You left out the option of a severe traffic accident before either of the two sets in

PS. Frank, don't take this too seriously. Everybody understood your point (and probably agreed to a certain extent), it's just that we're such a bunch of jokers

It's all good.

For the record, my "pages" certainly aren't book pages. On my Treo 700p and the current book I'm reading, the font size allows 6 sentences on the random page that it happened to be on.

Frank

When you are quickly scanning through a book for information (not a specific word, but ideas like what the plot is), a big page is a big advantage. When you are looking above to refresh your memory ("who is this jim character?") a big page is a great help.

If I am trying to quickly go thru a book for basic information, I will pick a physical book every time, UNLESS I am looking for a specific string, like someone's name. It is just so fast with a physical book to find the next chapter, then flip back to the beginning of the book, then check the last line, etc.

I got hooked on FBreader on the N800 when Tor was promoting their unlaunched website by giving away non-DRM ebooks from their sci-fi and fantasy catalog. I read all of the freebies and after tor.com was launched, the freebies dried up and Tor doesn't (yet?) have an ebook store. So I started buying e-books at fictionwise.com, which has a large catalog with quite a few books in non-DRM formats. The latest bestsellers are DRM'ed, so it's not exactly the same books you can get on a Kindle, but there's a good selection that is compatible with FBreader on the N800.

Just out of curiosity. Would you think a feature of searching/browsing/obtaining the (free) book from a reader itself would be important for any of you ? So, for example, you could browse among the books available on project gutenberg, scribd or any other site you prefer and have them copied/converted to a local file in adequate format on the fly ? Possibly share ratings, check on new books ?

attila77

i say yes, and I have an example of how its starting to take shape in my video.
i do a search for "niven" and I get all available book covers and book texts ready for reading in liqbase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt7qB37sLLo

Yes, I wouldn't say something sucks without first trying it.
I will state however our use cases do differ. I never read ebooks in full noon directly overhead sun where I can not shade the screen. I can always turn my body or find a tree to stand under to read. In full sun directly on the screen, I'll willingly concede that the e-ink displays are vastly superior. For my use case, I'm frequently reading in the office, car, man's study , bed, and where ever the wife says "I'll be ready in 5 minutes" so I can get a good 30 minutes of reading time. Most of these situations have lighting that's not so great. E-Ink does not have any backlighting, save the crappy side lighting on a Sony model. So for my use case, N810 wins with much better readability and no extra book-light required. Everything I need to read at any time is always in my pocket.

Flights from right <-> left USA coasts reading the whole way and had plenty of battery left. 13 hour flight from left coast to Asia is also no problem. I never have any battery issues with my N810 and it lasts much longer than my prior Palm devices.

Regarding the comic; as funny as it was, my shelves are already overflowing with paper books. I don't want more shelves.

My ebooks are purchased, DRM stripped, and converted into HTML in 30 minutes or less (depending on how much MS Word crap is left after HTML tidy). HTML files mean I can archive the book and it's readable on any device past, present, and future from my N810 to my wife's iPhooey running stanza. I'd love to see improvements/alternative HTML format book readers; only wish I could code myself out of a wet paper bag and help...

Frankly i don't understand !
Are we talking about the same N810 ?

MINE IS PERFECTLY READABLE UNDER THE SUN.

Its reflective screen is the main reason why i bought it after getting a N800.

With FB reader, I generally use white text on black background but under the sun, I go back to usual White on black and it's a pleasure to use, even lying on the grass in full sunny afternoon.

Obviously, then, i completely deactivate the backlight and so get even more battery life.

Of course. FBreader has the ability to grab Project Gutenberg books now, and it is very handy.

I think the way to fight Kindle is to emphasize FREE books, but also give the ability to buy books at a good price.

The text-to-speech aspect that Kindles now have is also important.

By the way, Roger S, if you are reading this thread, I got another cool voice, called Serena. She has a British accent and is very impressive. I'm relistening to Sherlock Holmes stories and it works very well.

But for the moment it appears that Nokia has flushed ebooks away, so I think we will have to turn elsewhere if we like ebooks. As has been said zillions of times now, ebook reading is just a niche.

Someone mentioned that the Kindle Mobi version works with FBReader and that getting them from Amazon would work fine.

I went to Amazon and you have to download directly to your Kindle to get these ebooks.

Well, if you don't have an actual Kindle...See my dilemma?

Ideas?