Monday, January 24, 2011
e-Reader Wars
I have taken the dive into the world of e-readers. Love it! The idea that I can carry a whole library of books in one compact package just thrills me to no end. I do also enjoy the feel of a real book in my hands, but the Kobo is so much easier to hold while reading in bed, or to carry into a coffee shop. I am typically reading two or three books at a time, and since one of those is usually the Bible, my backpack can get very heavy to carry.
I bought a Kobo reader because it was the most economical reader, and since I wasn't sure how I would like this I wanted to make to lowest investment. I have discovered two drawbacks to the Kobo. One is that there is no back light, so you need a clip-on light if you don't want to disturb your spouse when you are reading in bed. My wife actually came up with an ingenious solution. She got one of those LED lights with an elastic strap for your head. The light actually sits on your forehead and it has four different brightness settings. You can also change the angle to get the best illumination of your subject. I still prefer a nice table lamp, and have yet to buy a clip-on light, but the "headlight" does the job.
The other minor annoyance is that is does not have a highlighting feature. I am big on highlighting my books, so it remains to be seen if this will be a long-term deterrent.
Now, onto the real reason I decided to write about this. The retail wars over the e-reader market. Once again, a new and exciting technology is being bogged down in corporate greed. Unfortunately the book retailers and electronics companies who have jumped into this market have decided that they must attempt to have their reader control the whole environment. They have done this by putting DRM protection on their e-books. They claim this is to protect copyrighted material. I think the truth is to force you to buy your books from them if you have their reader. What I mean is that if you buy an e-book from Amazon it can only be read on a Kindle. The same goes for SONY and Barnes & Noble. They will all tell you that you are welcome to download their software to your PC or laptop for free. Then you can read your books. The problem is I already have a PC and a laptop. I bought an e-reader so that my books would be more portable, so putting their software on my laptop really defeats the purpose. At least for me it does.
Now, here is the good news for my friend who are Christians. You can buy books from Christianbooks.com that are DRM-free. That means you can download them and put them on any e-reader you already own. Perhaps more exciting is that you can loan the book to a friend. This second point is not extremely important to me, but it is nice to know it's there. I believe in directly supporting the author and publisher of a good book by purchasing a copy myself. I am so pleased that it is a Christian retailer that is leading the way to open this technology. This approach will encourage e-reader technology growth far more than proprietary wrangling to keep a customer locked into your environment. Bravo to Christianbooks.com.
I bought a Kobo reader because it was the most economical reader, and since I wasn't sure how I would like this I wanted to make to lowest investment. I have discovered two drawbacks to the Kobo. One is that there is no back light, so you need a clip-on light if you don't want to disturb your spouse when you are reading in bed. My wife actually came up with an ingenious solution. She got one of those LED lights with an elastic strap for your head. The light actually sits on your forehead and it has four different brightness settings. You can also change the angle to get the best illumination of your subject. I still prefer a nice table lamp, and have yet to buy a clip-on light, but the "headlight" does the job.
The other minor annoyance is that is does not have a highlighting feature. I am big on highlighting my books, so it remains to be seen if this will be a long-term deterrent.
Now, onto the real reason I decided to write about this. The retail wars over the e-reader market. Once again, a new and exciting technology is being bogged down in corporate greed. Unfortunately the book retailers and electronics companies who have jumped into this market have decided that they must attempt to have their reader control the whole environment. They have done this by putting DRM protection on their e-books. They claim this is to protect copyrighted material. I think the truth is to force you to buy your books from them if you have their reader. What I mean is that if you buy an e-book from Amazon it can only be read on a Kindle. The same goes for SONY and Barnes & Noble. They will all tell you that you are welcome to download their software to your PC or laptop for free. Then you can read your books. The problem is I already have a PC and a laptop. I bought an e-reader so that my books would be more portable, so putting their software on my laptop really defeats the purpose. At least for me it does.
Now, here is the good news for my friend who are Christians. You can buy books from Christianbooks.com that are DRM-free. That means you can download them and put them on any e-reader you already own. Perhaps more exciting is that you can loan the book to a friend. This second point is not extremely important to me, but it is nice to know it's there. I believe in directly supporting the author and publisher of a good book by purchasing a copy myself. I am so pleased that it is a Christian retailer that is leading the way to open this technology. This approach will encourage e-reader technology growth far more than proprietary wrangling to keep a customer locked into your environment. Bravo to Christianbooks.com.
