I do enjoy reading paper books and have many on the shelves that I hope to finish one of these days, but I find it's just much easier to find time to read on my PDA. It is always with me so any down time during the day can be spent reading. The biggest advantage for me though is that I don't need any external light source; I love to read in bed at night, but a bedside lamp bothers my wife who is not a nighttime reader.
I use MS Reader and generally don't have a lot of complaints. Once in a while it locks all my books, but a soft reset solves that. And on rare occasions I have to go through the activation process again for no apparent reason. That frustrates the heck out of me at the time, but for the most part I find MS Reader to be a good format. I've been using it since my Jornada days so maybe it's just the familiarity I like. It did provide the means to finish Bill Clintons HUGE autobiography -- something I was unable to do with my paper copy.
One other benefit of reading on my PDA is the ability to quickly convert Word documents to MS Reader format. I read a lot of lengthy journal articles and the automatic bookmarking makes it very convenient to finish an article over a few days intermittent reading.
I’ve been 100% eBook for some time now. For work I carry a SmartPhone or PocketPc Phone either in my pants pocket or in a holster, but my handy dandy “can’t leave home without it” HP iPaq Pocket PC is always in my shirt pocket. I use this iPaq with its large screen almost exclusively for reading. It hosts my QuickVerse Bible – I haven’t used a paper bible for a couple years now, and it hosts my eReader app with all my ebooks. I am extremely happy with the iPaq sans phone capabilities for a number of reasons:
1. The form factor doesn’t lend itself much to a phone device – too large; but the screen size is great for reading.
2. When my wife is trying to fall asleep beside me and doesn’t want to be bothered by a bedside light in the eyes I can read to my heart’s content without bothering her.
3. I can put a book down and go back to it a week later and pickup exactly where I left off, automatically bookmarked by my eReader app.
4. Even in the old days I didn’t always carry a paper bible or a paper book around with me, but I do always have my iPaq so my Bible and all my favorite books, plus eWallet, and my music is only a shirt pocket away.
5. When I’m on an airplane I can actually read an ebook or my bible and listen to my music at the same time and from the same device, and by the way the iPaq has excellent battery life. I've done this a number of time, for me it's the only way to fly.
6. I recently picked up a paper book that I’ve had for a couple years but never read. I was considering reading it since it isn’t available in eBook format, but the mustiness and dust mites immediately caused me to put it down. I never have this problem with my ebook.
I couldn’t be any happier with eReader eBooks. Microsoft’s version never came close, and pdf and html just doesn’t come close in richness or simple features. My one wish is that the licensing wasn’t so closely tied to my credit/debit card. Because I’ve switched cards several times over the years I now have a library of books with many different unlock codes and have to keep a matrix just to remember what old expired card unlock which book.
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There's no greater example of blind faith than to believe that absolute nothingness, without external influence, exhibiting exquisite purpose and intelligence, created the entire Universe - MW.
I'm in the more than half ebooks category. It's probably at least 70% and would be more like 90% if more books were available as ebooks. The only times paper books are necessary for me are on planes during takeoff and landing or outside on sunny days.
Most of my books are in ereader format, because the DRM is the least bothersome. I'll buy MSLit if it's the only format available for something I really want to read. Mobipocket is even more annoying, and also the largest font is still too small on my VGA ppc.
I do think the prices are too high. In most cases I could buy a new hardcover from Amazon for less than the ebook, but it doesn't stop me from buying the ebook. I'm at a stage in life where I'm trying to downsize, so I give away all my paper books after I read them. Since ebooks don't take up any physical space, I can keep them all, although I realize that someday I could lose them all due to format incompatibility.
I don't read ebooks exclusively, but I really like the convenience, so I even bought UMPC (Raon Everun) mainly for reading and surfing...
I guess I could get a PDA instead, but I wanted something with big hi-res screen, that can read as much formats as possible and is capable of real Web browsing...
I read ebooks exclusively. Mostly technical ebooks about software and software developement and mostly in CHM and RepliGo format. Being a software developer I have to read a lot, but I dislike technical paper books for their sizes and especially weight.
Speaking about fiction books I prefer ebooks either. I don't mind feel and smell, but I like to have a lot of books in my pocket to choose from when I'm on the way and want to read something. For fiction books I prefer FB2 (Haali and Alreader) file format and iSilo PDB format
I recently tried re-installing MS Reader on my Axim x50v and tried activating it, however, I was told that I have exceeded my 6 device limit. So, I was able to activate it using a different live.com account. But, since I forgot and loaded it onto an SD card instead of into main memory, I still can't open my ebooks. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling in memory, but still can't open my ebooks. So, I gave up. I am just sorry I spend any money on all these ebooks that I can no longer read.
I really like the concept of ebooks and if there were a good solution that worked well, I would use it. I prefer to have my library with me rather than at home on a shelf.
I am with you on this, all the way. I had books installed on my WM 2003 and when I upgraded to WM2005 I havaen't been able to read them since. Microsoft is aware of this and has done nothing.
I have books I had just purchased before I got WM5. What a waste of money now that I can't read them.
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"It's alright to pick your friends, but not to pieces."
I'm 100% ebooks, and have been for about 5 years. I read well over 50 books a year on my devices. I've read 5 in the last 10 days (been off work, sick!).
Mostly I use my Toshiba E830 and MS Reader, but recently I've also been using my Nokia phones (E62 and 6682) with MobiReader. I've discovered I really like the ability to set tthe text and backgroupnd colours in MobiReader ... I set them to black background, white text. This gives excelent contrast in all lighting conditions - bright sunlight fown to bedtime reading.
I have to admit, though, that I probably read more 'free' books than books I pay for. It makes no sense to me to pay the same or even a higher price for an electronic book compared to the paper version, plus some books are simply not officially available electronically.
I don't plan to buy a dedicated reader device. I carry a phone and/or my PDA everywhere with me, and just love the ability to instantly entertain myself, even if it's only while I wait 5 minutes for my coffee in Starbucks :-)
People complain about DRM on MSReader books, but that is easy to get around, although we are not allowed to mention the software that strips the DRM on this forum :-) PM me if you want to know about it :-) As far as I am concerned, I paid for the book, so I can read it any way I choose.
I've also found various software for converting books to different formats - this has been handy for getting books from MSReader to MobiPocket format, for instance. I know not everyone wants to mess around with that sort of thing, but I'm happy to tinker.
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