Evaluation: The Netbook as a Book

Overview

What exactly can you do with a Netbook? Today's post will evaluate the Netbook in the role of a book reader. Since you can take the Netbook anywhere, and because people like to read it would seem to be a useful thing to evaluate.

Getting Started

We all have experience reading books. I don't think I can elaborate any further. Of course, on a Netbook, you need a few things:

• The "book" in electronic format


• Software to read the book

Of course there are many options here. I will focus on books stored in EPUB format that are readable by the freely downloadable Adobe Digital Editions. EPUB books appear to be nothing fancy. They are basically a bunch of zipped up HTML files with some other text files that I haven't researched in any detail. Wikipedia has a reasonable overview should you be interested.

First, download and install Adobe Digital Editions. As I will discuss later, this is a pretty good tool for my 10" Dell Mini. Next, go get some free eBooks from Project Gutenberg. There are 30,000 eBooks available. All of the books I browsed were downloadable in EPUB format.

Case Study: Extraordinary Popular Delusions (and the Madness of Crowds)
On my "Recommended Reading" list is Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds written by Charles Mackay in the 1800's. Initially, I bought this book to study some of the great financial bubbles in history - The Mississipi Scheme (France), The South Sea Bubble (England) and, of course, Tulipmania (Holland). I credit this book for saving me from the High Tech bubble. At the same time, I curse it because it convinced me that this bubble was about to explode years before it actually did. In other words, though I hadn't lost my shirt, I "got out" too early. Oh well, as this book and more recent history shows there will always be another bubble - and I shall be prepared!

Once you have installed Adobe Digital Editions I highly recommend dowloading this book from http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24518.

Here is where our comparison begins. I am now in possession of both a physical and electronic copy of the book, as shown in the picture below.

The picture shows the comparative size of the book compared with the Netbook. Of course, the book is smaller, but there is only one. The Netbook is interesting because it can store thousands of books (a 120 GB hard drive equates to hours of reading) PLUS you can phone your friends with Skype, amongst other things. The book is lighter - 495 grams versus 1334 grams for my 6 cell Netbook. But 1000 like books would weigh 495 Kg versus 1334 grams for my Netbook.

Enough of being silly - we all know how easy it is to read a book. Lets look at book reading ease through a 1024X576 pixel screen. I started up Adobe Digital Editions in full screen mode and loaded the book. I sized the text as small as I could while maintaining readability. A screen capture may be found below:

The characters are sharp enough for my eyes. The number of characters fitting in an "e-page" are far less than that of a book. Is this a big issue? It all comes down to personal preference. For myself, it is still quite readable but others might find frequent page turning somewhat of a nuisance. You be the judge. You also have the option of getting a higher resolution screen with some Netbooks (the Dell Mini 10, for example). However, expect to pay a lot more. Bottom line - I believe the printed page still wins for readability, but I am not horribly bothered by the presentation on the Netbook.

Reading a book digitally, you have some benefits over books:

• Ability to search for text


• "Electronic" bookmark (verses paper bookmarks that fall out)


• Ability to store 1000's of books in the same small package


• Amazing volume of free public domain books - just check out Amazon.ca to see how much money you can save by downloading this book for free.
  

Screen Brightness and Battery Life
I tested readability and battery life of my Mini 10V while running Adobe Digital Editions.

First, I testest the screen while looking at the monitor in broad daylight on a sunny day. There is no problem reading the text of the eBook when the monitor is at full intensity. However, I did find the glare to be quite annoying. In shade, or where it is darker, there are absolutely no readability issues in my opinion.

The Digital Editions reader is not too CPU intensive. With my 6-cell battery pack, with 90% charge remaining and WiFi disabled, the power meter indicated remaining battery life as follows:

• 5:10 with the screen at full intensity
• 6:20 with the screen at minimal intensity

So, you have between 5-6 hours of reading if you are untethered. I cannot comment on the 3 cell pack. I can only imagine it offers 2-3 hours. I would find that restrictive.

Of course, when it comes to sunny days, the printed page wins hands down. And you don't have to worry about batteries! But, when it is dark the Netbook (literally) shines.

Conclusion

My inexpensive Dell Mini 10V with a 1024X576 screen is a viable book reader. I still find it easier to read a printed book. But with the Netbook I have access to 1000's of free and interesting books all at my finger tips wherever I go (for a maximum of 6 hours between charges). If considering a Netbook for this purpose, mind the battery life. Also, verify that you are not bothered by the limited number of characters available for each 'page'.