Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Kobo and Kindle - Almost useless at my house

I embraced ebooks on my Samsung Galaxy S (Android) phone with its 4 inch super AMOLED screen. I bought a couple and found it a very easy way to read in any situation. A big plus was the font size is adjustable, so I don't need to use reading glasses. A lot of book these days use smaller print to save paper. That's great...I just can't see it very well in low light. An ebook reader doesn't have that problem.

But I've struck a BIG problem and it renders these channels almost useless to me: Neither of them have the books I want to buy.  Well...not quite true. They - between them - will have perhaps one book in 5 or 6 that I would have bought in a heartbeat. Yes, I can buy all the latest mainstream novels and other pulp fiction, but that isn't what I read.

Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine"? Nope. Bill McKibben's  "Eaarth"? Nope. The list goes on and on. Then there are the books they have for sale, but won't let me buy them because I'm in the Asia & Pacific region. So I can be standing in a book store with the book on the shelf in front of me, but neither of these ebook purveyors will sell it to me. They either don't have it or refuse to sell it to me. I'm glad I'm just using the free apps and didn't spend any money on the physical readers.

This is why I was wary of ebooks in the first place (and I was): publisher lock-down. It wrecks ebooks as an option and keeps paper books in the top spot for sheer accessibility - either by me or anyone I lend the book to. Until ebooks are as easy and accessible as paper books, they will burn more people off then they attract.
Posted by Steve Withers at 8:51 AM
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1 comment:

  1. Rosie ElijahwoodJuly 05, 2011 9:30 PM

    So true. And with hardly anyplace to find proper comparisons between the three its so difficult to make the right choice, that it becomes almos inevitable that you become tired of them. There is only one article i have found that has done a little less bias comparison. Check it out http://tablettechtoday.com/blogposts/make-way-kindle-and-clear-the-room-for-the-new-nook-and-kobo-touch-e-readers.html. Hope it helps

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