How to fall in love with ebooks?

[holyschist]

I've noticed that generally people seem to fall in instant love with ereaders. I didn't, and I'd really like to, in hopes of being able to haul around somewhat fewer dead trees (although much of my book collection is unfortunately not a good candidate for digital replacement).

Is there anyone out there who was not immediately enthused, but grew to love an ereader anyway? What helped? Better technology (the new eInk screens are significantly better than on my old Sony)? A different model? Something else?

At present, I pretty much only use my ereader for traveling. I feel like the advantages of print books for me are a) I find them more comfortable to read, b) higher contrast (possibly resolved by new eInk?), and c) I enjoy being able to flip through books (I also enjoy being able to search books, but mostly do this on my computer). Also, for many of the backlist books I love, ebook conversions are often extremely poor in quality, and I resent having to hack a file to fix formatting and OCR errors when I can get a perfectly fine paper copy, and may already own one. So I don't know, maybe these are insurmountable issues?

Anyone else been in this boat and found a way to make ereaders really work for you?

Comments

[holyschist]

I think mine's only one or at most two generations old, but while the page refresh is mildly annoying, the contrast is moreso. Although I think the most annoying thing is that it doesn't seem to hold a reasonable charge, which may mean the battery is dying.

Alas, I don't think I know anyone with a current generation ereader I could borrow to try out.

[boundbooks]

I didn't either! :)

I actually tested out the page refresh rate by trying the display ereaders at a local office supply store (Office Depot and Staples probably have display Kindles), and I tried the Nook at a Barnes and Nobles, the iPad at an Apple store, and the Kobo at a Borders (before it closed, but the office stores might have display Kobos now too). If you're near any of those places (generic big-box stores like Walmart and Best Buy might even have display ereaders), I definitely recommend them for trying out ereaders.

[holyschist]

Yeah, that's what I did last time and it was helpful, but I think I'd need a couple days to see if the screen really works for me and I'm likely to use it enough to justify upgrading.

[chocolatehearts]

Some libraries let you check them out.

[holyschist]

My actually local library doesn't; the other one doesn't allow out-of-area people to put holds on things, so there's no way I'd be able to check out an ereader. :-/