which ereader? – OZTHOUGHTS

Not only the original USA one, but also a rather younger Australian one are there to give us free ebooks at the click of a mouse. The reason perhaps for there being two of them is that the copyright laws in the two countries are different. In the USA a book is covered by copyright for at least 70 years after the death of the author, in Australia on the other hand, it is only protected for 58 years, which means that books written as recently as about 1955 can be found on that site, as opposed to the USA site whose most recent ebook has to be from about 1943 – a very different era of writing.

Admittedly the USA site is much larger, and has a remarkably wide range of ebooks on offer, and in a number of languages, but the Aussies are catching up quite well.

Strictly speaking, the way copyright laws work, it is illegal for someone living in the USA to download an ebook written in say, 1955, as that ebook would still be under copyright in the USA, whilst the same ebook may be downloaded perfectly legally by someone living in Australia – yet another example of how the Internet makes a nonsense of so many national laws.

Happily for those of you who do not live in Australia, unlike Amazon et. al, the Aussie Gutenberg doesn’t give a damn where you live, and will perfectly happily allow all you good citizens of the USA to download ebooks published in 1955 without a care in the world. This is how it should be on the Internet of course.

Anyhow, I just thought you might like to know that there are two Gutenbergs, each with a completely different collection of ebooks for your reading pleasure, and in all standard ebook formats as well.

So off you go to check them both out and see what amazing reading matter you can find for yourself there…. But, sadly if Stephen King is your sort of writer, you won’t find anything of that ilk there.

USA Gutenberg: www.gutenberg.org

Australian Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.net.au/

It can be very confusing when you think you might like to leap into the world of ereading and ebooks. There are so many different models out there, and the considerable problem of the various ebook formats as well.

ereaders

To help you a bit in making a choice I shall discuss some of the main considerations you should take into account before parting with your hard earned money and committing yourself to one or other model of ereader.

Does colour matter to you?

The first thing to consider is do you want to read novels rather than ebooks with loads of illustrations or magazines or comics? If the answer to that question is comics, magazines and other reading matter with lots of colour and illustrations, then you need to consider a tablet rather than a dedicated ereader, as most real ereaders are monochrome, and not really very good to view images with.

There are a number of ereaders with LCD screens which can manage colour OK, but their screens tend to be too small to be really pleasurable to view images with. But with things such as the iPad and similar tablets, comics, magazines newspapers and coffee table ebooks and similar are a real pleasure to read and gaze upon, given the brilliant colours they can offer you.

If on the other hand you want to read ebooks that are basically text – novels and similar, then probably a real, dedicated monochrome ereader is what you want, as they are specifically designed for this form of reading, and are totally optimised for such ebooks.

So that is your first decision. Colour and images = tablet. Text and almost no images = dedicated monochrome ereader.

Screen size.

This is perhaps the next consideration. If you are suffering from any sort of eye troubles, then the larger the screen you can get is something you should think about. Since if you have a smallish screen, and need the text size to be large, obviously you can then only fit so many words onto the screen at a time, so with a small screen you will be turning pages like a mad thing, but with a larger screen you will be able to have the letters quite large, but still have a reasonable number of words per page.

Currently the only large screen dedicated ereader I am aware of is the Kindle DX, which has a screen that is 9.7 inches diagonally across, room enough to make the letters huge and still have lots of words on the screen, otherwise you should consider a tablet again.

Most dedicated ereaders these days have a screen that is about 6 or 7 inches diagonally, which if your eyes are OK, is much like reading an average paper back.

So, if your eyes are OK, then any dedicated ereader will work for you , if not, consider a tablet with a much larger screen whatever sort of ebooks you want to read on it.

Front light or clip on reading light.

Continue reading “What You Need To Consider When Buying An Ereader”

Tag: which ereader?

There Are Two Gutenbergs – Free Ebooks For All Ereaders

What You Need To Consider When Buying An Ereader