Real Book vs E-Book: Which Do You Prefer & Why?

[The legend]

Yeah ... so which one would you prefer? And Why?

 

[Pengwuino]

Real books.

Because you can't fill a room with oak Kindles and Ipads to show everyone that you know way more than they do.

 

[The legend]

yeah... but you can always show you have read a thousand real books calling yourself a well read guy!

 

[mechprog]

Real books.

Because you can't fill a room with oak Kindles and Ipads to show everyone that you know way more than they do.

Very right!

 

[GeorginaS]

I wouldn't know how to decorate my home if I didn't have real books.

 

[S_Happens]

I have a decent library and will continue to add to it. I enjoy reading real books, and especially for references an actual book in your hand is invaluable.

That being said, I just received a Kindle 3 for my birthday last month. I've been using it for the past week and a half and so far I am really enjoying it. It's fantastic for reading something you plan to read page by page, such as a novel (straight through without jumping back and forth). I love the e-ink display and I can tell you that it's much more comfortable to get into a single position and not have to move anything more than a single digit a fraction of an inch to "turn" pages. Adjusting an entire book to read opposing pages properly and even just flipping pages of a small paperback can be annoying (especially if you are a fast reader).

I can say that each has its advantages. I am glad I have the Kindle and I will also continue to expand my library. My collection is mostly reference books anyway, which I prefer to have in paper form, so that won't really be affected.

 

[Dadface]

Real books take up too much space but my first thought was that I prefer these because they are in a format which is probably much more comfortable to read.Not having tried an E book and having read the comment of S Happens I am now not so sure.

 

[Redsummers]

I prefer real books. For me it is pleasant to enter in a room and see there are plenty of books in the shelf. I guess that you can also take a book, read some pages and then put it back and take another with the E-books, but I think it totally loses the 'magic' of reading a book. Really, to turn the page manually is a way of interacting with the book that you cannot do with the E-books, not to mention the smell and the weight of the book itself, the physical presence of the book is part of reading it.

 

[Jack21222]

I said real books, just because I had a Nook for 3 days. The thing repeatedly crashed when trying to turn the page, and eventually stopped working altogether.

They offered me a free replacement, but I just got my money back.

You'll never need to worry about being physically unable to turn the page of a real book without closing it, letting it sit for 30 seconds, and opening it back up.

 

[Topher925]

I prefer ebooks as its much better for the environment.

 

[DaveC426913]

I prefer ebooks as its much better for the environment.

You sure about that?

Trees are a renewable resource. What is the environmental footprint of an electronic device?

 

[Evo]

I still prefer real books. I like the weight and feel and the turning of pages. In novels I like to quickly flip ahead if I get to a boring part, or flip back if I need to check something. It's easy to do by thumbing the pages to find where I want to be.

 

[DaveC426913]

I am right on the cusp of buying an e-reader.

The only real reason I can think of for an e-reader is that I could boost the font size enough to allow me to read while exercising.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Good thing about e-books is you can just download all the books for school for free instead of paying a thousand dollars for them.

 

[Astronuc]

Yeah ... so which one would you prefer? And Why?

I actually would prefer both, with the exception that I'd like that book in pdf format from which I can extract text or figures for reports or articles, or if it's a technical book, data for analysis or plotting. Files can be backed up.

I prefer paper as a permanent record. Electronic systems can fail catastrophically, e.g. hard drive crash, etc. E-books may be prone to failure.

There are many books I have or plan to purchase which are not in e-book or otherwise electronic format because they are rather esoteric.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I think that e-books are potentially very valuable to me, but they aren't there yet. Here are some things that could be implemented in an e-book and would make the reading experience better than a paper book for me.

To follow a cross-reference by touching an icon. This is especially important for equations.
To go to an index entry by simply touching the word. I mean the page in the book where the index points to, not to the index page itself.
To go to a section of the book by touching the entry in the table of contents.

If I could get all that and still be able to make handwritten notes in the margins, then e-book over paper book would be a no brainer for me. However, the current crop of e-books not only don't provide these features, they don't even paint a pdf in a size that I can read, so paper over e is a no-brainer.

 

[Bararontok]

I prefer e-books because digital text files occupy billions of times less space than physical books and a whole library can fit in today's modern hard drives. Titles can also be found more quickly in hard drives thanks to the automatic search function built into many operating systems, and information in e-books can also be found more quickly because there are text finders that allow a user to type in a word or phrase and the finder would automatically jump to the section the user is searching for, there are also page jumpers that allow a user to type a page and they could automatically jump to the page they are searching for and links that allow a user to click on the table of contents and index and they would automatically jump to the information they are searching for. There are also automatic bookmarks that store information about the last page the user has visited so that when they open the file again, they are automatically taken to the last read page, eliminating the need for bookmarks. Digital text files also do not experience paper decomposition, they do not carry any weight because they are in electronic form, and they can be duplicated easily owing to their small file sizes and the fact that they are electronic, making it possible to back up the entire digital library in a backup memory device or on the internet. And because e-books are purely electronic, paper, ink, energy and equipment does not have to be spent publishing the book which makes the e-book more environment friendly. The environmental cost of the hard-drive and other electronics is nothing if it can store an entire library without the need for tons of paper, cabinets and a room.

 

[nismaratwork]

I'm with Astronuc on this, and Jimmy Snyder. If E-Readers become as easy to use and read as a paperback, it would be a big deal, but it would still be digital media. I have a couple of terabytes of data that I'm constantly backing up... I'd hate to have to back up my personal library. The only solution there is buying rights that let's you re-download, but in reality sometimes that isn't practical.

Books are incredibly refined devices, and until e-books match that level of refinement and utility, they'll be a FAR second.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Tsu is on her second Kindle and she's a complete E-addict. I recently downloaded the Kindle-for-PC software from Amazon and bought my first electronic book. From my point of view, there is no comparison. E-books are by far superior to paper.

My world began to change as technical manuals transitioned to PDFs. The value of the ability to access manuals online, immediately, is beyond measure. It has literally changed my world. For me, perhaps the most valueable function in electronic media, is Ctrl-F. This saves me a tremendous amount of time in my work. No thumbing through pages or trying to find that one sentence that I saw around page 900, two months ago, or a year ago, that tells me what I need to know. I can find in seconds what used take minutes, or even hours.

A few years ago I burned about 600 Lbs of manuals and technical information that I had spent twenty years accumulating. That was truly a day for celebration.

A related discussion
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=403301

 

[fluidistic]

I never seen any Kindle or e-books of the sort. It seems to me that the only real advantage of paper books is... their smell. Unless the Kindle has a nice smell too, of course.
I'm not sure but can you read through a Kindle in a dark room? If so, then it's a real advantage. You can read a book while your wife/husband sleeps and you don't even bother with light.
And as it has been said here, it's very easy to look up for a word or expression using Ctrl+F.

 

[fourier jr]

real book, & for most of the reasons people have given. I can see how a search thing could be handy with an e-book though.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A quote from Russ from the thread linked, one of the few times that Russ and I agree.

20 feet away from me at work is a 20 foot wide wall covered with cataloges. If I can download the fan curve I want faster than I can get up, walk to the wall, find the cat I need, walk back to my cube, and flip through it to find the fan curve...why bother using it?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You sure about that?

Trees are a renewable resource. What is the environmental footprint of an electronic device?

A valid concern for one book, but not for hundreds of books for each person.

How much energy goes into making and distributing those books? Nevermind that there is already plenty of pressure on our forests.

I think the relative cost of paper vs electronic media is a reasonable indicator of the energy requirements for each option. When you look at the basis for the price of a product, esp something like a book, the price is a reflection of the energy investment in that product.

 

[JaredJames]

When it comes to reading a manual, I prefer to have it in PDF format (for the reasons Ivan has given).

My only problem with books in PDF format is that I find staring at a laptop (or my phone) screen for a long period of time reading them to cause my eyes to hurt and sometimes I get headaches. Now I don't have experience with a Kindle, so have they improved the screen to reduce the eye strain and make it more natural as with a book?

If so, I'd be very interested. I hate having books all over the place, nothing but clutter and dead weight (not because they're useless but how often do you honestly pickup the books and read them?).

A PDF isn't terribly large in size and if (as with Nismar) you have a few hundred GB or a couple of TB of them (or any files for that matter), the cost of buying a set of backup drives and performing weekly/monthly backups is nothing. Plus you can store them off site so you don't have to worry about every copy being destroyed in the event of disaster (fire + books = bad times).

I like the idea of being able to backup my documents. You can't do that with books (not practically anyhow). I currently use an online storage service which allows me to access them anywhere via the internet or my phone, so an e-reader may just work for me.

 

[waht]

Reducing the experience of reading to just a transfer of raw bits of information is equivalent of quantity over quality duality - Made in China.

If you consider the holistic view of reading, there is the touch and feeling of the texture, the smell of new printing, the stimulation of retinas by different hues of paper, there is the occasional coffee stain or a dog ear - one immediately finds that reading a paper book is a much more richer experience for the mind than reading from the same e-book.

 

[Pengwuino]

My world began to change as technical manuals transitioned to PDFs. The value of the ability to access manuals online, immediately, is beyond measure. It has literally changed my world. For me, perhaps the most valueable function in electronic media, is Ctrl-F. This saves me a tremendous amount of time in my work. No thumbing through pages or trying to find that one sentence that I saw around page 900, two months ago, or a year ago, that tells me what I need to know. I can find in seconds what used take minutes, or even hours.

This reminds me of something that seems a bit pathetic these days. I forget who I was talking to, a professor or another grad student but they were saying they were telling a student how to look for a subject in a book and they had to go "now, go to the back of the book and there is something called an index". Apparently people are already dumb enough as it is on how to use a book, i hope this doesn't further the issue!

Then again, in your average Twilight or barnes and noble book, there's no index and the books that require an index probably aren't being used often by people who don't know how to use one.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Reducing the experience of reading to just a transfer of raw bits of information is equivalent of quantity over quality duality - Made in China.

If you consider the holistic view of reading, there is the touch and feeling of the texture, the smell of new printing, the stimulation of retinas by different hues of paper, there is the occasional coffee stain or a dog ear - one immediately finds that reading a paper book is a much more richer experience for the mind than reading from the same e-book.

Uh, I appreciate the love of books as you describe [I don't particularly have it, but I appreciate it], but I think this goes way too far. It isn't like the entire message is lost in electronic media. In fact the substance of reading remains. It isn't just a transfer of bits of information as in a download. Reading is still the exloration of ideas and information. A drama is still a drama; Plato is still Plato, even in digital form. What is lost is purely esthetic. Additionally, the information of interest now comes with context in the form of immediate sidebar searches about the subject. For example, how much more texture is added to the experience when one can view archives of photographs, or hear the actual recordings of major events, or watch the videos, as one studies history? If a picture is worth a thousand words, a thirty-second video is worth 900,000 words. All of this is here or coming to your e-book soon. Obviously this is true already for pc readers, like me.

 

[S_Happens]

My only problem with books in PDF format is that I find staring at a laptop (or my phone) screen for a long period of time reading them to cause my eyes to hurt and sometimes I get headaches. Now I don't have experience with a Kindle, so have they improved the screen to reduce the eye strain and make it more natural as with a book?e.

The e-ink displays are nothing like starting at a computer screen. The e-ink is one of the very best parts of the e-readers that use one (I know Kindle and Nook use them, not sure about the rest). They are not back lit like an LCD (and don't produce their own light like other screens). I have a slight scotopic sensitivity, so major contrast makes my eyes hurt after reading for more than a few minutes. Unbleached paper is fine, but bright white, bleached paper is terrible for me. The e-ink display looks uncannily like reading an unbleached paperback.

Here is a link from the company that manufactures the technology used in Kindle and Nook.
http://www.eink.com/technology/howitworks.html"

I will tell everyone that until a couple months ago, I was pretty sternly against owning an e-reader. I kept doing my research, handled a few, and have reported my opinion on owning one. There are many ways in which the e-readers are lacking, but I'll never be looking to replace ALL of my books. For me, it's not an either/or.

P.S.- I did not vote, because I see no reason to choose one over the other. I will use each one as it suits me.

 

[nismaratwork]

The e-ink displays are nothing like starting at a computer screen. The e-ink is one of the very best parts of the e-readers that use one (I know Kindle and Nook use them, not sure about the rest). They are not back lit like an LCD (and don't produce their own light like other screens). I have a slight scotopic sensitivity, so major contrast makes my eyes hurt after reading for more than a few minutes. Unbleached paper is fine, but bright white, bleached paper is terrible for me. The e-ink display looks uncannily like reading an unbleached paperback.

Here is a link from the company that manufactures the technology used in Kindle and Nook.
http://www.eink.com/technology/howitworks.html"

I will tell everyone that until a couple months ago, I was pretty sternly against owning an e-reader. I kept doing my research, handled a few, and have reported my opinion on owning one. There are many ways in which the e-readers are lacking, but I'll never be looking to replace ALL of my books. For me, it's not an either/or.

P.S.- I did not vote, because I see no reason to choose one over the other. I will use each one as it suits me.

E-ink or ultra-thin OLEDS could be a winner for this kind of tech. I think OLEDS have the benefit of being readable in the dark, and being even more flexible (in theory) than E-Ink, and more likely to be integrated into a touch-screen so you can take notes in the "margins" and such.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Good thing about e-books is you can just download all the books for school for free instead of paying a thousand dollars for them.

I don't think the question is which do you prefer stealing

 

[nismaratwork]

I don't think the question is which do you prefer stealing

ba-zing!

 

[General_Sax]

I like e-books because I can pirate them.

 

[Pengwuino]

I like e-books because I can pirate them.

Pff and real books can't be pirated? It's called a photocopier

 

[airborne18]

I bought a sony e-reader. While I still prefer physical books for academic and studying. I do like the e-books for the massive amount of classic lit. that is available.

 

[Dembadon]

I like real books. I've yet to feel as comfortable when "curling-up" with an electronic device as I do with a book. I like the feel of turning pages. I like to underline things and make notes. I like seeing the effects that years of use give them: unique scratches/creases. The physical characteristics of a book, its size, shape, weight, even smell, help distinguish one from another.