The Reading Experience7 May 2001 I've seen a lot of talk recently about the "reading experience", mostly as an excuse to ignore ebooks in favor of paper. Conventional wisdom states that the reading experience on screens simply isn't up to par with paper, and that it is for this reason that ebooks are doomed to fail. I've even seen articles implying that while ebooks are fine for searchable reference works, the paper book is a "perfect" system for fiction and that ebooks should "know their place" and not try to usurp the unimprovable paper book. Regular readers will not be surprised to find that I think the above "reasoning" is a steaming load of fertilizer. Putting aside other reasons ebooks have found it hard to find acceptance (idiotic DRM restrictions, artificially high prices, also artificially limited selection, etc.), let's take a closer look at this. What is the reading experience? First, let's take a look at the reading experience we're all familiar with, the experience against which ebooks seem to fall short. I'll be the first to admit that for reading, paper books are pretty nice. I know that sounds weird, coming from me, but I grew up reading paper and still buy paper books without hesitation--although only when an ebook version is not available, or when I want a hardcover to put up on my mantle (hardcovers are as much decoration as entertainment; I certainly don't want to lug them outside of my apartment). Paper books are convenient, high-resolution and low power devices. Think about it. A paperback fits in your pocket--provided it wasn't written by King or Clancy--requires absolutely no power to retain the information it has, can be read easily in a wide variety of lighting conditions (from direct sunlight down to candlelight) and even a cheap paperback has a display resolution upwards of 300 dots per inch. You can take it to the beach, you can drop it in the bathtub--without losing too much money to replace it--you can freely lend it out or give it away. While I won't go as far as some people I've seen and call the paper book a "perfect" invention solely on the basis that it's been around for hundreds of years, I will say that it's pretty good. Still room for improvement, but pretty good. Okay, so where do ebooks "fall short" in comparison to paper? The first complaint I invariably hear when I mention ebooks to a paper devotee is, "Oh, I could never read on a screen that small!" Most ebook reading systems, Pocket PCs and Palms, have a screen more or less the size of a business card. Since this is smaller than the screen of a paperback, people assume it has to be less comfortable. This is faulty logic. Yes, the screen is smaller, but the text is the same size. Small screens do not equal small text. It just means that there's less text on the screen that you'd generally see on a paperback page. About a quarter as many, actually. Michael Crichton's Timeline is just over 2,000 "pages" in Microsoft Reader on my Pocket PC, while the paperback version is around 500 pages. But most people don't read an entire page--or even a long paragraph--at a single glance. Most people read a word, phrase or sentence at a time. Ebooks provide ample room for this sort of reading, and if the size of the actual text is comparable to print, this argument goes out the window. Actually, ebooks have the edge here, as the visually impaired don't have to buy a separate "large print edition" of an ebook; they can just enlarge the font size themselves. I've also seen several people claim that reading ebooks actually helps them focus, since they can't skip a few paragraphs ahead. Some readers have "jumpy" eyes and tend to read paragraphs almost at random unless they have something forcing them to stay on track. I can vouch for these readers, because I'm one of them. Another issue I see crop up is formatting. Because of the smaller screen, critics say, the ebook can't handle complex page layout and detailed graphics. Okay, this one is true, but I'm not sure how important it is for most titles. I read a lot on my Visor, and I used to read just as much on my Pocket PC. In both cases, I read mostly saved web articles and fiction, both of which being formats that scale down nicely to a single column of text. While I have read computer reference books and other complex, chart-ridden nonfiction on my handheld, I do admit that it isn't as easy as reading the more expansive paper versions (in particular, O'Reilly's Programming Perl, the "Camel Book", is readable in HTML on in Pocket IE or iSilo, but the print version is easier to follow). But how often do you really need magazine-style complex layouts? Most ebooks can probably handle a single column of text without losing readability or presentation. The other side of formatting is that many handhelds provide only limited capability to duplicate the actual text formatting we're so accustomed to in paper. On the Palm, you only have two fonts, both jagged and bitmapped, and italics are handled by merely shifting some of pixels one pixel to the right--although I should note that new high resolution PalmOS devices like the Sony N710C and HandEra 330 are much better at this, making use of greater pixel depth to draw smoother, more detailed fonts. Palm DOC format, the closest thing to a "universal" ebook format, does not support bold or italic text, does not support centering or indenting of text, does not support linking or page breaks at the end of chapters. While the information is there, the presentation is decidedly lacking. This is why I read all my ebooks in rich text. Yes, such readers do exist. On the Palm, Palm Reader and WordSmith do a fine job with rich text, even supporting page breaks. If you prefer HTML, PalmOS options abound, including iSilo, iambicReader, MobiPocket and Plucker. On the Pocket PC, I read in one of two formats: Microsoft Reader or Palm Reader. Both support all of the features found lacking in Palm DOC above, and Microsoft Reader ups the ante by supporting color "cover art" and crisp ClearType font rendering. When you use the proper ebook format, ebooks come much closer to the presentation capabilities of paper books. Another "ding" against ebooks is that they require power. I wish I had a nickel for every time someone's thought it was just brilliant to point out that they never have to change the batteries in their paperback. So let's take a good long look at this. Is having a battery-powered screen really that much of an inconvenience? Setting aside for the moment light-powered PDAs in development that will work efficiently even off typical office lighting, I'd have to say that for me, no, it's not a hassle to keep my device charged. (How many people complain about having to keep cell phones charged?) I live in an urban area, and work in an office. I never had any problems keeping my Jornada charged, and I have two sets of NiMH AAAs that I rotate in my Visor. As long as I'm going to have my PDA with me anyway, I may was well read on it. (I think dedicated readers like the REB devices lose out precisely because they're just as easy to leave behind as a paper book.) Speaking of having it with me, let's talk portability. This is one area where ebooks really shine over paper, and something that I think more than compensates for having to deal with battery life. On my Visor, I can carry thousands of pages of text, enough to account for ten pounds or more of paperbacks--let's not even get into the portability of hardcovers--and all in a package that weighs just six ounces, and that includes the batteries! It's the size of a deck of cards, and I can take it with me literally everywhere I go. Would that kind of convenience be worth something to you? Which brings me to lighting. I'll admit that very few ebook screens can compare to paper in terms of high-resolution text on a clear white background. The iPaq, Casio Pocket PCs and maybe the Sony N710C are about the only devices that qualify in that sense--the Palm m505 could, but as is it's just way too dim, more of a washed-out gray background. Other devices, monochrome (most Palms) or passive matrix color (Palm IIIc, HP Jornada) are limited to good lighting conditions. The monochrome devices are most readable in bright light--with a notable exception, see below--and the color devices are best in dim light that doesn't compete too much with the backlight on their screens. The exception to this is that while it might be difficult to read a Palm--at least the ones with the "reverse" backlight--by candlelight, it's very easy to read them in total darkness, something you can't do with a paper book. For this reason I'd have to give the nod to screens over paper for readability in different lighting, even if the resolution and contrast doesn't measure up to paper. I won't say ebooks are universally better than paper; absolute declarations like that don't stand up any better than the converse. But I do think you can make a compelling argument that ebooks have a place alongside paper as a viable medium, regardless the subject matter. The reading experience of ebooks may be different from the reading experience of paper, but it has advantages all its own. |