I am getting a second ebook reader. I’m very excited. I have the chance to try the Pocketbook 360 and I am delighted to to be one of Teleread’s guinea pigs for this model. And then the news came out about the Kobo Reader and I started feeling device envy again. It’s so pretty! And I could sync all my Kobo books on it via wifi…
More than one ebook device might be overkill for most people. But are there times when there might be a genuine use or need for it? I think so! I will present some ideas below for reasons why a person might want more than one reader, and how one can best make use of the technology available to them.
BACKGROUND: MY PAST HISTORY WITH MULTIPLE DEVICES
In the past, I have had more than one ebook reader, but never simultaneously. My Clie broke, so I got a Palm m125. Then I wanted a full-sized reader so I got the eBookwise, which I later sold to partly fund a thinner, lighter Sony 505. I sold that and upgraded to the Kindle so I could get the text to speech and dictionary functions. If I do get something else, it will be the iPad and that will be mostly so I can have a bigger screen for work-related PDF files and so that I can do music with my students without having to plug in a netbook and carry around a pile of cables with me.
MY CURRENT DEVICE USE
I was certain that one device was sufficient for me, so I was surprised to find that once I thought it, I actually have a need for—and am using—more than one device already. I primarily read on the Kindle—the regular way, or via text to speech, which has been a real benefit to me. I have been going to the free track at a community centre near my home, and since I am not a huge music listener, I have been taking it with me and listening to my books. But the issue for me is what to do at work. I am a teacher, but I teach a specialty subject. I don’t have my own classroom and don’t have my own dedicated workspace. I share a supply cupboard with the part-time gym teacher and carry my stuff around with me to different classes. So, when I have a break, there is not really a place I can go. I certainly can’t sit in the middle of the hallway with my Kindle…
My saving grace has been the laptop computer in the school office. It’s set up in the corner of the office for general use, but it is hardly a lounge area. In fact, there is only one chair—for the computer. If I sat there just to ‘work’ (and some of my ebook reading IS work-related) and somebody else wanted the computer, I would have to leave, and as I don’t really have anywhere else to go to, I wouldn’t be able to use that break productively. So one of the reasons I have been patronizing Kobo increasingly frequently is that unlike Fictionwise, Kobo gives you the option to read on-line. I always scoffed at this feature—who wants to be tied to a computer? And what if you don’t have constant on-line access? But now I realize that this feature is not designed for people who want to read on the go. It is designed for people in situations like mine, where you are already on the computer and want to have a quick reading break, or where a computer is the only device you have access to at the time. Kobo organizes the books by chapter and gives you an estimated reading time before you start. So if I have fifteen minutes, I can knock out a chapter and then come back to my bookshelf later and easily jump to the next section.
I always told myself that I loved my Kindle because it’s got a comfortable e-ink screen and I would never read a book off a computer screen. It turns out, I will. The ‘second device’ of the computer is filling a niche for me and I find that I am increasingly not even bothering to transfer the Kobo purchases onto a portable device because I want to reserve them for these daytime breaks when I am tied to a computer.
WHERE ANOTHER DEVICE WOULD FIT IN
So, if a new device were to make it into my household, then given my past patterns, it would have to either be replacing something which was no longer working for me (for example, replacing the Sony with the Kindle because I needed additional features the Sony didn’t have) or it would have to fill a niche that my existing system isn’t accommodating (such as reading during workplace breaks where my only option is a computer). What are some of these niches and how would I fill them?
1) I have some teaching manuals I use for work which I have been scanning so I can easily bring them with me without carrying around several hundred pages of bulk. But they are in both French and English so I have been having trouble OCRing them. Keeping them as PDF image files is going to be the only way this project will work. I am very tempted by the iPad because it will let me carry them around with me on a screen which is large enough to actually read them off of, and it will also have some other features I can use in my teaching. My netbook may be small and light, but it has poor battery life and hence I weighed down with carrying around the cables and with having to spend precious classtime setting it up and putting it away again every time I want to do a song or show a Powerpoint. So, as a netbook replacement and PDF viewer, this will fill a niche my Kindle does not fill.
2) I have been subscribing to several magazines at Fictionwise and am a bit behind on my reading. I have been reluctant to load them onto the Kindle because there is no way to group them or tag them, and given the number of ebooks I own, it’s getting a bit unwieldy to keep everything on the Kindle. I can search and find what I am looking for, but sometimes I just want to browse, and scrolling though several screens of magazine issues as I go is a little daunting. The one feature I really miss from my Sony is the collections feature. I am looking forward to having a second device that lets one organize things a little. I can reserve my Kindle for the novel-reading and load up my new Pocketbook with magazine issues, fanfiction, Star Trek novels and other collections where I’d only read it if I were in the mood or where I have too many ebooks to comfortably browse on the Kindle. A software update to the Kindle may very well close this gap for me down the road. But for the time being, this is definitely a need a second reader could fulfill for me, and readers are getting so cheap now (Fictionwise sells three models in the under-$100 range) that having a book reader and having a separate magazine reader is not such an extravagent idea for a prolific reader like me.
3) My mother and step-father are interested in getting an ebook reader. Once I have put the PB through its paces on my own, I am thinking of setting it up for them as a loaner so they can try out the whole ebook experience for themselves. If all goes well, I would even consider giving it to them. If they don’t want it, they can give it back to me and I can loan it out to other people who want to try ebook readers. It might help bring a few other customers into the market, and the more customers in the market, the friendlier the marketplace will become. Ebook selection and prices will improve along with market saturation. I am happy to advocate for that cause!
4) Until a format becomes standardized across all devices, most people will be dealing with mixed collections. Downloading free books from Amazon with your Kindle account? It’s computer, Kindle or iPod for you. Want to read epub books from Overdrive via your public library? Not on the Kindle or ipod—but yes on the Sony and several other devices—but don’t try the Amazon books on those. This is not such an issue for me for various reasons, but I can see a second device being useful for people for whom this is important.
I am looking forward to my new reader and will post a full review on Teleread in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
Are you sure that the Kobo e-reader has Wifi? I thought it only had bluetooth.
ONLY Bluetooth and USB:
http://www.koboereader.com/tech-specs.html
I’ve had a lone Kindle 2 for about a year. I’ve now added a Sony PRS-600, mainly for the better organization and categorization features. My beloved Kindle looks plain clunky next to the Sony now. Its just more fun to use than the Kindle. The other benefit to having more than one reader in the house is my wife and I can both be reading at the same time. No more fighting over who gets the Kindle!
I’ve also been considering buying another ebook reader. In my case, the justification/rationale is so that I can check out ebooks from the library as the Kindle doesn’t have that capability. Whether I actually do it will probably depend on what happens to ebook prices when the iPad comes out and the agency contracts begin. I’ve been buying more books than usual in anticipation of higher prices come April 1. I’ve also filled my Kindle with freebies.
That’s the rationale. I suspect that if I weren’t so cheap, I would have collect ereaders. And wouldn’t it be great, if all publishers were like Baen Books?
I use a PDA for reading now, and more than once I’ve considered getting a tablet, to view larger magazine content (Zinio content, for example).
But the fact is that most magazine content should be formatted for reading on any screen, so you shouldn’t need a larger device just to read magazine content. PC Magazine was a good example of a digital mag that was well-suited for small screen reading. Unfortunately, try telling that to most magazine publishers, and they’ll kill you with a thousand paper cuts.
So I can see someday getting a larger device to read magazine content… especially if all my preferred magazines develop digital subscription models.
I’ve long read on PDAs (HP Jornada 6xx, Dell Axim 51v) and Tablet PCs. Having dual complementary platforms means not having to compromise regardless of location or environment.
I’m currently working on my third eink reader and I think I’ve pretty much zero’ed in on the optimum form-factor for paperback-class reading; the above-mentioned Pockebook 360.
(I suspect Joanna will have a hard time letting go if she plays with it enough, especially if she gets the pearlescent Ivory version.)
Not sure where the next local optimum can be found, for hardcover-equivalent reading, as there aren’t many 8in readers worth considering and the 10in models are too big.
Perhaps we’ll see somebody cook up something good with a 7/9in screen with something approaching the PB360’s minimalist form-factor.
For now, though, the pocketability and hard cover of the PB360 trumps the extra surface area of the horde of 6in Kindle-wannabes and the iPad hasn’t shown me anything I need, so I’m making do with my tablet PC at the higher end, while I wait for an aceptable larger format reader.
Earlier this year, Dear Author and Teleread (and some others) encouraged their readers to take a survey on reading and ebooks. Of the approximately 2,500 readers who responded, more than half use two devices and 17% used 3 or more (this includd desktop/laptop as one device). I think you are not alone in your multi-device aspirations.
I think this points to the desire for ereaders to support portable content formats, DRM and cross device features like sychronization. ( http://blog.drskippy.com/2010/03/24/ebook-readers-want-portability/ )
See full results here ( http://blog.drskippy.com/2010/03/18/dear-author-survey-results/ )
I have a desktop computer at home as my main computer; a netbook for travelling and “in bed/on the sofa” portability — looking up details watching movies or TV.
I have a Kindle 2 for pleasure reading — and it’s definitely a pleasure reading on a Kindle 2.
Should Kindle 3 add ePub/ADE and considerably better organisational tools, it would do everything I need it to do.
The Kindle DX is lovely but getting too unwieldy. But, add colour to it, and better note taking, and it becomes a pretty decent student device, too.
A tablet computer doesn’t really add anything to this mix except being a different form factor from a netbook. It may be a category of computing that has less traction than we all believe at the moment.