The Glade 4.0

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Nice. I have a few questions about UI/buttons (primarily, are page turns only executed by touching the screen, or does it have mechanical buttons as a page-turning option?), and I think I'll be waiting to see it in person to see how I feel about fingerprints on the screen...

But I'm interested. A little disappointed to lose the beautiful color covers in the library, but I might live with it okay.

I'd much rather have seen a Mirasol update to the Nook Color, though. With or without touch.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It's quite attractive, but I don't like the idea of being forced to touch an e-ink display to turn the pages. That's fine on my iPad, but when I'm laying in bed reading on my Kindle 3, I rather prefer the lack of movement required to simply hit the low-profile buttons on the sides to flip pages.

Personally, I just like it from a simplicity perspective.

I want as simple (yet stable and functional) of an e-reader as I can get. Less buttons is better for me.

Depends how you hold books normally, I guess, but for me I normally hold it with one hand on the edge, such that I could easily use a thumb to tap the edge of the screen and advance it. I'll have to see how it actually works once it's out, though.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Then get a Kindle.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I find Kindle's the worst of the lot from a simplicity standpoint. To many buttons. I don't like the whole "keyboard at the bottom" approach, nor do I like the fact that essentially the whole side of the device acts as a page-forward button. I find it makes it quite awkward to hold, and I'd prefer that the majority of the size be in screen.

Of all the e-readers out there, the kindle is my least favorite from a design perspective.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Among the big 3 (Sony, Nook, Kindle), I agree. I'm sure there are worse designs, however.

I'm looking forward to picking this one up and playing with it a bit when it hits the shelves. Might be good enough to convert me from my current Sony Reader loyalty.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I actually like the Kobo and a few others better than the Kindle as well. But yeah, I'm sure there are worse out there.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I really enjoy the Kindle 3 as the best and most attractive of the lot, though the Nook Touch gives it a run for its design money. The Nook is next, then probably the Kobo (that one gigantic, goofy-looking button kinda kills it for me, despite my love for its service). I dislike the Sony Readers...unattractive, wholly uncomfortable to use, poorly designed overall.

I just really don't like the keyboard on the kindle... Seems like a huge waste of space on an e-reader to me.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Its easy to hold and manipulate with one hand. Lightweight, awesome screen, etc. The page forward is only 2" or so and ambidextrous. The KB area isn't all that large and you're not losing that much screen real estate for real, physical controls.

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Holy shitsnacks!

But it's real, physical controls that I would almost never use. The most I could see needing on an e-reader would be a 4-direction pad to select through menu's/choose a book.

I just didn't find it easy to hold and manipulate with one hand at all, it seemed like the keyboard and the page forward button got in the way.

All in how I'm used to holding a book, I guess.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

With one hand, the page forward button falls naturally to thumb manipulation.

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Holy shitsnacks!

One-hand operation of my Sony Reader is equally natural for me.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I have the etouch and I have absolutely no idea how you came up with this conclusion, but to each their own. I find my just fine to read in bed, in the airplane, one-handed, two-handed, etc etc.

I have the original nook, and love everything about it except the touch screen at the bottom, which isn't horrible, but there is just something not-right about it. The menus aren't very well done for one thing, and the touch points are too small too. But otherwise I love the thing (although it hasn't gotten much use lately for other interests).

I have no interest at all in my e-reader 'feeling' like a book in my hand. In fact the obnoxiousness that is holding a book and turning paper pages is part of what drove me towards an e-reader in the first place. That, along with the convenience factor of having a huge library in my pocket.

My main requirements for an e-reader are, first and formost, a low eye-stress e-ink screen (not interested in another LCD), light weight, comfortable and natural feeling in my hand, and long battery life. The ability to read generic epubs and .pdfs is important as well, as a lot of the stuff I read on mine does not come from the B&N book store.

The way I see it, all of them have a better page turning mechanism than a real book, and the fact that you don't have to hold the pages open makes them significantly more comfortable than a real book. I realize that this is probably blasphemy to purists, but I'm not one, and having an e-reader has increased my reading, both fiction and non-fiction pretty significantly.

What Midgen said. Like all of it.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Here's CNETs review of the Nook Touch.

Looks like they like it quite a lot, for most of the reasons I was hoping it would be good.

This may actually convince me to get an e-Reader instead of paperbacks. At least for some things.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

You know ...

If it weren't for the fact you guys are reading something, I'd have you all assassinated for using E-Readers.

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Why? They're completely superior to printed books in every imaginable way.

No, I'm not trolling.

...

They are inferior to books in every way that matters.

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Unless printed copies of books have different text than their digital brethren, every way that "matters" is just personal bias.

Also, some of us read 4 books on vacation, and don't really have the luggage space to take the library with us on every trip.

E-Books can crash; they can break; they can run out of batteries; they can be deprecated forever into the no-longer supported device category.

So ...

BOOKS!

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The main reasons I don't have an e-reader are:

Used books! I pick up most of my books used, and cheap.

Selling back books to used book stores! Also trade-ins.

Lending my books to friends, family, etc.

I average spending about $4 on a book.... That my mom, wife, and likely some other family member will read... And that I can trade-in to a used book store in (usually) a 2:1 or 3:1 trade for something new to read.

I can see the benefit in not having to lug 10-15 books in my bag each time I go away for a few days, but... I'm still not convinced.

That said, I only have 4 bookshelves, and they're all doubled up atm... Storage space!

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.