I find the prospect of e-books interesting. I have a Sony PRS-600 e-reader, but I haven’t used it for books yet. Right now I’m using it for my own manuscript, and for making notes. It’s a lot more convenient than printing out everything, though writing on it with a stylus leaves a lot to be desired compared to writing on paper with a pen. Still, it’ll probably mostly pay for itself between the cost of paper and toner. But I will say I find reading on it pretty nice, not as good as paper, but plenty good enough and it can be handy to switch pages with a touch of a button.
I’ve also had a short chance to play with an iPad and while it’s a bit heavy, it seems nice enough for reading as well. I haven’t had a chance to try some of the others, but since I wanted that ability to make notes with a stylus there wasn’t a lot of competition for me. I would think the Kindle, Nook, Kobo Readers, and other E-ink readers would give a similar experience. Also, I don’t think the iPod Touch and iPhone can be ignored, they are pretty handy devices for reading on the go.
I can’t see the e-reader replacing the paper book anytime real soon, from a psychological aspect I really feel like I own something when I have a book to put on the shelf as opposed to a file on my device. It’s easy to lend that book to someone else, I can donate to a library, or I could sell it for a pittance at a used book store. But there are millions of E-readers out there so it seems like it has to have an effect. I think that’s another blog post in the making.
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