So My usual suggestion to someone considering getting one, is to ask them a few questions

* How much do they read each day / month / year
* What do they read more
* How do they read it
* Is what they want available in eBook

Based on that, I’ll then ask whether or not readers in the market currently offer largely what they need. I said NEED not WANT as, you can want the sky, but how much do they actually need.

So Yes, For people who read the occasional book, or read books with a lot of images or complex formatting, it might be worth waiting.

But for people who read regularly, a Reader can often be a very good solution, especially if they commute, or read a lot when traveling or on vacation.

The cost issue is a bit of a misnomer in my opinion.

How many people spend a fortune on Mobile Phones, or Media Players, Game Consoles, etc.

If you count the amount of time you will be spending reading, compared to another activitys, then the cost does not seem as big of an issue. Yes, it is an expensive single use item, but it is one which does it’s job well, and will pay back its investment in convenience and in some case in Price within a few months to a year.

While I’ve been an early adapter with the PRS-500, the current generation of reader has a lot going for them, in terms of improvements in screen quality not to mention speed.

I liked the article because I know nothing about the Pixel Qi technology, but the advice on delaying your purchase because of better technology on the horizon is kind of silly. There will always be better technology on the horizon. If everyone followed this advice, no one would ever buy anything, and I certainly wouldn’t be enjoying my wonderful MacBookPro! At any rate, one could purchase an eReader now, and sell it on e-Bay for its salvage value, which should still be pretty good (less than a year old, with some a number of titles installed)

Jordan
http://ereader.stackexchange.com

@Greg: I’ve read three complete novels on an HDTV, using yBook with two-inch-high letters, a recliner, and a remote to turn pages. Portable it ain’t, but it’s not at all bad, really.

That semester I finished four books in addition to course readings on my commute. Anything that allows me to cram more books into my head before I die is worth some money to me; and with each book read, the device’s ‘cost per text read’ drops. Looking back on the increase in no. of books read, in my particular case (I’m in my 40′s) waiting would have been unfortunate.

When purchasing I took my father’s advice. “Buy the best technology you can afford to fit your needs *when you are acquiring the device*.” My own advice on top of this: Pay Cash.

There *will* always be a ‘next best’, and the device in hand *will* always become obsolete. Always. When I bought my Kindle, it was *the only* device that permitted annotating and underlining, and was therefore the only viable option. Because I’m focused on what the device has changed for me, I feel no sting from three subsequent Kindle price-drops. Instead I feel some relief that if my device gets lost, horked or trashed, replacing it will be more economical.

Continued access to one’s paid content is the more important consideration; and the harder one to deal with in a practical manner. I’ve dealt with it by loading piles of free, non-DRM content; and as far as purchases, mainly buying expendable content, cheap, buying ‘as I read’ (i.e. not ‘buying for infinity’); and hoping for the rest that my files will eventually forward-compatible, or become migratable to another format. If I’ve managed to get all of my paid content into my skull before it becomes unreadable (which it won’t as long as the device remains functional), I’ll feel no reason to complain too loudly. (Although I’ll certainly grumble.)

e-readers should be just for reading books — just like one wants to read a book — not as pretending to be some sort of netbook or notebook computers.

Right now we have an incredible amount of selection of reading devices–screen sizes, connectivity, price, retailers–and that’s just the eInk dedicated readers. ADE ePub seems to be the way to go at the moment for current books, and there’s tons of good stuff around to read for free or cheap and without DRM.

Although the situation with formats and devices seems to be moving frustratingly slow, when I think about it I can’t believe how far things have come since I bought my first dedicated device nearly two years ago–a Cybook Gen3. I’ve never regretted my purchase for a minute. I just bought my second device–an EZReader Pocket Pro. It’s faster, better specced, more portable, supports the latest formats, and cost half what I paid for the Gen3 in January 2008. (And yet the Gen3 is still a great device and I still use it.)

You can drive yourself nuts trying to decide if it’s “worth the money” to buy now or if you will get more value later. Early adopter gadget geeks know–sometimes you have to pay a bit of a premium to have fun in the present. Of course next month there will be cheaper, better devices. In the meantime you will have been able to enjoy your own toy.

Bottom line, I’ve got an eBookWise which works fine for me, so I won’t be buying a new reader this year. But if I didn’t have the eBookWise, I’d be shopping. Because I do a LOT of reading and the current products are plenty good enough for me to get a lot of positive use out of them. If I waited until next year, the models would be better/cheaper, but someone would make the same argument…just wait until 2011 and they’ll be even better.

Rob Preece
Publisher

Nowadays I read on my PRS-500 and on my Android phone. I obviously prefer e-ink, but reading on my phone is OK for short periods of time. Also, the phone doubles as a dictionary when I am reading on my PRS-500.

On a related note, I trief to buy the Booker prize winning novel by Mantel today. Simply impossible where I am (Japan) unless I sign up to the Kindle restrictions. The book trade has always manipulated prices by restrictive selling but I am afraid this will lead to wide scale piracy. I was so close to looking for it on torrents but managed to restrain my irritation at a wasted hour, caused not by complexities of physical distribution but by lawyers.