December 29th, 2010
wednesday wondering …
I wonder what it is about eReaders that makes me so indecisive about their value. A long distance relative sent me a NOOK for Christmas, which made the hordes of books on my shelves and floor riffle their pages in dismay.
Now that I have my little fingers wrapped around a B/W version, I notice that the screen isn’t really much different to read than a page from a book. It’s not a backlit screen, not like a computer, so it’s not bad on my eyes. That’s a plus. Think of something like an etch-a-sketch, only more high tech. Anyhoo, the actual reading part doesn’t suck … and you can zoom in/out.
But I miss the feel of a book in my hands, the way the weight of the story transfers from the right side to the left, giving the reader an indication of how close to the end of the tale they are … thus increasing the drama of ‘how’s the MC going to make it outta this one?’
My NOOK only has a progress bar on the bottom. Eh meh.
Also, I’m not so sure about the quality of the content that’s digitized/uploaded onto these things. I made a couple purchases – two bundles of 50 books each of the classics (100 books for five bucks! Yeah, I’m thrifty like that) and of course, I had to have a Stephen King (or ten, 
) book, so I picked CUJO. One thing that kinda bothered me was that in CUJO, one of the MC’s name, Vic, kept changing from Vic to Vie. Times New Roman font has a serif at the top part of the lower case C, where it forms almost a teardrop shape. It’s like that got punctured and bled across to form a little e. Only, it happens sporadically throughout the novel … umm, can you say, annoying? King is known for giving his characters typewriters with broken letters and such, but I don’t believe this is the case here, tee hee! And some letters got squished together to form different words, cloud became doud. See how the CL crowded each other? I don’t know what the print version of this particular book looks like, but I’ve seen oopsies in some other paperbacks. Nevertheless, this did not stop me from reading to the end.
I do like that I can hold it with one hand and not worry about creasing the book spine – like, I can read while stirring sauce for supper. Bonus!
I don’t like that I can’t flip to just any page I want without typing it in.
I do like that I can get on the internet with it … even though it’s the black and white version and you have to perform all your browsing functions on a screen that’s like two inches tall.
I do like that I can have books in an instant if I chose … however, it’s a little too easy to shop and buy them, heh heh. *Way* too easy.
I don’t know, though… I miss the feel of paper. But I’m luxuriating in the fact that I have like a hundred books in my purse, handy for riding the bus home, waiting in line, etc.
At least I can fix a book with scotch tape if I break it … doubtful my NOOK would be so cheap and easy to repair. Hee hee.
So, paper or plastic, er, I mean, paper or electronic. Which is your preference?
I’m enjoying the NOOK, but find myself still buying paperbacks
