You sound like nothing more than a shrill shill, given shillings for ranting and raving against Apple and the iPad.
previous tablets were crude, now that we've seen apple do them _correctly_.
Beg to differ that any tablet is done "correctly" if you pay for wifi/3g but aren't actually allowed to use the wifi/3g to do anything with books but buy from the company store. Kindle/Nook/iPad all suffer from restrictions on wireless transmission in an attempt by the hardware mfg to tie you to
company store. Netbooks, for example, do no suffer from this restriction. Toshiba Portege doesn't have the restriction, but at $1300 is a *bit*
Pardon, but I believe *I* expressed *My* opinions (repeated below) in a polite and measured way. I believe I have already acknowledged your "work-arounds" -- I just don't want to have to deal with "work-arounds." Also, I don't believe it is fair to represent my comments as coming from a "shill" given that I acknowledged the shortcomings of multiple machines. Also, I can assure you that I am NOT a "shill" and I would appreciate it if you publicly retracted that slander. If anything I appear to be the LEAST fanatic and most pragmatic about their choice of reading machine on this forum! If anyone else goes to the Apple Company Store, tries an iPad and it does what YOU want it to do: THEN BUY IT! I encourage EVERYBODY to go to an Apple Store, try it, and see what they think FOR THEMSELVES! It doesn't do what *I* want it to do, so *I* don't buy it -- I would THINK that wouldn't be very controversial position to take! Personally I am going to wait till 4.0 and see if its less restrictive then. HP Slate is rumored to be killed, in which case THAT certainly isn't a solution. (Presumably HP/Palm are now busy retooling to make a "Palm" version of the Slate/iPad, *sigh*) Que with its relationship with B&N also seems now to have picked up the wifi/3g "virus" of not allowing the owner of the machine to do what they like with their OWN wifi/3g connection. http://www.que.com/ What justification can you think of except trying to force sales through the company store to NOT allow the owner of a BrandX tablet to do the following: 1) Use wifi or 3g to transfer a book they own directly to/from their own computer? 2) Use wifi or 3g to transfer a book from any location they dang well like on the internet? 3) Use wifi or 3g to transfer a book not under DRM to a friend to share? Again, for comparison, laptops and netbooks have always had these capabilities. Maybe what we need is like cellphones the option of buying "unlocked" ebook readers at a higher price!? On Wed, 5 May 2010, Jim Adcock wrote: their pricy
for a reader, not to mention 5 lb vs. 1 lb for a DX.