On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 06:20:14PM -0500, Gutenberg9443@aol.com wrote:
Hi--
Just so you'll know--JAN 31 is THE LAST day that the eBookWise 1500 will be priced at $99. I don't know what it will go to after that, but the original price, when the device had a different name, was about $300.
With the sincerest apologies to my Rocket, which has been close to my heart for the last five years, I now like the 1500 better. It's a very fine machine, and with the expenditure of another $60 for peripherals, which I got a couple of weeks ago but have not yet installed, it will hold over 300 books. It also allows editing in my normal handwriting, allowing me to insert extra blank pages to write on if necessary.
For what it's worth: I bought one of these, too, based on Anne's positive review. I haven't used a eBook reader before, so don't have anything to compare it to. This is a great little machine, and I've read several thousand pages on it. Highly recommended. The little proggies for dumping your own content on it all require Windows, so I've yet to try them (soon...). Unlike my MP3 player and other devices, you cannot just dump files on the reader via USB. (Ok, you can - but the reader won't display them or acknowledge them.) The main limitation is the available literature. Most of the contemporary literature consists of lesser-known authors, or lesser known works from well-known authors. For example, I used my $20 coupon to buy older novels by Greg Bear & Dan Simmons. Quality stuff, but well over 10 years old. Evidently, the mainstream publishers are not putting their mainstream works onto the Fictionwise site - maybe they're elsewhere. My strong suspicion is that many the works on the Fictionwise site are those that are owned by authors, not publishers. So, right now, this device doesn't replace bn.com or whatever for my reading of contemporary works. Still, it's pretty darned good for a $99 device. -- Greg