, now that I have it, I have been using it.
What has frustrated me while using it:
* Yes, one can easily connect with WiFi, but actually surfing depends on the sites one goes to; the screen is too small for many sites, and JavaScript-driven sites don't play nice at all. (Yes, Fictionwise, I am looking at you).
* Sometimes I have to tap twice with the stylus to activate something, because I didn't tap hard enough.
* The software keyboard makes it painful to type things in, one key at a time, with the stylus. And, no, one can't plug in a hardware keyboard.
* It may be Linux-based, but the user interface is basically a file browser.
* The "annotations" feature is not half as good as I was led to believe. For one thing, one can't export them. And it only works with EPUB and PDF documents.
* I thought I could get around that by installing TiddlyWiki, but the Web Browser on the device wouldn't let me save, so that was pointless. I think it's because it's a WebKit-based browser, not a Gecko-based browser.
* Reading HTML, it doesn't remember where you last were. There's also no shortcut to go to the next file in sequence. That's sufficient motivation to slowly convert my fanfic collection to EPUB (yes, I wrote a script for it). Considering that there are plugins for Firefox that enable one to read EPUB, there's no loss when reading stuff on my laptop or PC.
* If one clicks on an EPUB from within a HTML file, it "downloads" the file before reading it, even though the file is already on the device.
* I spent a huge amount of effort converting my personal fiction site from PmWiki (which requires PHP) to IkiWiki (which generates static HTML) and it hasn't been as useful as I'd hoped. Because the interface is a file browser, one has to find the index.html file first before one can do anything, and it doesn't react very fast when one clicks on a link... it's simpler to just browse the filesystem using the default user interface.
What I have enjoyed:
* It's trivial to put stuff on the device - just plug in the USB cable, and it appears as a USB Mass Storage device (or two devices if one has the SD card plugged in). Alternatively, one can just put stuff on the SD card separately.
* The fact that the user interface is basically a file browser means that dealing with my collection is simple; no stupid proprietary databases, just copying files.
* It's a lot lighter than my current EeePC netbook (and a little lighter than my old original EeeePC). Easily held in one hand with no strain at all.
* One can read a book with one hand; just press the "next" button for the next page with one's thumb.
* The E-Ink is very easy on the eyes and very comfortable to read. There's a slight glare when in bright direct light, but that's easily dealt with by adjusting the position of the device.
* It does remember where one last was while reading an EPUB book, even when you shut down the device in between.
* It's fun playing with a tablet device.
Features I haven't tried yet:
* Text-to-speech
* MP3 player
* Scribble-notes
In conclusion: if I'd known the frustrations of this particular E-Book reader before I started, I would probably have bought something cheaper, but now that I have it, I might as well enjoy using it. It's not like I could ever get my money back.
One thing that puzzles me is why people like installing games on E-Book readers - why would I want to play a crappy game when I could read a book instead?
Chief regret: I now know that I probably could have gotten an Onyx Boox A60 for less than the BeBook Neo; since they are the same hardware and basically the same firmware, it might have been more value for money. But I didn't discover that until after I'd delved into the BeBook forums after I bought it.
I now can't remember why I was looking into E-Book readers in the first place. Possibly
lizbee waxing lyrical about her Kobo got me interested. I did glance at the Kobo, but I got all confused as to whether they were still available/supported in Australia. It's rather hard looking for E-Book readers on the net - one stumbles across a lot of reviews of devices that aren't available yet or aren't available in Australia.Of course, I didn't do more than glance at the Kindle - Evil DRM is EVIL! I will NOT buy DRM'ed E-Books, only open-format ones; I've bought from http://www.fictionwise.com/ and recently discovered http://www.smashwords.com/ which is where the awesome Kristine Williams has her books.
Why I bought the BeBook Neo:
* Available in Australia (http://www.bebook.com.au). If I recall correctly, I was looking for a BeBook One but they weren't available, it was either the Neo or the Club.
* It uses E-Ink, not an LCD screen.
* It supports a huge number of formats, including plain text and HTML. A number of the other ones I looked at only supported a few formats such as EPUB or PDF. Since I have a lot of existing fiction in HTML and text format (Baen, Gutenberg, and fanfic) being able to read text and HTML is a must.
* It runs Linux underneath. (Go FLOSS!)
* It is a comfortable size, not too big, not too small.
* It uses a tablet, not just navigation keys.
* It uses navigation keys, not just a tablet.
* It has an SD-card slot, supports up to 32G.
* It has WiFi connectivity.
* I have more money than sense. (The extra leather cover was $49, which brought the total cost to about $500, which is really far too much. I could have bought an IPad instead. I am a fool.)
On the other hand, now that I have it, I have been using it.
What has frustrated me while using it:
* Yes, one can easily connect with WiFi, but actually surfing depends on the sites one goes to; the screen is too small for many sites, and JavaScript-driven sites don't play nice at all. (Yes, Fictionwise, I am looking at you).
* Sometimes I have to tap twice with the stylus to activate something, because I didn't tap hard enough.
* The software keyboard makes it painful to type things in, one key at a time, with the stylus. And, no, one can't plug in a hardware keyboard.
* It may be Linux-based, but the user interface is basically a file browser.
* The "annotations" feature is not half as good as I was led to believe. For one thing, one can't export them. And it only works with EPUB and PDF documents.
* I thought I could get around that by installing TiddlyWiki, but the Web Browser on the device wouldn't let me save, so that was pointless. I think it's because it's a WebKit-based browser, not a Gecko-based browser.
* Reading HTML, it doesn't remember where you last were. There's also no shortcut to go to the next file in sequence. That's sufficient motivation to slowly convert my fanfic collection to EPUB (yes, I wrote a script for it). Considering that there are plugins for Firefox that enable one to read EPUB, there's no loss when reading stuff on my laptop or PC.
* If one clicks on an EPUB from within a HTML file, it "downloads" the file before reading it, even though the file is already on the device.
* I spent a huge amount of effort converting my personal fiction site from PmWiki (which requires PHP) to IkiWiki (which generates static HTML) and it hasn't been as useful as I'd hoped. Because the interface is a file browser, one has to find the index.html file first before one can do anything, and it doesn't react very fast when one clicks on a link... it's simpler to just browse the filesystem using the default user interface.
What I have enjoyed:
* It's trivial to put stuff on the device - just plug in the USB cable, and it appears as a USB Mass Storage device (or two devices if one has the SD card plugged in). Alternatively, one can just put stuff on the SD card separately.
* The fact that the user interface is basically a file browser means that dealing with my collection is simple; no stupid proprietary databases, just copying files.
* It's a lot lighter than my current EeePC netbook (and a little lighter than my old original EeeePC). Easily held in one hand with no strain at all.
* One can read a book with one hand; just press the "next" button for the next page with one's thumb.
* The E-Ink is very easy on the eyes and very comfortable to read. There's a slight glare when in bright direct light, but that's easily dealt with by adjusting the position of the device.
* It does remember where one last was while reading an EPUB book, even when you shut down the device in between.
* It's fun playing with a tablet device.
Features I haven't tried yet:
* Text-to-speech
* MP3 player
* Scribble-notes
In conclusion: if I'd known the frustrations of this particular E-Book reader before I started, I would probably have bought something cheaper, but now that I have it, I might as well enjoy using it. It's not like I could ever get my money back.
One thing that puzzles me is why people like installing games on E-Book readers - why would I want to play a crappy game when I could read a book instead?
