new reading devices
I’ve been thinking about getting one of the two new reading devices that are coming out shortly. Tomorrow, Plastic Logic unveils its QUE ProReader at CES. From what I’ve read over the last year, this device is larger than most ereaders, built for business documents, and is flexible — that is, the device can be bent and maybe even rolled up without the screen being damaged. How cool is that? Also, sometime this month, Apple is supposed to unveil its tablet computer meant for reading books, watching movies, etc. It’s rumored to come out in March. I think these are two exciting reading devices that may (or may not) ameliorate some of the problems with devices like the Sony Reader: small screen size, subpar navigation, lack of flexibility, a touch screen that’s not as cool as the iPhone, and limited annotation abilities.
I’m imagining all those journal articles filling up filing cabinets in my bedroom and in piles on my floor. Yes, I could be reading them on my laptop, but it’s hard to read them on there (for me) because of the way I’m used to reading on my laptop (no more than a few pages at a time) and the way I like reading journal articles (a pen in hand). But then I imagine all that space cleared up as the journal articles sit on an electronic device. I can’t wait to learn more about these two devices.
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Maybe I’m just not imaginative, but I really like reading on paper. With articles, a pen, always. Notes not left in the margin are notes I forget about and lose.
I feel like I learn more from paper articles than electronic articles; maybe this is just because I usually read different things in the different formats (paper = magazines, books, articles; electronic = blogs, newspaper articles, facebook, twitter, etc.) and thus actually have a reading style associated with a format.
I agree. I’ve pretty much split my digital reading and my print reading down very fine lines. I occasionally read digital articles, but not very often. I think with a reader that was actually good, though, I could read articles digitally.
I got a Kindle for Christmas and I love it! I was pretty skeptical when they first came out, but the screen is not backlit like a computer, so it is easy to read off of for long periods of time. I do wish that the screen were bigger, so I could see larger chunks of text, but it doesn’t bug me that much, and if I could afford the newer model, that problem would be solved. There’s tons of books in the public domain that you can get for free or for like 99 cents, as well! Like, I am currently about a third of the way through The Autobiography of Ben Franklin (for my third time). It lets you highlight passages and make notes on them and then it saves them all away in a file that you can later upload to your computer, so that’s a cool referencing tool. I haven’t looked up how you’d cite things, though, because it keeps track of the text in sentences, as opposed to pages. The web navigation is slow and a bit tedious, but it gets the job done. The only other complaint I would have about it is that the NYT is only in condensed form and The Economist is not cheaper, which it should be. I think that the Kindle people are pretty forward-thinking on the digital reader front, overall, though. And it’s so nice how thin and lightweight it is!
Good to hear you’ve had good experiences overall with the Kindle. It doesn’t quite seem like something I’d want. Though now that the QUEreader is out, it doesn’t quite look like something I want either. They didn’t even have the flexible screen like I expected! It does look cool, though.