In which I complete an unpremeditated transaction.
I woke up this morning to the sound of my cell phone trilling. I had a text message. The message informed me that my paycheck had been direct-deposited into my account. Money! Yay!
During my lunch break this afternoon, I dutifully went to the post office and bought two money orders: one for mom, one for the lab that doesn’t take plastic. Later, I dutifully called and paid the surgeon and the anesthesiologist their payments.
And just now? I went to eBay and bought one of these, with a 128Mb storage card, for no good reason.
I had no intention of buying a dedicated ebook reader; it just happened. I’ve been thinking about getting one for awhile now, because while I used to love the multipurpose functionality of my Pocket PC, I no longer use it for anything but ebook reading (I use my cell phone for everything) and the form factor’s not as ideal for that as it could be.
Not only is the 1150 much less expensive than the Kindle or the Sony Reader, but it boasts instant page-turns (without the Kindle’s momentary blackscreen), a back-light, free online storage, a built-in dictionary, built-in dial-up modem, a USB port, and a gray-scale display equal to the other more expensive devices.
It seems like the 1150 is best option available, particularly considering the Kindle’s page-turn bug would drive me utterly bat shit within moments and that neither of the other devices have built-in freakin’ backlight, AND with the bundled expansion card it holds 200 books – more than either of the others. (How in the hell is someone supposed to be able to read in the dark with a device that isn’t fucking back lit? Gah!)
Anyway. I have yet to see the thing, so I don’t know if it’s really all that or not. But I think I’m gonna love it and hold it and pat it and squeeze it and call it George, and that’s the coolest thing that’s happened all day!
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
You’ll have to let us know how it goes. Even tho I don’t use my PPC for much other than reading as well, I have SO many books I’ve already purchased in various formats (Mobi, Palm, MSReader, etc.) that it would really piss me off to have to re-purchase them all in a format that this reader (or any other dedicated reader for that matter) would accept. That’s the biggest flaw for me in these devices. But you’ve probably already thought of a hack for that, eh? đŸ˜‰
Not yet, but anything you can download in Rocketbook, HTML, or DOC format can be read on this device. Which is the vast majority of the ebooks I own from Fictionwise and Baen… I don’t think I’ll be able to get my Mobipocket content on it, though. I avoided MS Lit as much as possible, so I’ll only have a few books I’ll have to read on the desktop or with the PPC.
The 1150 is sold by Fictionwise; when they bought it they started selling all their content in a format that would work on their reader… And it’s not like I re-read that much, honestly. Some things I like enough to read again, but it’s such a small portion of my book-buying that replacing those titles might not bug me that much.
I’ll have to let you know how much of my library I can get on the thing! -m
I’ve got 4 words for you girl… Hurray for new shineys! I’ve been chomping at the bit recently looking at new things I *could* buy if I did the irresponsible thing with my tax money and bought stuff instead of a desperately needed 4wd vehicle of some sort. Did you see they have 1TB drives for under 300 bones nowadays. I’ve also been crushing on the quad core new intel CPU’s then I’d have to get 4GB of RAM, then the list would grow until I spent $3k and had a killer PC and a really pissed off girlfriend. Such is life. Enjoy your new toy đŸ˜€
Do the irresponsible thing! Life’s too short, and all that. -m
bran has started reading online books. with one program on his laptop he tipped the machine on its side and read that. he’s picked out a few classics to read. i’m thinking that one of those ereaders would be very good for him and i might pick up a book were they available. i miss reading but reading for school sucks the joy out of reading for fun.
Get him one! Do it! -m
ditto: “yay for new shineys!” đŸ™‚
I bought meself a new iPod last week (well, a few weeks ago now) because I was tired of my 3rd gen iPod’s battery giving up it’s charge before the thing could finish syncing. I now use the old one as a “radio only” thing in the livingroom and the new one (which I call Slick, for fun) is my new pet. It goes everywhere with me. I’m in love. sigh
I looooove gadget love! -m