Might be a bit off-topic, but here it goes. This article gave me reassurance how I resisted using e-readers and stuck to the notion of using an actual book. Waste of paper? Yes. But then we are wasting papers in many other ways as well (another debate). Plus books hardly get recycled and they often get passed on (used bookstores). Also, my another issue with Kindle-esque books or even buying paperbacks from Amazon is that now I always rely on reviews before purchasing my new book. I remember when I was young and in school, I would just go and browse through books in my school library and pick whatever interests me.
As someone who grew up on paper books, but at one time bought an e-reader, my 2 cents:
Ereaders will likely never be as good as the best paper books. However, they can be better than many printed books. I've owned printed books with poor bindings, poor typesettings, poor quality paper. The ereader was definitely better than those.
On the whole spectrum of quality of published (paper) books, I would rank my ereader to be right smack in the middle.
Then there's the obvious: Ereaders are much more practical on a plane, etc. My first one was 5 inches (which is small - would not recommend). It fit in my jacket pocket. Any time I was stuck somewhere (e.g. mechanic waiting for my car), it was quite convenient to take it out and read on it.
Finally, years ago I had nasty tendonitis in my arms. Holding a heavy hardbound book and reading was painful. The ereader was my constant companion through those months of pain.
Obviously, I still read printed books, but to me, on the whole, the two are roughly equal.
>The biggest disappointment with my e-reader is that reading PDFs is awful on that ridiculous display.
Ereaders suck for PDFs. To some extent, that's because the PDF format sucks. PDF forces a number of words per line, lines per page, etc. Essentially, PDFs force a certain page size on you. If you compare with physical books, that's not the case. When Stephen King writes a novel, it can be printed as a small paperback or a large print book.
Epubs is the way to go with ereaders.
As for the size of ereaders, it's a tradeoff. 6 inches has its shortcomings (frequent page turns), but they have their pluses (very easy to carry).
Sony used to make 9" readers, and I occasionally find used ones for very cheap at Goodwill (under $10).
The Kobo Auro One is almost 8" (about $250).
But yeah, if you want to read PDFs, ebook readers are not the way to go. Use a tablet instead (with all its screen fatigue, etc).
>Essentially, PDFs force a certain page size on you. ...
Not necessarily. Sony's early readers had automatic reflowing of text if you chose a larger font size. It worked really well for fiction or any other type of text without pictures/diagrams.
For modern e-readers, converters like the free Calibre software (https://calibre-ebook.com), will allow resizing & reflow of text in PDFs to a size more usable for any device.
>Sony used to make 9" readers ...
There are refurbished Sony PRS-900 units available (e.g. eBay) for around $50 and, unlike most e-readers, they have user-replaceable batteries.
>Not necessarily. Sony's early readers had automatic reflowing of text if you chose a larger font size. It worked really well for fiction or any other type of text without pictures/diagrams.
My first ereader was Sony's PRS-350. It had automatic reflowing, but it did a poor job on many PDF's. It did not take care of line breaks - so if I increased the font size, each line was 1.5 lines long (i.e. the original PDF's line would be 1.5 lines on the ereader - it would still respect the line break).
I haven't tried the conversions in recent versions of Calibre. I did try it for PDFs over 5 years ago, and the results were less than satisfactory. I pretty much decided not to use small ereaders for PDFs.
If you're like me, you've spent many times that on books. E-readers often have books at a discount or even free. So its a value proposition: how many e-books over what time make it a bargain?
I love physical books; my wife and I have a library of well over 1000 volumes - certainly not the largest collection, but large enough. Most of it is fiction, but we also have a lot of non-fiction as well.
Even so - I like an e-reader for certain uses. The best use that I've found is for technical documents. Not books, per se, but documentation like electronic component datasheets and the like are much more convenient to access on an e-reader, especially when you're in the middle of a project. Before, one would have to spend a lot of money to get the datasheets in book form from the manufacturer, and then find a place to store the behemoths (some were as thick as phone books, and multi-volume - especially components and such from places like Motorola, ST, and others with extensive component lines). Not only that, each year (or more often) you'd have to get the new versions for the year, and the various errata pages (filed somewhere). Then to search thru all of that...
...today, I can download and read these documents online or offline with a reader, store them locally, search them fairly easily, etc. All on a small and easy to use electronic device.
We have books too. I don't love them (smelly, dusty, heavy) but I have never gotten into an e-reader. So much friction to use - fiddly menus, losing my place, even changing pages or trying to go back and find a passage I read before - all tedious.
So we have a collection. Every bookcase in the house two-deep and books stacked on top of books. When the boys grew up and our church asked for kids books in English for a Romanian school, we donated 1000 books to the effort. Still have a bookcase full of kids books (for the grandkids someday, sigh).
The small electronic device is certainly a selling-point. If they don't expire (go out of business) or get lost changing to the latest gee-whiz gadget, it would be nice to have them all in one place.
I got a Kindle in 2012, when I traveled the world for a few months. Swapping books or even buying new ones every 2-3 days gets boring quickly. So I got the $79 Kindle back then (still think it's the best one ever, because its light, no keyboard, no touch, page flips with mechanical keys on both sides).
The biggest advantage though is: I read way more on a Kindle than ever before. I love that you don't have to carry a book, can adjust the font size, and basically pick it up faster than a physical book and continue reading, even if it's only for 10 minutes in the subway.
Also, Kindle books are usually cheaper and I (as a German) get to download many English books instead of having to order them and wait for a day or two.
Weird: I often highlight some sentences or paragraphs in Kindle books that I like, but I actually never look back at the notes I took.
I thought I was fully converted to e-reading, but have recently moved back to physical books. Impacting or meaningful books on my bookshelf are like old friends, and they deserve to take up physical space in my physical space.
There is a great advantage to an e-Reader (like Kindle) in that you can turn any book into a large print book. As you get older and you eyesight gets worse this is no small advantage, since you can continue reading the stuff you like.
There are some magazines (looking at you New Republic) that we stopped subscribing too because the font is too small to read - I can still see it, but trying to read it causes eye strain.
I wonder, has there ever been a challenge to magazine publishers under disability discrimination laws?
Businesses in UK & USA, AIUI, have to make reasonable accommodations for disabilities. It would be supremely easy for a magazine to forward a PDF copy that a legally blind person could use with an eBook reader or similar.
