I played w/ Chris DiBona's Kindle & iLiad today. Thoughts:

Kindle: Screen was a little small. UI was weird - there are separate next/prev page buttons (in different places and sizes), and a vertical scrolling control for selecting menu items / parts of the text. Buttons are everywhere, which make the Kindle a little hard to hold. Getting book samples was really easy, the Amazon integration is nice (and book samples would serve my goal of having a list of potential titles to read, with a way to almost instantly buy the whole book). Browsing webpages was not bad, a bit slow, but the Kindle would work fine reading a long webpage. I hadn't realized you could use the device to browse the web, that makes paying for the cellular connection a lot more palatable than if it was just used for syncing. The device fit (barely) in my jacket / cargo pant pockets (any pocket that could take a paperback book). Taking notes on the text via the keyboard was painful UI-wise, this would not be great for editing a book. Got a bit heavy to hold after awhile - would definitely want to rest it on something when reading.

iLiad: Screen was big and very nice to read (apparently one of the few big enough to view PDFs, although I don't use it that way). Device was correspondingly large, definitely not pocketable. UI was nicer: a long vertical page turning toggle which doesn't get hit by accident so much, and a touch screen w/ stylus. The stylus makes it a snap to put editing notes on a draft. No internet access. Chris said it's a reasonably open platform. It's the most expensive ($700), not surprising w/ the big screen. It can be hacked to browse the web via WiFi.

The iLiad was much more pleasant to read, but harder to carry and get material onto. I could imagine bringing it on a trip, or on a walk to a cafe, but not reading it while on my way to get lunch or go to the bathroom. It seems much better for lying around the house and reading.

The current edition Kindle seems to be in an awkward spot as far as form factor goes, for me. The UI is annoying, and the screen is noticeably less pleasant to read / full of stuff than the iLiad (e-ink has a noticeable page refresh time, so not having to turn very often is nice). It's more portable, but not so much more portable as to be able to carry it all the time. If I had a bag, it wouldn't matter. If I don't have a bag, and am specifically going someplace to use the reader, it would be nice to be able to tuck it into a pocket. The web browsing and ability to buy/sample books from the device are really nice. I like instant gratification, and having to sync to get new material would be annoying.

So I still feel unhappy with all the current options. But I'm definitely sold on e-ink, it's really nice and a lot more pleasant than reading an LCD. I'll have to decide whether I want to take the early adopter plunge and get an imperfect device for fun. On the plus side, I expect both the Kindle and MobiPocket will be selling ebooks for quite awhile, so if I pay for a library, it will be portable to future devices. And both are popular enough that they should get cracked soon, so I can free my library.

As part of decluttering my life, and possibly preparing for the world of ebooks, I am going through my bookshelves and pulling out everything that I think I will probably never read again, which is roughly half of them. It hurts, but I think the hurt is irrational. My packrat instincts do not make me happy.

The hardest thing is not just getting rid of them, but doing it without compensation. Even if I could get a couple bucks a book, the time it would take to list them, write labels, and mail them wouldn't even be close to worth it for me. I guess it's the endowment effect in action - I find it far easier to convince myself that a high income means I can buy expensive things than that it means I can throw out cheap ones.

Seriously, the psychic pain of contemplating throwing away a thousand dollars worth of books that would probably take a ton of effort to sell is way higher than that of buying my new car. Or spending the same amount of money to get the same amount of free time in the form of childcare.

So irrational...sigh...

Heh, I just looked up a hardback that I was putting in the pile, because I was like "Well, maybe a hardback is worth my time to sell." They have it on Amazon for thirty-two cents. *CENTS*.

I just learned about MobiPocket, which seems to have a pretty decent library, and has a format that is supported on many devices, including any linux palmtop, the iLiad reader, as well as (with a hack) the Kindle. And there is desktop software for managing your library, which I could use to organize all the e-books I sucked off BitTorrent. They believe in "One Reader, ANY Device", which is awesome.

I haven't found a hack yet to de-DRM books bought from the MobiPocket store. But if such a hack exists, I'm ready to take the plunge and go ebook.

However, I haven't decided which reader to use yet. Main candidates are: Kindle, iLiad, Sony Reader, Nokia N810, EEE PC. The N810 is a palmtop, which means it doesn't have pretty e-ink or a long battery life, but on the other hand has bazillions of other features in return. The EEE PC is in-between a laptop and a palmtop, so again, no pretty e-ink, no long battery life, but is actually a fully-functional computer.

I'm also seriously thinking about selling many of the books I own, both in order to make this more of a cost-neutral decision, and to get rid of clutter. If I opt for the N810 or EEE, I may also get rid of my iPhone (sell it or give it to Shannon) and get a tiny cellphone with a tethering plan.

Anyone have strong opinions on how nice reading e-ink is vs. a regular palmtop screen?

I had lunch w/ zudini the other day, and he was talking about his ideal for blogs was to have a neverending stream of articles recommended for him that he was always reading from the top of. I think books are the same way for me. I've been accumulating piles of books ever since I got a job and had a kid and thus stopped reading fast enough to get through everything I run across that I want to read. And the clutter is getting really annoying. And if I never get to something, its purchase will have been a waste.

Really, what I use the piles for is to keep track of what I plan to read. But as Netflix or the Amazon wish list shows us, you don't need to buy things to keep track. In fact, much of what I use Netflix for is to keep track nowadays, as we watch movies so rarely that we aren't even saving money on rental. (Though it is nice to not have to go anywhere to pick up a disk). Now that DVD rental kiosks have appeared at our local grocery store (a few minute walk away), perhaps I will switch to just keeping a list.

Back to books, the Amazon Wish List helps. I think what stops me is having to wait for the book to come once I'm ready for it. I tend to draw pretty randomly from my incoming queue, so it's not like I can just keep a small cache on hand. Although with Prime's 2-day shipping, maybe that isn't such a big deal. But an ebook reader with a queue might be ideal. I could add all the books I run across to the queue, and then when I'm ready for the next one, buy it and get it instantly.

Do the Kindle or Sony Reader keep a queue? Can the Amazon Wish List be used as a queue for the Kindle perhaps? Let's test putting a Kindle'd item on there...Hmm, the item doesn't show an option for putting it on my Wish List. Although I might be able to keep the regular version of each book on my wish list, and then browse to the Kindle version. I guess I might almost be to the point of buying one, although I'm still annoyed by the 10$/book price and having to pay for cellular access that I don't need. If I could crack the DRM on the books I buy and share them with my friends, that would make me happier about paying 10$/book.

Ah well. As you may be able to tell, I really want to want the Kindle/Reader. Carrying books around is annoying, and the piles in my room are annoying too. I'm just not sure whether these products would actually be less annoying. Anyone have personal experience, or a link to a review they thought was really incisive?

10 years ago, I used a little palmtop to blog while traveling Europe. It was fun. Since then, I've had some Psions, but didn't find them very useful, so I mostly went without until my Treo & iPhone. Frankly, the Treo & iPhone (while definitely useful), have done more to make me see the weakness of smartphones than the benefit.

( Cut for those interested in palmtops )