Hardcopy vs the e-book?

[Ghostwolf67]

So i've always been a man who shies away from digital copies of media, not through any sort of phobia of loss per se. Its more force of habit.

I buy paper books, games on discs (where possbile) and i continue to shell out for tabletop game figures when i could instead just vassal. Maybe i'm just old fashioned.

However now that i'm in Australia, i'm finding all hard copies of things rather an expensive commodity. Books especially. When compared to the cost of food and public transport, the price of written media is bordering on sickening. As i do love books especially when travelling (and its a big friggin country) i was considering an e-reader; Probably kindle (to further strengthen my almost concrete ties to amazon, i mean crap why do i even have a bank? Just take my money dammit!).

I was wondering about peoples opinions on the subject of E-readers, E-reading and the industry in general.

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

I had heard things were more costly down there, through the whole GW WW shipping afair, but i was wondering, say, how much more are things like £6.99 paperbacks after exchange back into pounds?

 

[waterproofbob]

I love ebooks. Had my iPad for a year and now prefer it to an actual book. Was the same as you before, never thought I'd like ebooks let alone prefer them but the convenience and ease of having hundreds of books is just awesome.

 

[thatbloke]

Bought my Dad a Kindle for Christmas 2010 for two reasons:

1) He loves reading books
2) He had run out of room in the house to store any more books

Reason number 2 was the main reason for it, and since then he's bought so many books it's unreal. He absolutely loves it, and the convenience of having a device that's just millimetres thick but contains potentially thousands of books for you to read at the touch of a button really is awesome.

In addition, for the kindle itself, the screen really does LOOK like what a page of a book looks like.

If travelling around lots is something you will be doing, I would additionally seriously consider the 3G version. Aside from the extra initial cost, there is absolutely no costs for it after that (no SIM, no contract, no monthly/yearly/periodical fee AT ALL). And it works anywhere in the world. It will then allow you to get new books should you be away from a wifi point for some time.

 

[Haven]

For just "a book" e-readers are awesome, convenient and in the case of the Kindle at least incredibly easy on the eyes.

However for a work of art wrapped and bound beautifully with the fresh smell of print and the glossy sheen of beautiful lettering and imagery nothing beats the real thing.

In short I collect books I want to own for a long long time and that I value immensely. The rest I read on my Kindle or Tablet.

E-readers are the future. Much like Vinyl there will always be boutique stores out there running short print runs of exquisitely crafted and bound words of art. But e-readers are here to stay.

*NB do be sure to get a nice cover for your kindle if you get one - I've got a hemp cover for mine and it makes reading it a lot nicer than holding sticky plastic all the time*

 

[DocBot]

kindle isn't easily available here, unfortunately. I would love to have an e-reader (I spend about £50/month on books, and they tend to fill up the apartment), but I haven't found any really good alternatives to the kindle. Also, they are a little bit costly.

 

[Haven]

kindle isn't easily available here, unfortunately. I would love to have an e-reader (I spend about £50/month on books, and they tend to fill up the apartment), but I haven't found any really good alternatives to the kindle. Also, they are a little bit costly.

If you ever want to buy one from amazon.co.uk then I'll happy let you deliver to me and I'll post it across if they won't deliver directly (pretty sure they do deliver to sweden though).

Useful thread.