I read the NY Times on my Kindle. Sure I could take my laptop out to the deck and read for free, but the need for the screen to be bright and a WiFi connection makes it unpleasant.

In my opinion, receiving newspapers and blogs wirelessly are as important as buying books. $0.75 vs $2.00 for the Times, and nothing to schlep down to the recycling room. A week of newspapers is a lot more paper than a single book.

I was telling a friend about my Kindle recently. His first question was 'What else does it do?' My reply was 'When you buy a toaster you don't ask what else it does. You just know it does one thing really well.'

Well put. It was designed to give you a fantastic reading experience, and that's what it does.

Some things are if you think. Some, not so much, but yes some are quite obvious. Especially, when as I mentioned, they are already happening in related fields such as journal publications.

It's funny, in my field I don't see people carrying around Kindles reading journal articles. You do?

If you want to comment on my posts, whatever. If you expect me to discuss them with you, you really are going to have to respond to what I actually write, not what you make up and say that I wrote.

This thread is about E Book readers. Your insight into the future seems to depend on the fact that academic journals increasingly are digital. I'm missing the connection here. There is a big gap in your logic between digital journals and academics walking around with e book gizmos, IMHO.

Have people had more than one generation (Im assuming some have). How do they compare? Especially the new DX? Thanks for any comments.

I have not yet purchased a dedicated e-book reader, nor have I downloaded any free readers to my iphone. I have shelves of books at home that I re-read or reference from time to time. Even with books I don't keep, I feel good "recycling" them by lending them to freinds or donating them to the local library.

As a result, I am having issues with the idea of only owning an electronic version when I finish reading. For books that I think I will only want to read once, I generally use the library, which admittedly is incredibly convenient for me as I typically walk past it 4 times a week. I also find it interesting that many libraries now offer e-book rentals and more are sure to be offered in the future.

All that said, I expect for travel, I will have several books downloaded to my iphone. I am already starting a list of books that would be appropriate for my next trip, such as pulp fiction recently released in hardback. -- Suzanne

One thing to consider is that Google is releasing a large number of books that are no longer under copyright in an electronic format. I expect, given their history that they will attempt to widely disseminate the ability to read them on just about any platform (including the iPhone). That will be an interesting development. As will the long awaited large iPhone/small tablet Mac that is rumored to be getting closer to release. The latter will likely be about the same size as a Kindle but more "open" in terms of formats I suspect.

Yeah, most of my read-once reading is from the library. If I don't have a book out you can pretty much figure I'm about to head out on vacation or that I'm just back from vacation.

The local library has a 7 item limit on more popular new items--and once in a while I bump into this.

I have downloaded Barnes & Noble's free e-reader to my Blackberry Storm. There are lots of free e-books out there, and I have downloaded several. Most are things like Little Women, Emma, Jane Eyre...you get the drift. Some of these are classics that I've never read, or read so long ago that a reread is in order. I started with the short story, Benjamin Button. That went fairly well. I'm now on to Emma, which is a significantly longer story. The size of the print is ok for me, but if my eyes get any worse, I will need larger format. The Storm holds about 2 paragraphs +/- per page. It's easy to bookmark. Turning pages can be an adventure, but I'm getting better at it.

The jury is still out as to whether I like the format well enough to justify buying books for the Storm, or invest in a Kindle. For now, I've got enough to read for my flights to/from London next month. What I do in January when I spend 2 weeks on the beach, I don't know. I usually read 8-10 books when there. I used to carry about 4 books with me & then exchange at the resorts' libraries. Even in paperback, 4 books can add a few pounds to my luggage.

Something to keep in mind, ArtDorko, is that reading on a Kindle (or any e-ink device) is a very different experience than reading on any LCD device. The e-ink is opaque and much easier on the eyes, especially over a period of hours. You can also read on a Kindle with the radio off for literally dozens of hours without needing to recharge. I'd been reading on Palm devices on and off for years when I got a Kindle. Palms had never replaced paper books for me -- they were good for short stories or short periods. I've hardly purchased a paper book since buying the Kindle -- it's truly a replacement for paper in a way that an LCD device never could be for me.

I use my iPhone and wife uses her Touch. We both use Stanza as the reader. We read voraciously when on vacation and probably have dozens of books with us. Open source Calibre is a fantastic desktop library organizer. We also use these devices as our MP3 players, game players and website/email checkers. Very handy and small for traveling. Haven't gotten around to putting movies on them yet.

Cheers,
Paul

I'm looking forward to the release of the Sony Reader Daily Edition in December, the first Sony eBook with wireless. It is supposed to support Overdrive, DRM software used by many public libraries to allow them to check out eBooks.

Somewhat OT, but do security folks treat readers like computers, requiring them to be pulled out of the bag and scanned separately?