One of my favorite gadgets – indeed probably my favorite gadget, is my Rocket ebook. It’s the perfect way to read a long document (and just try to read a sentence on human rights issues, they are hundreds of pages long), to carry several documents with you, without the necessity of printing them out. I hate wasting trees.
Alas, I don’t think they make rocket books anymore. Indeed, I don’t think they make any e-book eader anymore which is a real shame. I don’t know if this is because there isn’t a market for ebooks – people just prefer paper – or because people rather use their palms. Or perhaps they were just too expensive.
But I think the problem might have been marketing. They marketed these books as products to read books, not documents. If they’d done the later, they would have been able to reach the business audience. It’s really a great way of reading a long document.
What I like about it is that it’s backlit, it charges quickly, and the battery lasts an enormous amount of time – 20 hours, I think. The font is also quite clear and easy to read. It’s a bit heavy, I prefer using it lying down or holding it on a surface, otherwise I need both hands to hold it. But all in all I love it.
I’m off to read a long document now.
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I always wanted one but never took the plunge. One of my concerns was that the library of books available for it would be limited. You are right if they had marketed to the business crowd they may have had more longevity in the market. However I think the real mistake was they didn’t event a schme where you could take the e-Book to your local library/book store and buy an electronic book and load direclty on to the device.
My guess is that in the future the market for this type of device will reinvent and the e-book will redubet.