After a gap of more than 3 months, I am back to my blog. No reasons for the disturbance in updating my bolg, but just that every time I wanted to write, something was pulling me back. Today, I decided to write and wanted to start with something which interests me and also, might interest many others.
Recently, in June 2008, I moved my house and during the shift I realized how many books I collected over the last 3 and half years. I told the movers and packers that I would not need more than 10 big box’s for the move and after they packed everything, realized that 15 medium sized box’s are my books and print out’s of articles. I then realized that I need to do something urgently to control my book collection and started researching for eBook readers. Initially when I searched, the closest and the most interesting item I found was the Amazon Kindle. I spoke to Rajesh Jain after reading his blog post on the kindle. He mentioned that he was enjoying it and now, it is easier for carrying books rather than the traditional paperback or hardbound in his luggage while traveling. But, there is a hitch. This comes with a plan as Kindle comes with a CDMA Plan in the US to buy books online. As I don’t live in the US, I found this not so exciting.
Off-late, found few more eBook Readers on Wikipedia. Yesterday, I went to Target and found Sony eBook Reader and it was really attractive. The reviews were good, but I only had second thoughts because of the heavy price of $299 +Tax. While investing Rs.15,000+, I wanted to check various features and so, went slow before I brought it. Did some more research and found that few users of this machine had troubles opening PDF files. This device supports PDF, Doc files in common and many eBook formats (PDF, TXT, RTF, DOC, FB2, LRF, LRX, ePub, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3, AAC w/o DRM) etc. It comes with inbuilt 200 MB internal storage space and expandable up to 16 GB with SD Memory.
Coming to the next aspect of my research, I wanted to check out how many titles of hardbound/paperback come in eBook format? There are few good sites which offer excellent collection – eBooks.com, Free eBooks.Net, e-Library.Net etc. However, almost all titles are double priced than the traditional paperback/hardbound. I didn’t expect this. Honestly, I was expecting the cost to be lesser because the cost of the paper used to print books including the ink is reduced. Unfortunately, all the titles I compared with traditional print and e Book format are double expensive than the print. I am a bit disappointed. However, I am sure that over the period of time, these will come down and hence postponed the purchase of eBook reader.
I think all of us must move towards ebooks and save planet by reducing the use of paper which controls the cutting of trees. It is a long way to go, but a small step is the beginning to a long journey.
If you find any interesting eBook readers, please share with all of us by posting a comment to this post.
You may download PodCast of this Blog Post here. 3 Minutes, MP3 format.
I agree with you, nature must be valued, though, I will say honestly, eBooks will never replace the paper:)
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