will e-books ever take off?

**Centurio Nixalsverdrus** · 09-02-2008, 02:50

Reading printed letters is much more comfortable than reading letters on a display, that's why I'd never buy an e-book.

**Marshal Murat** · 09-02-2008, 03:26

Agreed.

I prefer to have a good old copy, right in my hands. It's easy on the eyes, doesn't require power, cannot be disconnected, and never freezes (unless you put it in the freezer. NB: Didn't cool down my copy of Inconvenient Truth.)

It's a win for a good tome.

**rajpoot** · 09-02-2008, 12:02

As others have already said, there's nothing like a real book.....the feel of it in ones hands, can't be substituted.

But sooner or later e-books will take off, maybe someday, if we last long enough we'll see paper prices rise sky high and then...........well I anyhow hope to be gone long before that.

**CountArach** · 09-02-2008, 13:51

E-Books aren't bad if you have a laser printer and are willing to print them out.

**Decker** · 09-02-2008, 17:30

E-books sound nice but...who really wants to sit in front of a computer for hours on end. You get a headache and feel TOTALLY grunge on most occasions. As where books...well you can take them anywhere and read them at your leasure. Now as for college books...THAT is mightly tempting but I'd rather buy the textbook themselves as they can be a good refrence book later on.

**spmetla** · 09-02-2008, 18:53

Staring at a computer screen to read hundreds of pages of a book hurts my eyes a lot more than just reading out of a regular book.

Having said that, most military manuals I read are electronic because it is easiest to get the lates manuals online than ordering via supply and there are so many that storing all those manuals would take up very limited armory space.

**Moros** · 09-02-2008, 22:02

Well the only way I see them breaking trough is if they are free or really cheap in comparison to normal books. Though everyone will like normal books more, but price can be a real reason. Of course if books not just get scanned, but also made interactive (hyper link, multimedia (instead of just pictures in a travel book why not some video's?) that might help too.

E-journals or fulltext databases (Jstor for example) however seem to be a growing succes in Academic world. Well at least at the history departement. As Electronic full text makes searching for specific info easier, is always avaible (don't have to go to the library if you have some log in or proxy), and up to date. Perhaps if a larger amount of books get digitalized and added to full text databases that this might get a real break trough in the academic world. Especially as it would reduce costs to make it, and might even make it easier for Academici to write a book, as making it profitable is often difficulty (as they sell low numbers and to library's mostly). Which would give for more sources, that are easily searchable and better avaible. Which I think is a win-win situation. However if it's for pasttime activities I prefer a printed dead tree myself.

**rajpoot** · 09-03-2008, 06:41

Originally Posted by CountArach

E-Books aren't bad if you have a laser printer and are willing to print them out.

I don't know how much does it cost you to print out a page from a laser printer

, but here it costs me a rupee per page, so to print a 200 page book, I'll have to spend Rs. 200, while I can easily buy it's paperback in Rs.165........

**CountArach** · 09-03-2008, 08:01

Originally Posted by india

I don't know how much does it cost you to print out a page from a laser printer

, but here it costs me a rupee per page, so to print a 200 page book, I'll have to spend Rs. 200, while I can easily buy it's paperback in Rs.165........

I don't print off long stuff like that, just shorter books or chapters out of them, such as textbooks.