e-book readers.
Procrastinating a bit from some contract work I need to get done tonight.
I’d seen Amazon Kindles in person a few times, and was absolutely blown away by the quality and legibility of the text on the screen. I didn’t get to spend that much time with them though to really get a feel for the features. I didn’t like how a lot of the device’s real-estate was used up by a keyboard though.
Today I spent a while with the Sony eReaders, and was surprised to find that they don’t look or feel nearly as nice as the Kindle. They looked great in their press-shots and sounded vastly superior to me, but they felt quite cheap comparatively. When these things are supposed to recreate the “experience of reading a book,” which detractors keep bringing up, it’s apparently a really big deal.
Speaking of e-book readers in general, the ability to change text-size I think is a killer feature. However one thing I noticed on the Sony readers, and really disliked, was that they wouldn’t justify or typeset the text particularly well. It’s especially obvious at larger font sizes. I don’t know whether the Kindle does this either, but it seems like it’d be a great feature to further enhance legibility. Maybe most people don’t notice this sort of thing though.
It does make me think though that I really don’t want to be an early adopter in this instance, and it’s steeled my resolve to get through all the physical books I’ve acquired over the years before I invest in something that will be obsolete in a few months…