Obliterating an eBook reader in one easy holiday

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Back in May I wrote a blog post outlining my plans to live with an eBook reader for a month as I ploughed through a digital copy of War and Peace. My aim, as I wrote at the time, was to put the eBook reader “through the wringer… It’s going to be flung in my bag, dropped in my pocket and keeping me company on the bus.”

As it turns out, eBook readers aren’t big fans of wringers, bags, pockets or buses.

Before I delve into my tale, I’d like to preface it with a couple of caveats. The first is that the eBook reader I chose was a production sample of a Cool-er. This means that my experiences were fairly specific to the device I was using. The second caveat has to do with the testing grounds. I took it backpacking with me around Cuba, which is hardly common usage. Given that I barely survived the trip – think caves, climbs, storms, humidity and blood – I’m not particularly surprised the Cool-er didn’t. Erm… I’ve rather given away the ending there.

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Living with an eBook reader

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

As PC Pro’s resident book fiend I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing nearly every eBook reader released on these shores. I popped my eBook cherry reading “Farewell, My Lovely” on the Sony PRS-505. This was followed by “Moby Dick” on the Cybook Gen 3, “The Jungle Book” on the BeBook and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” on the Cool-er – which takes the award for most disturbing book I’ve ever read.

I know some people are sceptical about this technology, but while I love paperbacks, eBook readers perfectly suit my reading habits. Just to establish those habits, I read two-to-three books a week and probably buy six or seven every fortnight. About half of those books I’ll give away, lose, or destroy while the other half slowly take over whatever house I happen to be living in. The ability to stick 850 books on a device smaller than a single paperback means that when I finally do buy a house I won’t need to worry about hiring the Royal Navy to ship my entire library for me.

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