talkmagic.co.uk

Being a bit of a gadget freak amongst other reasons, I am thinking of buying an ebook reader. From what I can see, there are two real choices. THe Irex Iliad or the Sony ebook reader.
It seems from what I have read, that the Iliad is the better of the two. However it is also a lot more expensive. A concern I have is that apparently the sony machine is not very good for reading PDF's. However the Magic ebooks I have bought are always PDF's (though I rarely by them these days as I hate reading from my PC). Now I am not getting this for magic ebooks, but I do use PDF documents for a number of things (work being one of them).
I just wondered if anyone had seen them both or is knowledgable in them. Basically is it worth spending the extra ont he iliad. Or would it be a waste?

iPhone all the way

I've been looking at these too. But I think I'll survivie until 2009 - they'll probably be down to £25 by then.

I wouldn't go for the Sony one for the simple reason that my last three Sony products have all been very unreliable (TV, freeview box and PDA). So now I don't buy anything by Sony. I realise that's not any help to you, but there you go.

Go for the Irex.

While, as a video producer, I swear by Sony's camcorders (I tend to swear at everybody else's).

I've been looking at these lately as well, but decided to hold off.

I've had hands on experience with the Amazon Kindle and the Sony eBook, but not the iLiad.

The eBook is Sony's second take on a digital book and the Kindle is Amazon's first. To me they both have some big issues that are typical for early generation devices. Both have issues with being completely comfortable to hold for right handed and left handed in a variety of sitting and laying positions. I spent 2 weeks using the Kindle and only found a couple positions for comfortable long term (30min+) reading.

However they are getting very close. The Kindle is a huge step beyond the Sony eBook, but with a price tag that's not. The Kindle has a "whisper net" which works with cell phone technology to give you internet access to Amazon (for buying and previewing books), a dictionary, and Wikipedia. At any time you can select a word and be taken to a definition - a very cool feature. I think for all the features the Sony lacks when compared to the Kindle it is overpriced.

I'd never seen this iLiad before, but it looks amazing. One of the problems of eink is that it lacks the ability to take data. The kindle gets around this with a keyboard. One worry is that I don't think the iLiad will have the battery life the other devices do because of the tablet ability, but better than anything with a touch sensitive screen due to the wacom technology. Looking at it, though, I think it would share the same problem of hold-ability as the Kindle and eBook reader (hold-ability - not just holding the device, but also easy access to flipping pages back and forth).

Another big reason I'm holding off is because of the changes going on right now concerning DRM. Amazon keeps all your purchased books on their central server. If Amazon went out of business, had systems failure (on a huge level), decided to stop supporting the Kindle, etc. you no longer have access to your books. There are some big changes going on right now about protected PDFs and the like. The move seems to be going more toward having access to your files on a more local level. In my ideal world you would pay $x for the right to the material in the book. $y for the paper format, $z for the digital format, and $i for both, where i < y + z. But I think this is a way off anyway.

I'm very excited to see the next generation of digital books, I hope all companies learn from each other and start to compete to give the consumer the best possible product.

All that said, if you really want one, have the extra cash, and are an early adopter: I do like Sony as a company and the products they produce, but I never commit to them until they show commitment to the line - they have the tendency to start in a market, then pull back and only continue production and support in Japan, if at all (CLIEs, VAIO desktops, Digital Media Music Players).

Sorry for such a long post - hope someone finds it useful.

We were discussing these, specifically the Sony Reader, in the QI forum. The general consensus seems to be: don't bother, unless you have a specific reason for needing to use one.

Big turn-offs include: small page size, no colour, little or no bookmarking and search capability, limited availability of books apart from bestsellers and public-domain classics, the downloads will cost about as much as printed copies, severe copyright protection, and the general annoyingness of having an electronic gadget instead of a proper book. And the potential of spending big money only to have the reader go obsolete in a few years.

The only advantage offsetting this is the ability to store the equivalent of piles of books. So if you're currently having to lug lots of books around, AND they're the sort of books that are available for use with the e-reader, then you might find it worth the money.

For anyone that was following this thread there's been some news.

Sony has announced their new ereader (an addition to their line, not a replacement) which has a touch screen and notetaking functions with use of a stylus. It also has a built-in reading light, but is not backlit and still suitable for outside reading. Still no wireless, so aimed at consumers that don't want to impulse buy books. Not too many details yet, but with a touch screen I'm hoping they utilize some of the features and programming that was available on the CLIE.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100700074.html
http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... rc=hm_list (small pic)
http://www.crn.com/retail/210605695
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2331763,00.asp (enlargable pic)
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/ ... e-boo.html (large pic)

Also, the blogging world has picked up some supposed pictures of the new Kindle. Amazon has been denying it - but there is some disagreement whether they still are or not.

http://www.popgadget.net/2008/10/sneak_peek_at_a.php (pic)
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/a ... dist=msr_1
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007885.html (pics)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10058352-1.html (pics)
http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/ki ... y-2008107/ (pic)
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Leaked_D ... 25839.html