Which E-Book reader to buy?

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techie_007 said:
Nope. A Bangalore based firm announced the 'wink', shipping this week. Lets c reviews.
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Yes but they haven't even started their website yet. And I Cultdon't think they are taking orders yet. I emailed them yesterday but haven't got a reply yet. Moreover, I will surely wait for reviews on this one.

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The Wink store is now online at:

The Wink Store | Home

But I suspect they are releasing with really bad prices. The basic model without Wifi and 3G is 11K Plus. EPIC FAIL.
 
Wink XTR+ is INR 11490. WTF are they thinking? Kindle will be cheaper including shipping.... And, I think, Sony PRS 600 and even Nook will be cheaper too if they ship them to India.. The only plus point with Wink is that it can read in 15 Indian languages...... Man, I miss reading Chandrakaanta Santati.....

The Wink Store | Wink | View Details
 
I only read English. I wrote an Email to them about their stupid pricing but it simply bounced back. Now Kindle 3 and "waiting" are the only 2 choices.

Unbelievable. No Wifi, No 3G and the price of 11,500. I hope they don't sell even a single piece.

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BTW, just check out the difference in prices between a paper book and an Ebook for Steig Larsson's latest book:

At flipkart.com

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest: Stieg Larsson: Books | Flipkart

and the Wink store price:

The Wink Store | The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
 
^^ Yeah, I have noticed that too.... Flipkart is always the cheapest... BTW, the books that you pointed out, one is a paperback and the other one is ebook (on winkstore). I get your point though, its usually the other way round... Paperbacks are more expensive than the ebooks usuaaly... This is ****in hilarious....... Either these people really had a difficult job arranging for fundings for their research or they just think that Indians are plain stupid..... They WILL learn their lesson in due time....

I dunno why, but I have a weird feeling that all of us who end up buying a reader this year will be in for a surprise in like 7 8 months from now, when all the devices will have their prices cut in half... This is not the right time to buy a reader, but I am stuck. I have to buy it this september or I will have to wait for very long which I dont want...:(
 
@Atiamd: I think that too. Moreover, just think how we would feel if they come up with colour E-Ink Ebook readers in an year. It would be like having a Black and White TV while all others have color. It would be worse than having a Colour CRT TV while all others have an LCD.

The Wink is going to bomb... The prices are the wrong way around for most ebooks in India. You can even compare the Indian amazon store and Flipkart. The ebooks are always costlier here.
 
Colour E-ink displays will take a long time to be available in mainstream markets. The technology is still not completely developed, and what is more important is that once ebook readers come with colour e-ink displays, they will be directly in comparison with ipad and other tablets. They just cannot compete at that level, unless the colour e-ink comes at a very low price (which I doubt, considered the current displays already cost a premium) and they have good refresh rates & ability to multitask, etc..
 
logistopath said:
Colour E-ink displays will take a long time to be available in mainstream markets. The technology is still not completely developed, and what is more important is that once ebook readers come with colour e-ink displays, they will be directly in comparison with ipad and other tablets. They just cannot compete at that level, unless the colour e-ink comes at a very low price (which I doubt, considered the current displays already cost a premium) and they have good refresh rates & ability to multitask, etc..
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I think you are right about that. And the E-Ink panel is the most expensive component in the E-book readers. It is an important reason why they are not able to lower the prices any more, although the rest of the hardware is barely better than a mobile phone.

But I wonder when and how this situation will change. Are they going to increase production anytime soon or is some one else coming up with a totally new screen technology for the ebook displays.
 
Friends, whatever you do just be clear in your minds about what kind of a device you want. Ask yourself this - "Do I want a dedicated E-book reader or do I also want other media consumption functionality in my device?"

This question and doubt is brought into our minds by devices like the iPad and other tablet based computers.

I gave it a great deal of thought and went in for the iPad and haven't looked back since.
 
When i start a novel, I read for 12-14 hour a day. I think i really need an Ebook reader. I already have a netbook. It's not possible to read on an LCD screen for more than a couple of hours at a stretch without straining the eyes.
 
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The wink store seems down. Anyway, useless pricing then, even though they were claiming an 8k pricepoint initially. Priced too high.
 
I agree with logistopath. Color vizio plex (e-ink) screens will take a couple years at least. Which is enough time to enjoy the current crop of e readers.

Off topic, I think there was a tablet they were planning to release on Independence day for Rs. 15000, but I forgot the name of the device. It was to be available in bboth Windows and Android). Can someone help?
 
atiamd said:
I agree with logistopath. Color vizio plex (e-ink) screens will take a couple years at least. Which is enough time to enjoy the current crop of e readers.

Off topic, I think there was a tablet they were planning to release on Independence day for Rs. 15000, but I forgot the name of the device. It was to be available in bboth Windows and Android). Can someone help?
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I think you are referring to the Infibeam Phi (not pi).
 
Ohh yeah, thanks baccilus... Dude, they were supposed to release it this 15th and now they have postponed the launch date to 30th August.
 
Yeah.. But there are going to be plenty of devices like iPad in the market soon, mostly with the awesome android OS. It's the unavailability of a proper Ebook reader that I am worried about.
 
Dont worry about that. I believe the ebook bubble is gonna burst in 5 6 months.

Hey, just to keep this thread alive, do you thnk that Amazon can take away Kindle's capability to read PDFs in the future with a firmware upgrade? Remember the scandal in which Amaozon wiped away a book from every Kindle that bought that particular book? Although, they refunded the money to every buyer, but dont you think, if we had bought a physical book, nobody could take it away from us? and hence, I am not so sure about Amazon's intentions. What f they sell Kindle promising PDF support and when they are doe, they might take away the feature in a year or two via a wireless silent firmware upgrade. I know sounds cynical, but hey, food for thought, aint it?
 
I'm not sure Amazon would like to garner bad reputation through such a move, hypothetically. Kindle was marketed with students and academia as the target group, and everyone knows that most student ebooks and journals come out in PDF format only. I don't think anyone would like to antagonize this market. That said, till date I haven't seen an economical ebook reader that can really do PDFs without any problem. That has been my only gripe so far. If nothing else works, Kindle DX would be my only option.
 
PDF reflow doesn't always work correctly. Most of the "economical" readers are 6" devices and cannot display the whole PDF document in decent font size. Instead they try to rearrange the text (re-flow) and show it as a single column of text. The problem with this is that re-flow works well mostly when there is no images involved. If the file has plenty of images and text, reflow can break layout of the document. My reading pattern is going to be plenty of academic journals and textbooks, as well as novels. With novels, the 6" displays are fine. But with journals and textbooks, I will need a 9" display at least. :(
 
Ohhh ... Yes I am aware of that. I am getting a reader to just read paperbacks and graphic novels (which Sony and Kobo do nicely). I have a lot of PDFs too, which I dont wanna buy again from these book stores.
 
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