I’ve been reviewing the Sony Reader Pocket Edition (£159 from WHSmith) for the past few weeks and I’m sold. But if you’re wondering if you can justify spending so much money on a gadget that essentially does the same job a book has been doing for the past few hundred centuries, here’s some fodder for your pros list.
1. Save some paper
There’s still quite a large debate over whether the manufacturing process in producing these electronic books actually produces more carbon than you’ll save using it, but paper doesn’t just waste trees, the process of making paper is also extremely polluting.
So long as you’re not planning on upgrading every year, an ebook uses a lot less power than a laptop, and should work out more eco-friendly in the long term.
2. Give your eyes a rest.
I have to edit a lot of articles and books, and using the Pocket Reader has saved me from printing out and lugging round huge great piles of paper.
The fact that you can use this to read long documents is a big plus point. Sure, you can do that on a computer, but getting away from a LCD screen and onto a lovely ebook screen is bliss. And there’s something about the book-sized gadget that makes it all seem a bit less laborious.
By the way, if you’re likely to use yours for proofing, you might be better off with the Touch, so you can annotate directly on screen. Check out writer-illustrator Viv Schwarz’s review of her Sony Reader for some inspiration on how you could use yours.
3. Catch up on the classics
Project Gutenberg means that you can access a huge database of free ebooks and since many of them are out-of-copyright classics, you can fill up your ebook reader with some masterpieces and do a spot of self-improvement.
4. Treat yourself to some special editions
Ebooks aren’t going to kill off real books – not just yet anyway. But now you’ve got the perfect excuse to ditch the pulp fiction paperbacks and treat yourself to some really special hardbacks and limited edition books. Instead of filling your book shelves with countless holiday reads, you’ll be able to spend time building up a library of beautiful literary delights. The Folio Society would certainly be pleased.
5. Free up some space
Whether it’s your bookshelves or your suitcases, you can clear your cupboard space and take just one electronic book away on holiday instead of 10 dog-eared novels.
Bought an ebook reader? How did you justify the purchase?
Check prices of Sony Reader on eBay
Katie Lee
Dork Adore's Editor! Katie started out life as a tech journalist and blog obsessive, launching the UK's first and biggest blog publishing network, Shiny Media. Favourite dork things: knitting, crochet, Press Gang, Buffy, Battlestar, Doctor Who and lifehacks.
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Reason to buy a reader….. if you like gadgets and like to read is as good as any but the best is there are sooooo many cheap books out there, Ebay are selling so many 80 odd dean koontz for £3.50 dont think thats legal??? but they are out there.
Some authors have kept their own digital rights, so they may actually get more for their e-books than for their print novels. Let’s hope they’re getting most of that £3.50!
This may sound mad but can you read at night with them? Or in bright sunlight?
No, and it would be on my list of Cons that you can’t switch on a backlight if you need it (since I woke up at 3am the other day and wanted to read in bed).
However, that’s why the screen is so nice to read, so mustn’t grumble. Plus, you can buy a light for it if you want one. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Lighted-Leather-PRS-505-Reader/dp/B001KZZ55Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1255550248&sr=8-4
Bright sunlight seems to be fine, though.
And, and! Say you got a Sony Reader for Christmas and you’d only just got round to using it because you didn’t want to pay the same price for an electronic copy of a book which costs the publishing company like hardly anything compared to a paper copy that involves cutting down trees, mushing them up, drying them out, making them flat, printing ink on them and then moving them around and then the electronic copy is then locked to a single device that might breakdown one day and take all those books you’d bought – for far too much – with it and instead you just kept buying paper books instead that won’t ever break unless you burn them which is stupid, for instance:
You can download all of Cory Doctorow’s books in electronic format. For free. !
Eastern Standard Tribe is especially dorky.
Just grab the LRF version (it’s about the 27th down) from this page:
http://craphound.com/est/download.php
And also: get Calibre too while you’re at it. It’s awe.some:
http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/
Cory’s a lucky man being able to give his books away for free. I know a few authors who’d love to do that, but who keep getting stopped by their agents and publishers. They’re afeared.
I’m a Mac and got my Kindle when it was the only reader that was OSX compatible. Was laid up for a few weeks and reading maintained my sanity. I find it easier to read in bed, and being able to change the text size was a huge bonus if I didn’t want to wear my glasses. Having an iPhone app makes it even better — the phone is always with me, and I can sneak in a few pages on a coffee break. I’ve read 6 novels since March, which is probably 4 more than in the previous 2 years.
My mom has low vision and can’t drive, so she can’t get to library or a bookstore easily, but she loves to read, too. Even though she hates technology, I’m going to leave it with her to try out for a few weeks, with the new Dan Brown preloaded. I think we’ll be buying a 2nd one. If you have more than one book lover in your household, make sure that the reader you buy will allow multiple readers on one account so you can share books — it’s fun and cuts down the cost of new best sellers. Amazon US allows 6 Kindles per account (I think), so that should work for us.
How about the million plus (public domain) titles available from Google? That’s a HUGE factor for some. As adding a library of ebooks over time can be (or get) quite pricey.
Love your quirky blog. Very kewl.