Keith, I have written e-book software for the XO laptop (One Laptop Per Child) which is a terrific device for reading e-books: http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4035 http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4194 The XO can read DjVu and PDF formats so you have access to every IA book by looking at page images. Having said that, the Kindle has a MUCH better battery life, stores more books, and fits in my pocket. The XO laptop does a beautiful job of displaying our EPUBs as it has the full WebKit browser engine as a component. You could buy a NetBook and install the Sugar software on it to make a nice device for e-books, but you can't read the screen in sunlight (unlike the XO) and the battery life would be inadequate. I have a Vizio tablet but it has the same problems as a NetBook has. I like the Nook and Kindle equally. I probably won't buy a Kindle Fire or a Nook Color because they are more tablets than e-book readers. I took my Nook on a trip to Europe. I was reading constantly on the flight over and on two four-hour train trips and only charged it once. The Kindle is nearly as good. I'd say these dedicated devices are here to stay. James Simmons On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Keith J. Schultz <schultzk@uni-trier.de>wrote:
Hi James,
One philosophical reason (as well as a practical one), you can do more with a non-dedicated ereader device.
It is just as easy to access free content from such devices.
Then again this is my personal opinion and anyone can buy and get use any device they choose.
regards Keith Am 29.10.2012 um 15:36 schrieb James Simmons <nicestep@gmail.com>:
Keith,
I agree about The Review. However, I do have both a Kindle and a Nook plus a Vizio tablet. While all of them support DRMed content, you can easily get PG books and IA books on them. Also, as one who sells books on the Kindle site Amazon does not force you to use DRM. It is an option every author has, but nobody forces or even encourages you to choose it. None of my nine books on the Kindle Store have any DRM. The one caveat is that if you choose to use DRM you can't change your mind later. However going from no DRM to DRM is doable. I think Amazon offers DRM because their best selling authors require it from them.
There probably is a way to get PG books on a Kindle Fire. Rather than write a review PG should figure out how to do it and write an article on that. I think they already have one on how to get PG books on various devices.
Dedicated devices like the Kindle and the Nook are a blessing to the free e-book community. There is no good philosophical reason not to get one.
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