I flew in to Heathrow on a flight from Shanghai. The Chinese think rules and regulations are great, but they only concern other people not themselves … so when the cabin crew announce, “Switch off your mobile phones” are fair few of them will promptly turn their mobile phones on.
Anyway, no sooner had the plane — Virgin Atlantic — touched down on the runway than a Chinese passenger across the aisle from me turned on his mobile phone. Almost immediately there was a scream down the intercom from the captain, “For god’s sake make that bloody passenger switch off his mobile phone!” So it’s not true that mobile phones don’t have any effect on what’s happening on the flight deck!
Like Mark, I can say I’ve been proven that cellular phones can interfere with flight instruments. I was landing, when the pilot immediately pulled the airplane up. They were missing the landing path. Hostesses and stewards were immediately looking at the passengers, until they found someone who was callling home. Not a great experience.
I’ve never had a near death experience thanks to a fellow passenger, I’m just going off of what I’ve read, and the statistics of the matter. Considering how many airplanes land and take off every hour of the day, and how many times you know someone is using their cell phone during these events, and how few times there are crashes on taking and landing due to circumstances not otherwise accounted for—I’d say it’s overblown. But even that isn’t fair, even a slight disturbance in the instrumentation is undesirable. There is more evidence for that. Low level buzzing in communication channels with GSM phones, and when phones are used inside the cabin they exceed the safe level of electronic emissions around older pre-'84 instrumentation and have been demonstrated to produce small malfunctions. But that inside the cabin, practically holding the live phone right up to the instrument.
I do enjoy my tablet for long, drawn out reads like 1Q84.
It’s great.
But I’ve always enjoyed that feel of paper and binding in my hands.
Brings back some great past times. :]
Many years ago I’ve developed allergies when reading paper books. (I suffer from asthma attacks whenever I read paper books). My brother-in-law speculates that may be allergic to the ink of paper books. Anyhow, I’m grateful that we have eReaders now. Because of this device, I can still enjoy reading books…
I love reading on my kindle for many reasons, the biggest of which is convenience! There is such a HUGE array of books that are available at the push of a button. It’s also very handy in terms of storage. I’ve got a LOT of books on my kindle (read all of them) and I just can’t imagine having them all in print! I’d have no space!
In saying that I do love having printed copies of books I especially love. It just feels satisfying to me to have a book collection where every one is a favorite that I’ve read many times before. Previously my collection was full of books I thought to be average or simply didn’t like. This way my collection feels very special to me.
Does a book change because it printed on paper or agitated electrons light up? A book is a book no matter what physical medium it is distributed on. Sure I have paper copies on my bookshelves but most of them were purchased before I acquired my iPad. Sure I have ebook copies on my iPad all of which were download after I acquired my iPad. I have some books (especially the novels of Jane Austen) in both forms but irrespective of the physicality involved I’m still read the book.
Reading on an iPad is better for me as I’m dyslexic and the short line lengths mean that a) I read faster, and b) actually read. Long lines of ink on paper cut my reading speed dramatically and I often have to reread paragraphs because my dyslexic mind refused to assimilate the text. However even with that reading on paper can be a better way to access text just as reading from a screen can. All this paper is best and ereaders are rubbish or paper is dead and ereaders are all that are required is nothing more than a marketing con. Read the book people.
I guess I’m sort flowing against the tide in saying this…but…
A couple of months, out of financial restrictions, and time constraints, I was forced to read everything (long novels, literary criticism, Shakespeare) off my computer screen. Oh I know most of you must groan at the thought…
But I discovered something…
if you’re forced to, you can adapt to any reading environment. I discovered after a couple of weeks of forced intensive reading, that my eyes (or my brain) gradually grew accustomed to reading long texts off a computer screen. Nowadays, I read just as easily off a computer screen as I do a paper book. I should add I have a very old matte screen MacBook so that might have helped. Many apps have a ‘night mode’ where the background is black and the letters are white. I find this quite gratifying and in fact enjoyable to read with. The biggest benefits of reading off a computer, are that you can make proper notes and annotations of what you’re reading, all neatly typed out. The other benefit is that you save a truckload of cash for (a) you no longer need an ebook reader (b) you no longer need to buy books but can get them off websites
I know I’m in the minority as I write this, but I thought to put it out there as it’s related to the discussion.
The only thing I miss about physical books is the pleasure (and sound) of breaking a new book’s spine so that the pages won’t try to turn of their own volition.
Some books have to be physical. I recently got a copy of the Discworld Atlas, together with a fairly large map. It’s made for jumping back and forth, looking at several pages more or less simultaneously, and comparing with the large map. I can’t see how anyone could make an electronic version that could be used like that.
I’ve got another vacation-slash-research-trip coming up, and the prospect of packing (i.e. carrying) 10-15 books, plus the release of the Kindle Oasis makes me revisit this question.
Has anyone tried the Oasis yet? I love the experience of reading a paperback (and hate the experience of reading a hardback), but the conveniences of eBooks are certainly appealing. Is the Oasis good enough to tempt someone who doesn’t use an e-reader yet away from their beloved print books?
It seems a little expensive for what it does, and I’ve read a few bad reviews about it that make me think it’s not worth the price tag, but maybe that’s just me. I like e-readers in general, though, if that helps. It’s way more convenient than lugging around all the books.
I don’t use an ereader at the moment. I don’t like them. They’re awkward. They flash when the pages turn. They don’t have the organic feel of a paperback. They don’t have the ‘disposable’ quality a paperback has that makes me feel I’m experiencing a unique moment in time when I read them. They feel like I’m still staring at a screen working instead of relaxing. They take all the fun out of browsing in bookshops. I can’t use them during takeoff and landing on many flights.
But… They are much lighter than carrying 10 books on vacation, and I can always download more if I run out.
Amazon seems to have pitched the Oasis at me: someone who doesn’t hasn’t been tempted to make the switch yet. I can totally see why (as the Internet reviews tend to say), it’s not worth the extra money over, say, the Paperwhite if you’re already someone who uses and appreciates a kindle. I’m really interested if – ignoring price – the new device is enough to satisfy someone who historically has decided kindles rob the beauty from reading.
The trick is to get over the “beauty” end of the equation and focus only on the utility. I have a Kindle Gen2; my daughter-in-law has a Paperwhite. Mine has all the aesthetics of a wall switch; hers is more a glowing light-dimmer. Both, however, are equally capable of performing their sole task, at least from our point of view: packing a lot of reading material into a very small, very portable package.
In my requirements, being a writer and not a lawyer, economics enter into the equation as well. In my writing research I’m often face-down in obscure, out-of-copyright books. These are often available on the Kindle for very little–the complete Anthony Trollope, nicely formatted, was $2.99. Once you get outside the usual suspects–the Barsetshire Chronicles, the Pallisers–you could spend a thousand bucks stocking a Trollope library.
Now that Scrivener is available for iOS, I expect to buy an iPad on the theory that it may replace the Kindle and do all it does–including run the Kindle reader–but extend its capabilities to other types of e-reader docs which, in the obscurer corners of my interests, are simply unavailable on the Kindle. In addition, your actual working document in Scrivener or Pages or whatever is right there alongside the book you’re marking up.
Of course this isn’t an aesthetic experience–no sound and smell and feel of paper, no ghosts of previous readers in a sixty-year-old book. It’s all about efficiencies, and economies, and expediency.
This is very true. Kindle has made some improvements recently, but it’s not the same. If I have to jump back and forth, or view lots of graphics, physical book is still the way to go.
I never thought I’d be an ebook fan. I hated reading PDFs or whatever on a PC. But on a lark I bought a Paperwhite 2 in Dec last year, and have not looked back. Part of my choice now in deciding which book to read next is whether I can get it in ebook form. I’ve got 300+ books on the device, many of them classics in the public domain, so either free or very cheap. It was fun reading the collected Sherlock Holmes again!
The Paperwhite 2 is awesome. In the store the flashing made me think the demo version was broken! But I don’t even see the flashing anymore - it’s a non-issue. The screen is 95% glare-free, as compared to say an iPad Air screen. Most of the time I have the backlighting turned off, but do use it at night for reading in bed if I want the lights off so to not disturb my wife.
As I read I can highlight, annotate, look up words. (For some reason, I am not a person to “mark up” paper books, so highlighting an ebook gives me a way to document nice writing that I wouldn’t do before!)
One advantage of ebooks that I didn’t anticipate is I can borrow them from libraries. I am in California, and have access to the Los Angeles public library system. They have tens of thousands of ebooks available, and I can download directly to the device without having to visit a branch.
By the way, I have flown with the Kindle quite a bit (domestic US and international), and have never been asked to turn it off. I put it in airplane mode and am good to go for the flight.
If you are reading mostly text - fiction, or non-fiction that doesn’t contain much diagrams - the Paperwhite 2 is a great way to go.
By the way, your point regarding “browsing in bookshops” is so true! I haven’t set foot in one in months.
I don’t understand the “flash” comment. Most ereaders have pretty decent transitions when “turning pages.” Some slide the page across the screen, some fade from one to the next. My ereader app actually simulates the pages being turned back and forth. And it allows me to zoom the text if my eyes are tired, or change the font if my eyes are bored, or change the background if my eyes…well, it has nothing to do with my eyes. But I can make an ebook look exactly like a printed book, as though the words are on a piece of paper.
I still go to bookstores, and I still buy physical books. But I use my ereader because it works so well. It allows me to carry more than one book with me wherever I go, without bulk. While reading, I can highlight passages, and add notes and comments (and sync these to other devices), and I can select words or phrases and instantly look them up in the device dictionary or wikipedia. I can share books with a friend halfway across the world, instantly. There are some books that don’t work well with e-readers, namely those that rely more on how the content looks then what the content says. My personal favorite book of all time, House of Leaves, is this way. But if it’s about a story being told via words and not images, then just about any other book will work just fine.
Hopefully you find a solution that works for you. There are some damn fine devices out there, most of them not very expensive.
For some reason, the screen on the Kindle Paperwhite 2 flashes every few pages. Something to do with how they implemented the e-ink technology. I’m don’t know if all Kindles share this “feature”. Below is a video of it, on prior version of Paperwhite. I don’t think my version flashes quite this often.
When I saw the demo model doing it in the store, my first thought was “This is a problem.” When the sales person told me that’s just the way they work, I bought it anyway although I made sure I understood the return policy, because I wasn’t sure that I would be able to deal with it.
But as mentioned in my post, I don’t even see the flashing now. Complete non-issue for me. But YMMV - this is one of those things that may really bug someone.
ETA: I have an iPad Air 2, and that is fine to read on as well. The screen is beautiful. But for me the Paperwhite 2 with its e-ink is closer to the experience of reading on a paper book - particularly if I’m outside.
