Going Paperless - The Next Generation

Continuing the previous post about my transition from paper to digital, today it's all about books.

As I've been traveling for more than half a year, I always carried a couple of books with me and would swap them with other travelers or in used-book stores. This way I've read many books without them taking much space or weight. Books do not become any less interesting with usage, and I usually have little value for the book itself standing on my shelf after I've read it, except perhaps it's availability in case I wish to read it again.

I've been thinking about this since I've returned, and so, as of this week I am the happy owner of the Nook eReader, made by Barnes & Noble (similar to Amazon's Kindle).

It uses the eInk technology to display a B&W screen for reading which requires very little power, and has an additional color touch screen below for navigation and keyboard. The Nook is light and portable, easy to read (the eyes do not get tired like when reading from a computer screen), has enough power for over a week of reading and can store thousands of books. It supports all common eBook formats, allows for microSD card for extra storage and even includes WiFi and a web browser (with a little hacking, it is even possible to use it's 3G connectivity in Israel).

This is now my own portable library, and the chances I'll be buying physical books in the futures are getting smaller. There is a huge variety of public and freely downloadable eBooks, while most new books in eBook format are sold for no more than 10$.

There are some nice extras - the Nook also displays images, PDFs (all my important documents are already scanned into PDFs) and plays audio files - which is great, since I love listening to audiobooks and they are a great way to pass the time when you're driving or on a long bus ride. And so, this little gadget will be my paper replacement for the future.