Electronic or print? Or blow your load about your new Kindle.
 

What do you prefer? Print or online reading?

So I have always enjoyed paper medium for reading. With the proliferation of electronics, I have so much online reading to do for school and such I don't always bother to print all of it, it would be too much.

With a book or newspaper, once you've read something, you just keep flipping till you're done. You know where you've been and haven't. With online stuff, it's clicks back and forth here and there, bookmarking and marking read. I get lost sometimes. That or I am not sure if I've been exposed to all the topics that are actually posted.

But I actually BOUGHT the newspaper today, and despite my preference, I still think a 22" x 22" is the most unwieldy shit ever.

Print.

Can't reach for a Kindle to blow your load into now, can you?



Sometimes I just get too excited by the daily recycled Garfield comics in the paper. "Haha, Jon made a funny face as the punchlin-OH MY DICK"

I still dig print even though I mostly read shit online these days.

There's something in reading books/magazines/newspapers etc that attracts me.

Navigation and reading interfaces have a ways to go but in principle I'd be okay with it if everything just went digital. That said I'm a huge hypocrite that might as well bring a wheelbarrow to the library with me, but.... in principle. The words are the thing, I couldn't care less about the nostalgic scent of newsprint of the textile delight of pages between your fingers or shit like that. Words! Can you deliver words to me more cheaply and efficiently? Good. Do that.

I've been a Kindle owner for over a year now and it's one of my favorite devices. I've become a better reader, do more reading in general, and enjoy reading more because of it.

I do most of my reading on the subway, and most of the time I'm standing up trying to maintain my balance, so having one hand holding a pole is almost mandatory. Reading actual books was a pain in the ass, but with the Kindle I can read with one hand with ease. I can make the text larger to help my shitty eyes see the text. But my favorite feature is the built-in dictionary. Just hover over a word and the definition pops up.

It's not the fastest device, and the E-Ink refresh rate is noticeable, but it doesn't detract from the experience in the slightest. The time it takes to flip a real page is about the same time it takes to flip an E-page, so it works out.

I have friends who are staunchly opposed to digital books because they like the feeling of paper and the experience of flipping actual pages and weird shit like that. Like Pang said, they're just words, man. And the Kindle is the best device out there for bringing you words on an easy, readable, and fairly cheap device. If you enjoy reading, it's almost a no-brainer if you ask me. The only thing it hasn't been able to master is the newspaper and magazine, which I think the iPad is poised to dominate.

I haven't decided to pony up the dough to buy an electronic book reader yet, but I'm itching for one more and more. At the present moment, I'm lucky enough to be at home most of the time, so I still don't mind buying actual books and reading them, but whenever I have stints of work where I need to commute I generally start to feel the itch to go out and buy one. Our place is also starting to look like an abandoned library with the books I leave everywhere for lack of storage space, and my habit of picking up whatever seems interesting whenever I'm in a used book store isn't helping.

The only thing I dislike with the kindle and such is the lack of color. I don't mind it for reading a regular book, obviously, but it would suck to have a book which has color photos/diagrams/artwork in it and not be able to get the true impression. I do admit though, that is a minor concern.

i've been vaguely considering getting a kindle, but i don't read enough books for it to be worth it right now. My eyes do get sore if i'm reading off of a computer monitor, but from what i can tell the kindles don't have that problem, so when i do get back into reading non-textbooks someday, i'll probably end up getting a kindle.

That said, i really hope we keep some print stuff around. Newspapers especially - reading news online just feels wrong to me. and you can't hit younger siblings on the head with a kindle.

I've been using my phone lately for a lot of web browsing and ebook reading. It has a major leg up over print in mobility and in hand comfort. I don't really read magazines or comics all too often, but with graphic heavy mediums, print is definately less awkward on your eyes to be able to view the whole page at the scale it was meant to be seen at. If we're just talking words, I'd rather have have it digital.

Ever since I affirmed my hipster douchbaggery bought an iPad, I've lost any interest in picking up an eReader. And since my phone is my go-to device for reading on the go, I don't see much of a niche for them in my reading time anymore. I do really enjoy physical books though, and I'm ensured a steady supply of them from a buddy of mine. As you might expect, there's advantages to both media.

This reminds me of the major reason I would like an ereader. I have a home phone, and my cell is just the cheapest thing I could find, basically to be able to call/receive calls if something is really important and I absolutely can't be at home. I have an ipod, but it's a classic, and the screen is too small to do any extensive reading on it, plus I have to change the format to some kind of text, which often screws with the text formatting of the PDFs.

But with the new smartphones and such, do those among you who have those feel the need to actually have a dedicated reading device besides that, considering that the screen on a lot of those things is big enough to not make it a complete chore to read on them?

While I understand that sort of faggotry and prefer it myself, the real reason I hate hate hate hate e-readers is the fucking DRM, and the non-standardized implementation there of between different distribution methods.

Amazon's statement of lack of first sale rights on e-books, along with their ability to remotely delete content (like that Animal Farm thing that they removed) at will is a practice I'm unwilling to support. If I owned what I bought, I'd be infinitely more likely to buy one just for the space saving convenience alone.

Exactly what skills said. I get some people love shiny things and all that goes along with them, but you don't actually own any content with the current state of things, and I refuse to be a party to that sort of business model if I can avoid it.

While I appreciate the feel of a book in my hands and haven't really had any great experiences with devices like Kindles, I realize that paper is kind of unsustainable and that this shit is the future. I'll get a kindle probably the same day I get a cell.

I still buy books. I don't know what it is but I love going into a used book store and just inhaling the scent of aging paper. It's why the library at our campus is still my favorite building there period. Having said that, I do a fair amount of reading on my girlfriend's iPod and, with the release of the iBooks app, I've started loading a good amount of eBooks on there since the Apple book store has a solid amount of openly-licensed books and they're often pretty decent stuff. I prefer a physical book but I'm not going to snub eBooks either. I mean, I won't fucking BUY them (because, as Skills pointed out, you don't really buy anything if it's digital) but if I can find a good book downloading site, I'll peruse the goods and see what I can load into the iPod.

That's another issue I have. Phsysical copies feel more secure in a way. No batteries and shit. I guess it could all go up in a fire, whereas you can backup digital medium, and retrieving digital stuff is easier to send back and forth.

But sometimes I feel having my stuff fill a physical space in my life, I am able to keep better track of it or give it more attention than I would if I'd downloaded it. And notes and shit are more obvious with physical stuff.
Where are my notes?
Physical: *shake book out*
Digital: *clickclickclickclickclickclick*

I plan to get a 10-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab when it comes out next month. I am sure I can find some PDFs to read, and a PDF reader to read it with :tpg:

Therein lies the problem. I've been using my iPad for reading ever since I got it, but there just aren't the same sites for torrenting books that there are for movies/tv/music. I've never bought books, since I only read them once; I always used the library. I miss the browsing through the library, but I don't miss having to keep up with due dates, and trekking over there every few weeks. Plus, with an ereader/iPad, you always have the book with you. If I find myself with a few minutes at my desk, I can read a bit. Lugging a library book around on the off chance you might be able to read a few pages isn't practical.

I think the main thing that's bugged me about ereaders and whatnot is that you're essentially paying the same price for an electronic content of the book as you are for a physical copy. Hadn't the argument for a good while been that books were expensive because it cost so much money to print them?

As soon as libraries start having large amounts of ebooks available for loan I plan on picking up a reader of some sort.

This is why I like buying books and cds, rather than downloading shit. I like to actually own something. Hell, I just like books, I like browsing a bookcase, I just prefer phsyical objects I guess.

Let me raise my vote for physical copies whenever possible. I'm like Paco in that the used-book store smell is like heroin to me. Can't get enough of it, and I always feel great and lose fucking HOURS looking at books. Same goes for games, CDs and movies. I'll get a game in download form if it's the only way (DLC) or if it's really cheap/free (PSN's Welcome Back rewards), and while I download MP3s if I like the album, I want to hold it in plastic form.