Are e-readers still too underdeveloped to be worthwhile?

Peridot

You don't 'own' the digital copy - you buy a licence that restricts what you can do with it.

hamthekam

Yes, that's what I mean - you are free to lend, swap, sell or give away a paper book. You cannot do any of these with the digital licence you have bought (possibly some limited ability to lend). Paper books also tend to last decades, I can easily imagine today's proprietary digital formats being useless in a few years time.

GloopyJon

I got a Kindle 3 shortly after the launch and I like it a lot.  I've downloaded some free books for it, but so far I haven't bought any books from Amazon.  One of the main problems is that I live outside the UK, and Amazon then forces you to use the American amazon.com site.  This is very annoying, since several of the books that I want are British, and are either not available or much more expensive on amazon.com.  I hope they will change this idiotic restriction some time in the near future.

I've read a couple of books quite happily on it, although at the moment I'm still ploughing through a pile of normal books that I've bought but haven't read yet.  My latest purchases on Amazon, being non-fiction books ("Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell, and "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond), were unfortunately not available in Kindle format, but I presume that most new books will come out in electronic format, particularly as the ereader market grows.

As a piano player (occasional), what I really need is a Kindle with an A3-sized screen and which can automatically turn the pages when it hears that you're a bar before the end of the current page... :-D

echrada

Use Calibre to convert any ebooks to your chosen format.  It is a brilliant piece of software and it is free.

confused88

Caliblre can't convert books bought from Amazon to other Formats.

echrada

When you are right - you are right!

dazza74

Must admit I've had my kindle for about a week, within a day I'd got one on order for my Mum for xmas (just hoping it arrives in time).  We live 250 miles apart so being able to split the cost on a kindle book say and download it to both kindles is cheaper than buying the paperback and having to pay to post the physical book between us.  With 3GB of memory and audible compatability it's pretty handy for audiobooks as well.

Seems a few pretty good books available for less than a £1 or free, I embrace anything nowadays that doesn't require having to physically store anything.  Even my local charity shops are frankly turning away books now.

Solomon Grundy

Got a Kindle for my Dad for Christmas, he's not technical at all but reads a lot of books...I set it up for him ready for Christmas and have to say I am impressed, I think I will get one for myself next year.

gavan

If you're technically minded you can relatively easily grab Kindle books downloaded for devices like the PC or iPhone and convert them for use on the Sony.

I've bought about 7 or 8 'Kindle' books for my iPhone but read them on my Sony.

gavan

Yes it can - the format is almost identical to mobipocket for .azw files, which are the majority of their ebooks. (Though you need to remove the DRM first).