Less money, except for the color nook and that extra large Kindle they are less than half the price of an ipad. Number two is that I want a reader, they added so much extra stuff to the ipad, it's easy to forget it started as a reader. The reader part almost gets forgotten.

Of course a simple word processor would be nice so I can write if I get the urge. But that is all the extras I want.

And I actually happen to know someone who does use his ipad as a reader, not sure what else he uses it for but I do see him reading.

I mentioned what you said about the MP3 files to co-worker who has a kindle. He's never used it to play music but he wondered if you used the built in speakers or headphones.

All right. The MP3 player is under the Experimental heading (like the web browser). You turn it on, and it just starts playing. No file viewer. The controls are alt+space to play/pause, alt+f to skip forward one track. That's it. Sound quality out of the headphone jack is normal, no weird ground hum or anything that I can discern in mid-grade earcups, though it does hiccup sometimes when you do things like open books for about 40ms. No fast forward, no album skip, no rewind, to track back, nothing. If you turn on text to speech the MP3 player stops, and when you restart it it goes back to the top of the track you were playing. It seems to follow track ID3 tags. I haven't tried mixing albums in the same folder yet to see if they alternate.

I think the intent is for one album of background music if you want to listen while reading. I wouldn't want to use it for audiobooks, as I like to jump around in audiobooks or rewind if I missed a part. Honestly, generic MP3 players are so cheap now I think it's a waste of battery life to use the Kindle's nonexistent interface.

Next time I'm at B&N I will have to ask those questions about the Nook. Even though they may tell me how wonderful it sounds. But I can get them to show me how it works.

Right now it looks like Nook will be it for me. Color. Probably buy it with some birthday money-last part of June- and only some of the money I have. Unless B&N gets on the ball and has a sale or some bonus

I installed the free Nook Color and Kindle apps, as well as Moon Reader on there for her, so it's a more versatile reader than before (plus Angry Birds!), but I still hate reading on LCD screens so I'll pass. It's a more of a pain to get my own stuff on there for her to first-read than on my Kindle or Sony but that's probably because it's running from a card.

I don't think I'll be getting another one to solve my combination e-reader/portable writing setup because I just don't like the screen or Android, thought I did see a video of a guy who did that using a portable Bluetooth keyboard. (Cyanogen7 turns on the Bluetooth antenna that isn't activated on the stock NC.) There are some office suites for Android but I haven't played with any of them yet.

Still, it looks like a really good tablet modified this way, and $250.

Edit: I'd also steer clear of the Nook "market" if you want apps. It's terribly limited and overpriced.

I have the kindle software on my droid and on the kindle. When I purchase a title, it doesn't download automatically to both devices. I have to go manually retrieve it with the second device -- which I like. I wonder if it is some setting that you can alter.

There's an Office app but evidently you can't transfer its files to another device. E-mail seemed to be the best way to do any writing on either. The back light on the color screen didn't seem to be too bad compared to the usual screen. But at the same time my eyes seemed to get a bit tired while I was there but I can't say it was from reading on the C Nook. But the person I talked said that some people do have that problem.

They have lowered the prices on the first two models since a new is coming out and they are discontinuing those two. The touchscreen on the color is neater than the buttons of the first two. But I had to press the menu buttons more than once in some cases.

They have the tinniest speakers I have ever seen. Two on the bottom just as wide as the Nook is and maybe an inch long. They didn't have any music downloaded on either Nook on display so I couldn't listen to any. But the controls in the control box looks pretty much like the ones I have for my pick up's CD player. I mean it had the same basic controls.

I also noticed the touchscreen problems. They mostly went away using custom firmware.

You can turn down brightness/contrast to see if it helps the eyestrain. I did and it seemed a little better but I still don't like it as much as e-ink. It's sometimes hard to tell in the store, since for some people they only really get strained after ten minutes or so and people don't generally stand at a demo stand for ten minutes reading the thing uninterrupted by salespeople. I guess the best way to find out is to borrow someone's Nook Color and try it under normal lighting conditions (not store lighting) for half an hour and see if you can stand it.

I was there for about ten minutes playing with the color and non color Nooks, before a salesperson showed up. I did some reading during that time. I even compared both with page from a book on each of them. The page itself on the non-color looked sort of very light brown while the C Nook's page looked white. Interesting and I can see how that alone could make a difference on the eyes.

The Nook lady reminded me of the return policy but its only for two weeks. I would have to make sure I spent time reading almost every day to give it a through check.

Both my lap top and desk computer's screens are okay on my eyes... usually.

Right now, it looks like a giant iPod to me, but, I gather, there's more to it than that.

Nice device the Color Nook is but it's not over-developed, muscle-bound, or expensive.

So it's a matter of (1) moving my Nook unit to somewhere where I can get a connection, or (2) figuring out how to set up and hook up some kind of WiFi connection right here. Probably the latter. After wrapping it up here, I'll research the matter and see what I need to do.

But could you keep us posted on the battery life? Right now that is a stickler for me. 8 hours can go by very fast esp. with music and the internet.

And how much was the Piper book?

They had several different sets of H. Beam Piper available, with different content---the one I bought cost a dollar ninety-nine. (Space Cadet cost nine ninety-nine.)

I did go looking for a couple of other things, like Edgar Pangborn (no titles available), and Bruce Catton (some, but not what I wanted.)

*****

I found I have Internet access through my Nook and WiFi---I haven't tried it out, just a couple simple sites (including my own).

*****

I found, with the online access, that I could reach my own site and read my own stuff, and also some Internet Fan Fiction sites where I could also read my own stuff. For the moment, that's good enough, and it doesn't seem to cost anything. I've got a few other things in mind. (For instance, I managed to locate and bring up this very page, just now.)

I don't know, as of yet, whether you could put your own files on it. I'll try it out, sooner or later.

If anyone has watched the show, Hoarders, you will find yourself eager to clean your house -- and that includes books.

If I could find someone local who could scan them into e-books for me, at no more than an e-edition would cost, then I'd be getting somewhere.

Or even, I suppose, find a way to scan and convert them myself.

If I were going to sell an e-version of a book that did belong to me, that would also be illegal.

But to make an e-version of a book that I already own, to be used for myself on my own e-reader would be the same as my making a photocopy of a book I already own for my personal use.

As to the original question, Ender's game is up there now, but still at the same price as a paperback. The second thing I like is having multiple books along at the cost of a small space. I hate running out of book half way through a long flight.

quote:

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you have the right to make a copy for personal use.

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What is the US law regarding downloading bootleg copies of books you already own? I tried to look up information on the subject, but came up empty.

Robert discussed that he bought Lord of the Rings, even though he already has a paper copy. Since it is sold in a different format, I think he did the honest thing. Is it only ok if you do the work yourself to make a copy? Is paying someone to do it for you the same as going to an illegal site and buying the trilogy for $3 instead of $20 (whatever the price is) on Amazon?

But why is it that these changes always benefit the big guys, but never the little guys who just want to have a little fun?

Copyright is one of those areas where it's hard to find agreement on. But as writers it's important that we know the law. It's how we make our money. We don't actually sell the story or novel we sell the right for someone else to publish it. So how would you feel if someone was stole that right and you were not able to make money off of it? Even if they stole one copy and you only lost a few cents? That's why Smashwords gives a warning not to give a story to a friend, you're suppose to buy it to give it away. (I wonder how many people they expect to really do that but it's there) But as I understand when you buy a song from iTunes you can place it on up to five computers or devices that are registered with iTunes.

There's the fair use clause, which we have been discussing all of a sudden, seems to get a bit foggy at times. Evidently I have the right to upload to my computer a CD I bought but do I have the right to place various songs on a blink CD and give it to someone as a gift? I've heard that you can copy to another CD once for you own use.

The lip-synching thing would be hard to set up I would think. I can see why the artist would think someone is stealing the use of that song (Or pay) from them. After all the Girl Scouts had to pay something a while back for songs sang at a campfire. But as I said it's gets complicated trying to set something up.

Ok, sticking with the music example: let's say I own a certain music cd and want to listen to it on my ipod. My laptop doesn't have a working cd drive, so is it wrong to download a certain song from that same album for free? If I had a cd drive, i'd do it myself. Or what if I got a friend to make me an electronic copy of that same cd for me?

Am I cheating the music band when I burn my own cd to my own hard drive for my own use? Am I cheating the band if a friend does it for me? What if it is someone I don't even know?

Low battery did sneak up on me, but I was able to grab the recharger and plug it in for an overnight charge without trouble.

$25 off...

If you join their book club.

Bought a Color Nook tonight... it's charging,

The quick and dirty description is that the kindle is a specialist geared towards reading e-books as comfortably as possible, while the iPad is a generalist that allows you to read e-books and do a host of other things.

Here is why the kindle is superior as an e-book reader:

- It is much lighter and smaller than the iPad. This means if you are like me, and like to read in bed holding a book up, your arm won't get sore. I can't imagine doing this with my iPad. This makes it more portable and easy to travel with. I can slip my kindle into my front pocket (admittedly I'm a larger than average guy), I can't do this with an iPad.

- The battery life of the kindle is much much longer. I charge my kindle about once a month. The iPad, I charge about three times a week.

- Hardware keyboard. I don't really like to do long stretches of typing on either device, but I prefer the tactile hardware keyboard over the software one.

- Now for the most important reason: the screen. The e-ink matte screen simulates the paper experience far better than the glossy iPad screen. This means less eye strain, and more importantly, no glare. I used my kindle on a flight from Santa Fe to Boston, sitting in the window seat with unfettered sunrays shining on the screen and had absolutely no problem reading it. This would be impossible with the iPad.

Now, why is the iPad a better general device? The kindle has a beta web browser, but it is clunky. There is no question that for checking e-mail, browsing the web, or doing anything BUT reading, the iPad is superior.

So it isn't really and apples to apples comparison. The kindle is designed to replace the hardcopy book, and the iPad is designed to replace certain commonly used, non-intensive functions of the laptop or desktop: e-mail, web-browsing, social networking, and other 'light' applications.

So, all three of these devices (kindle, iPad, pc) serve a purpose in my life. The kindle is for reading e-books at home or on the go. The iPad is for looking up information quickly and checking my e-mail, and the PC is for when I write or do work in my day job from home. There is some overlap in all three devices, but if I hate writing more than a few sentences (such as this post!) on anything but my laptop or PC, and I don't want to wait for a computer to boot up or have to log in if all I want to do is check my e-mail or look up a restaurant on yelp.com.

Hope that helps, if anyone has any more questions on iPad vs Kindle let me know.

On to the other topic...

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But to make an e-version of a book that I already own, to be used for myself on my own e-reader would be the same as my making a photocopy of a book I already own for my personal use.

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I've asked my lawyer brother about this before, and he isn't a copyright lawyer, but my sense is that the law is pretty fuzzy about this. The main interest is financial, so copying a book and selling it would be illegal, but retaining it for personal use, I think, would not get you in trouble. I don't think the law has really caught up to the technology. Seems like my thinking on this is supported by this link:

According to the screen, I've got sixteen books in my library. Five are purchases...two are user's guides...six are "samples" of some kind, only one of which I actually "ordered"...and, somehow, I acquired three "classics of literature" with my last purchase, unintentionally.

Of the three purchases I haven't named yet, there's Eric James Stone's e-book...the [problematic] H. Beam Piper collection...and a public domain text of Verne's Voyage au Centre de La Terre. So far I've only read Stone's e-book---excellent, by the way---and I'm up to the beginning of The Return of the King, taking it a couple of chapters at a time before I turn in for the day. I suppose, once I'm more familiar with it, I'll pick up some more stuff...