Three electronic eBook readers. the Amazon Kindle, iRiver Story and Kobo, were checked out on both Kerri Anne and 2UE with Stuart and Tracey
Both the Kobo and Kindle are tied to online bookstores – Borders and Amazon respectively, while the iRiver allows you to download books from a variety of vendors.
There are pros and cons with ebooks. Obviously the comfort of having a physical book in front of you, and having a copy always available to you is good. Ebook readers stop small forests being destroyed when a best seller hits the stand, plus you can change the font size if your eyes aren’t what they used to be.
Had a couple of call with Jan wanting to know how to convert her old VHS tapes to DVD. The unit she is after is the Sony DVDirect VRD-MC3 from Sony.
On the back of our eBook reader story, Andy wanted to know about the copyright of books etc. When you buy a book you get to keep it, but most eReaders have limited space. Some can store up to 8000 books and more if you add an external storage device. I know with Amazon, you have an account and if your Kindle gets destroyed you can go into your account and retrieve your books (although I guess you would have to prove that your Kindle was destroyed, after all, how would they know you are not downloading books from your account to a third-party – ie friend’s – Kindle).
Also Bob was a tad annoyed that he had bought a Sony eBook reader from the US, but there is no way of buying content for it in Australia. If there was one big warning I would give to those who want to invest in an eBook reader, I would tell you to ask the shop assistant what sort of access they have content.