Any Cheap eBook Readers Out There?

[Thargor]

Im looking for a little tablet thing that you can stick ebooks on a sim card or on board memory, this Sony one would be ideal but it goes for about $300:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader



Anybody ever see a cheap rip-off anywhere? I could use my DS I suppose but I want one with good battery life that displays stuff page by page and can save your location and all that...

[Grant Lamontagne]

Get yourself a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC.  Some of them are not absurdly expensive and at least you get additional function for the money.  I don't know where I'd be without mine.

Def

[Thargor]

Thats a very good idea actually, okay new question, whats the cheapest possible PDA I can get thats not a total piece of crap?

[Grant Lamontagne]

The Palm E2 is a pretty good machine.  I have been using it's predecessor, the Tungsten E for years no without a problem.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/e2/

Pocket PC's are a little pricier, but if you are willing to get one off eBay there's some decent ones to be had.

Def

[Thargor]

Im looking into it now, thanks def...

[ZenEngineer]

Im looking for a little tablet thing that you can stick ebooks on a sim card or on board memory, this Sony one would be ideal but it goes for about $300:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader

(Image removed from quote.)

Anybody ever see a cheap rip-off anywhere? I could use my DS I suppose but I want one with good battery life that displays stuff page by page and can save your location and all that...

I spent a week reviewing the Sony Reader for a friends magazine.  It's great for what it is and as a voracious book reader it does the job pretty well.  Personally, if the price drops down to $200 I plan to buy one.  Otherwise I'll wait for the next model.  As the e-ink technology matures, the price is bound to drop.

[Grant Lamontagne]

The readers may get cheaper but the books are going the other way!

When I started with ebooks a few years ago, they were about $3/book on average... now they are up to almost paperback price.  It's a little frustrating.  Fortunately it's still legal to download books, music etc from p2p networks in Canada or I'd be broke!  I also wish Chapters would get into the ebook market- imagine being able to go to your local Chapters store, buy an ebook and load it on your card right there.  I'll bet with that kind of distribution we'd see a significant amount more books in e-format.

Def

[Thargor]

Im looking for a little tablet thing that you can stick ebooks on a sim card or on board memory, this Sony one would be ideal but it goes for about $300:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader

(Image removed from quote.)

Anybody ever see a cheap rip-off anywhere? I could use my DS I suppose but I want one with good battery life that displays stuff page by page and can save your location and all that...

I spent a week reviewing the Sony Reader for a friends magazine.  It's great for what it is and as a voracious book reader it does the job pretty well.  Personally, if the price drops down to $200 I plan to buy one.  Otherwise I'll wait for the next model.  As the e-ink technology matures, the price is bound to drop.

Thats what I was thinking aswell, Im not going to bother with a PDA now because anything with a backlight is going to strain my eyes and its totally unnecessary to do that when I have so many paperbacks lying around that I haven't got a chance to read yet, Ill just wait for the technology to mature like you said, my ideal device would be a super-thin, slightly less than A4 sized reader that could display comic books in the .cbr format correctly aswell, Id pay crazy money for something that could do that.

I do have a flashcart for running homebrew apps and roms on my DS though and there are a number of eBook readers being worked on by a few people, hopefully a good one will be released soon, if any of you have played that Dr. Kawashimas Brain Training game theres a test of your reading skills bit in it where you hold the DS on its side like a book so both screens display a page each and you turn the pages by touching the touch-screen with your thumb, its really comfortable and feels totally natural.

I think I might stretch to $200 myself for that Sony one if the price drops actually, nd I bet it will when the competition start releasing them, iRiver have one on the way soon and there are more in the works.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yeah, but can you play Age of Empires on an ebook reader?

Def

[ZenEngineer]

Yeah, but can you play Age of Empires on an ebook reader?

Def

Why would you want to?  If you are going to play games then get something to play games on.  If you like to read a lot then you'll want paper or an e-ink ebook reader.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I want to have all the options I can to cover whatever I feel like doing while sitting in a waiting room somewhere.  I do that too much these days...  and nothing is more fun than jumping up and swearing at a virtual enemy in a waiting room full of screaming kids!

Def