Well, with the introduction of electric paper style screens, ebook readers are coming out in droves.

We have the Kindle 2



Next off, the Sony PRS-700



The Sony PRS-505



The Samsung Papyrus



The kindle's main feature that puts it ahead of the others is the integrated wireless access via cell phone radio. With that you can browse wikipedia or shop for books, however its fairly unfriendly to other file formats, Amazon even going so far as to sue MobileRead.com for linking to a python script that allows books purchased elsewhere to be read on the kindle.

The Sony-505 is a basic reader with no touchscreen or integrated wireless, while the 700, an improved version, features a touchscreen, while also gaining the maligned feature of a very glare catching screen.

The Papyrus is Samsung's yet to be released touchscreen eBook reader, not much is known about it at this time.


Which one do you want/have? What kind of features should we be asking for in future iterations of these products?

I love electric paper screens, but all of the e-readers I've seen are too fucking expensive

Yeah, most of these are around $400, I'd expect some cheaper ones once the technology proliferates. Since any new technology starts off expensive then drops in price as the companies develop better/faster/cheaper/more efficient ways of producing them.

I could buy a netbook for 200, and 400 dollars would get me a very nice netbook. Makes these seem a bit useless.

Yes, but netbooks don't have the sexy high contrast screens these have. ;o

I honestly can't stand reading for very long (like I would with a book) on a standard computer screen, but the 505 I was able to use didn't make my eyes hurt after 3 hours.

I'd say once they drop to about $200-250 I'll pick one up. I can't justify the price right now, while I'm trying to save for tuition.

These look pretty cool so far.

What are some good ebook sites though? Id imagine ebooks would be much cheaper to buy than regular books (If not free ;P), so the reading enthusiast would pretty much make the money back they spent on the reader overtime.

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/HomePag...sp?Language=EN

http://www.amazon.com/kindle

http://www.netlibrary.com/

http://www.ebooks.com/

http://www.gutenberg.org/


Are a few.


And Blam brought up a good point in irc, the refresh rate on these screens is horrid, expect about a half a second of delay when you move to another page :S

Whether this is a trade off for the quality is up for debate.

This is strange.

I've never ever seen any use of these stupid eBooks. I mean, haven't you ever picked up a book on a cold wintery afternoon and just curled up and read a book?

I cannot justify the means to use some electronic device with no... pages to read a book. It feels unnatural, it feels weird. It's like abortion as hampa would say.

Has anyone here even had any personal experiance with them? Are they easy on the eyes, and work well? What!!

Books will always have a special place in my heart...

EDIT: The only thing that I can seriously think that "epaper" will be of any use, is for magazines and newspapers that have a one off use clause. Like, buy the New York Times, and it updates every day - but can't display anything else over X pages and from Y competitor.

eBooks... what? Just buy a damn book.

Please contribute something to the conversation.