Everyone here probably knows about these eReaders already, but I just started using one given to me as a gift.

Repent ye prinetd book readers for the end is Nigh!

I have now downloaded 330 books (or stories labeled as books onto my kindle) and paid about $12 for various collections I couldn't get for free. This is about 10% of the total number of titles I can download on this single device.

Do you like Fu Manchu and Sax Rohmer, I downloaded 14 of his books for free. Lovecraft? For $1.99 I have 67 of his stories including all the major works, Robert E. Howard for another $1.99 there are a ton of his stories including a bunch of obscure one. Clark Ashton Smith, over 100 of his storues for another $2

But besides the collection that cost money the amount of obscure material or hard to find material or books I never even knew existed is simply overwhelming. William Hope Hodgson, all his books for free, Howard Pyle's classic adventure stories, the complete works of Poe, the Norse sagas and Eddas, the finnish Kalevala, about 50 H.Rider Haggard novels I'd never seen before, A dozen William Morris stories and books, Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Burroughs, Conan Doyle, Alegernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Talbot Mundy, A. Merritt, Sabatini, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, all with varying amount of free books or collection that cost from .99c to $2

For $2 I have the complete Shakespeare and $2 more the Complete Sherlock Holmes with 12 additional tales of terror and suspense.

And I've just scratched the surface. There are collections of stories from the old pulp magazines, collections of history, just downloaded Caesar's commentaries and Tacitus and Cicero and Thucydides

And best of all, this thing will read them to you. Sure, it sounds like Stephen Hawking and makes a hash of titles and chapter headings since they provided no punctuation or notations for the reader not to just splurt them out, but hell, this is just the beginning of these things.

Bookstores are dead. Libraries will be set up like ATMs where you just need a screen and keyboard to search and download your selections.

Maybe these aren't for everyone but I don't know. I have just increased my personal library by around 300 books I never owned before in a machine the size of a paperback, and I can still add nearly 3000 more books.

Freaking A, a personal library you can take with you on a climb to Everest or in the middle of Death Valley or some god forsaken place in the Middle East. A personal library you can hide easily. This thing is world changing.

Kingofpain89 wrote:
Unless your batteries die (with no place to plug the charger in) or you drop it 10 thousand feet off the side of Everest.  Then you are pretty much screwed.

If you dropped your book off the side of Everest, that wouldn't be much better.

Then again, who the heck is taking non-essential items up Everest?

TheHistorian wrote:If you dropped your book off the side of Everest, that wouldn't be much better.

But it wouldnt cost you $150 bucks (or whatever the hell it costs now) to replace.

TheHistorian wrote:Then again, who the heck is taking non-essential items up Everest?

Didnt you see the movie K2?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102178/

Michael Biehn's character took a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War up the mountain with him.  Apparently it inspired him and it is a good way to bore yourself to sleep even in temperatures of thirty below zero.  

bbarsh wrote:Kindle or IPad?

I am assuming he meant Kindle or the Nook.  IPad's are usually $400 or more and that would be a very generous gift.  Kindle and Nook are around $100 - $150.

Back to Jason's point though, yes, this technology (regardless of your choice of implementation) is game changing.

Not exactly "internet" game changing, but a big deal.  I dunno that it's going to kill print or bookstores in the next 10 years, but the writing is on the wall (theres a stupid pun in there somewhere).

I have an 2x iPad 2s scheduled (one for the wife and I figure I'll get one too just for how much time I spend on the interwebs) for sometime around Christmas.  I'm curious Jason - to bring it back to the forum - have you found any collections of Dungeon or Dragon magazines floating around in a consumable format?  Those would make me feel pretty damn warm and fuzzy about the $ inserted into [name your local electronics retailer here] for 2 of these.

stylean wrote:Back to Jason's point though, yes, this technology (regardless of your choice of implementation) is game changing.

Not exactly "internet" game changing, but a big deal.  I dunno that it's going to kill print or bookstores in the next 10 years, but the writing is on the wall (theres a stupid pun in there somewhere).

I have an 2x iPad 2s scheduled (one for the wife and I figure I'll get one too just for how much time I spend on the interwebs) for sometime around Christmas.  I'm curious Jason - to bring it back to the forum - have you found any collections of Dungeon or Dragon magazines floating around in a consumable format?  Those would make me feel pretty damn warm and fuzzy about the $ inserted into [name your local electronics retailer here] for 2 of these.

Nothing yet, but there is a great deal I need to explore with the kindle both in how it can be used and what is available. So far just searching through the free volumes at Amazon has been a thrill. I'd love to be able to download my dragon mag collection pdfs to this device. It can certainly handle illustrations as the screen savors are wonderful black and white pictures.

I can just imagine that the technology is improving. The big thing is the memory capacity. Its search and indexing work fine, and there are options for highlighting and note taking.

Are the ipads ereaders as well? If so I'de imagine they would have superior capabilities.

10 years is a long time and sometimes the change in technology can be sweeping. Already most book stores and publishers are having a very hard time, and I think this kind of technology should push them over the edge very quickly.

JasonZavoda wrote: I believe Amazon charges for outside pdfs and text to go from your computer to their service to the kindle, but I am not sure.

From what I read about them, I think you are right.  This is one of the main reasons some people choose a Nook instead of a Kindle.  The fee seems fairly nominal (like 25 cents) but adds up if you want to upload in bulk (250 Dragon magazines would cost $62.50).

JasonZavoda wrote:I've heard of it but haven't tried it yet. Not sure how it can be downloaded to the kindle. I believe Amazon charges for outside pdfs and text to go from your computer to their service to the kindle, but I am not sure.

You can connect the Kindle to your computer and upload any .pdf you like, for free of course.  .pdf's don't work as well as eBooks, though, unless they're specially authored for eReaders.... you may find that you have to zoom into the page to read it, and then drag the screen around in order to read the whole page.  Very cumbersome.

There are programs out there to convert .pdf's to eReader format, but you often lose a lot of the page formatting, and most graphics, in the process.

Foul

I have an iPad v1 myself, and I'm contemplating getting my wife something to use as a basic ereader. After looking into them, I'm pretty sure we'll be getting a Nook Color. Barnes and Noble are saying they're coming out with a firmware update to convert it from an Ereader to a full blown Android tablet.

Considering a cheap ereader is $80 USD, the Kindle at $139, the Nook Color at $250, and the iPad v1 at $400, I feel its worth the extra $110 to go from a Kindle to a full blown Android tablet (Nook Color). This would allow her to check email, surf the web, get applications from the app store, etc.

I use my iPad as an ereader (via the iBooks app), and the main disadvantages are battery life and glare in direct sunlight compared to the Kindle. The glare I can work around with using its case to block the sunlight. I can't do anything about the battery life though. I will say that PDF's are very nice on it though with the full color display. Application support is very good too.

As with all my posts...just my 2 cents.