[Montpelerin]

This is a great first step - think of all the benefits from this...

one off the top...
Students will eventually have to carry only a tablet instead of several heavy books.
(missed your post Depth)

However, I think the good 'ol paper book will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by ShoelessRye

But then what would I display on my coffee table and bookshelves to show everybody how well read I am?

*patents coffee table e-book that turns into a coffee table*

[Te(V)plar]

Problems:

1) Books dont need batteries
2) (although the lighter load for students is a compelling argument) making fast notes into your text will be harder
3) 400 bucks for the reader (although it'd be nice to pirate)

[dylanransom]

I'll stick with print. First, the glare and headaches are not worth it, and there's nothing quite like a good page turner every now and then. Books smell way better than computers too...

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by Te(V)plar

Problems:

1) Books dont need batteries
2) (although the lighter load for students is a compelling argument) making fast notes into your text will be harder
3) 400 bucks for the reader (although it'd be nice to pirate)

4) Books are better to read on the crapper.

[Happy Boy]

Sitting on the side of a mountain on the soft grass under the glaring sun with nothing to distract you save the sound of the rustling trees and your..............laptop!!!!! No, books are here for good.

[Art Vandelay]

This should never take off.

1. Reading is overrated.
2. Lightening the load of backpacks would remove 80% of the average American child's physical activity. Hilarity ensues.
3. Reading off a screen will never replicate the prior experience of a physical book, which will always be ingrained until physical books are rejected as throwbacks and cost more than e-books.
4. The douches at Panera will no longer be able to show off their "heavy" selections.

[Happy Boy]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

This should never take off.

1. Reading is overrated.

Are you joking? Reading is overrated!! Seriously?

[GermanBJJ]

That's doomed for failure. Most personal gadgets today are more design-oriented and less function-oriented. Inventing something practical is only a fraction of the battle in today's marketplace. E-Book readers have been done over and over again and they never take off because no one is willing to pay that much for a gadget that looks like it came out of the 1980's.

If you want to make an E-book reader that sells, it needs to be (a) completely touch-screen with page turn animation -- meaning that if you brush the page with your finger, the page "turns" like a book but with animation, (b) very durable -- one of the big advantages to books is that outside of being burned or thrown into a lake, you can basically beat the hell out of them and (c) cheap -- people who read enough books that an E-book reader would be practical mostly shop for used books. Considering used books are in the $2-10 range, the book prices aren't much different but the consumer has to shell out $400 for the reader. Just not worth it.

Think about this: for $400, you can basically get a cheap laptop that does everything the E-book reader does but a hell of a lot more. Then I can DL PDF's illegally for free. It isn't worth it. Hell, I would rather get an iTouch, load a PDF viewer and read them that way (which I do with my iPhone.) That's still less than $400 and comes with mp3 player, video player, and web browser.

Besides, Amazon has very little competitive advantage here. Apple could probably throw a slick-designed touch-screen E-Book/PDF reader together that holds 1GB (aka a shitload of books) for less than $100. And they would make a much better product than Amazon.

It's just a bad, bad business decision on the part of Amazon IMO. They would have been better off partnering with Apple, letting Apple build the hardware, and simply specializing in providing the E-Books through iTunes. It exploits their competitive advantage, would require little capital outlay compared to building hardware devices and would cement themselves as the only major E-book provider for years to come by piggy-backing on the Apple gadget phenomenon.

[WUchi]

it will save trees