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Good In Bed
RCA's newest eBook is lightweight, readable and has enormous storage capacity; but if you're vacationing at the beach or want to
show off your library, stick with hardbacks.
By Paul R. Kiesel
I love to fly. One of the best parts of flying, assuming my children are not screaming in the seats on either side of me, is the
uninterrupted hours of reading. Flying, reading and summer vacations go hand-in-hand.
As I prepared for my traditional end-of-summer family vacation, this seemed a perfect opportunity to combine all three. So I
decided to review the RCA model REB 1100 eBook. It arrived the day before I was set to fly to Martha's Vineyard from Los Angeles.
RCA just introduced its newest eBook to the marketplace. It's a stylish device about the size of a paperback book. The lightweight
(18 oz.) REB 1100 has 8 MB of memory. This is enough to store 20 novels or 8,000 pages of text. It is upgradable to 72 MB (72,000
pages, or more than 150 books. Impressive!).
The screen resolution is incredibly sharp and allows users to enlarge the font size. The REB 1100 has an internal 33.6 K modem,
which allows users to hook a standard phone line into the unit. This way, readers can download periodicals and books from a toll-free
site provided by the manufacturer.
On paper, this sounds like an incredible product. The ability to travel with a lightweight device that holds up to 20 novels is a
wonderful thing. The screen is extremely readable. The device's backlighting is just enough so that reading from the monitor is pleasing
to the eye. The REB 1100 does not cause eye strain as readers scan page after page - or, should I say, screen after screen.
The REB 1100 is simple to use, and it is even easier to download new books.
After taking the unit out of the box, I charged it for two hours, and the eBook was ready to go. Since I wanted to see how simple it
was to download text, I first hooked a telephone line to the unit.
The eBook automatically dialed a toll-free number to access the online library. In minutes, the eBook had dialed the online system
and presented hundreds of books available for downloading. Prices are equivalent to Amazon.com or a discount bookseller.
One of the several books on my vacation reading list is Clive Cussler's "Valhallah Rising." Cussler's work, which is pure fantasy, is
a wonderful, semimindless way to while away the days on Martha's Vineyard. I also wanted to read David McCullough's new book,
"John Adams." The head-to-head test was reading the hardback "Valhallah Rising" and "John Adams" as an eBook.
"John Adams" was available online for $19.95, compared to the Amazon.com price of $21.
One of the added benefits of the eBook was the immediacy of the downloading process. Within 10 minutes, I downloaded all 736
pages and was ready to read. My great adventure in eBooks was about to begin.
I began reading screen after screen and tried, as much as possible, to replicate my normal behavior of reading in bed.
E-reading in bed was pretty good. The light from the REB 1100 is terrific, so I suffered far less eyestrain than I normally would
experience reading in bed with most of the lights out. Another benefit is having multiple books available in one, handy unit without
having to carry a backpack full of books.
Another nice feature is the ability to place a digital bookmark. The user points the e-Book's device and taps the screen to implant a
bookmark. The next time the reader turns on the REB 1100 and selects "bookmark," the device immediately returns to where the user
left off.
The drawbacks, however, were evident right away.
I like to know what page I'm on. I get a great deal of satisfaction from advancing page after page in a hardcover book. When I
finish a 736-page book, such as David McCullough's, I feel increasing satisfaction as I move from the beginning, to the middle, to the
end, watching my bookmark advance like a slow ascent up Mount Everest.
The REB 1100 provides no such satisfaction. Rather than having a sense of context to evaluate how much I've read, I simply
move the cursor screen after screen with this two-dimensional device.
I have heard it said that, if the book had been invented after the computer, it would have been praised as an innovative device:
small, portable, ergonomic, requires no batteries and rugged as hell.
I do most of my reading perched on my Stairmaster. I secure the book on my book holder and flip through page after page.
Occasionally, the book falls off the machine. When this occurs, I simply pick it up and put it back on the book holder.
Such is not the case with the eBook.
I always have been surprised how topics can seem so current when I'm working on a project. For example, in eighth grade, I was
working on a report about an obscure aboriginal tribe when I happened on a news story involving this particular group.
So it was on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2001.
I was reading the New York Times, the paper, not the online version, when I came across this front-page headline: "Forecasts of
an E-Book Era Were, It Seems, Premature."
Here's why, in my view, the headline is right.
It's 8 a.m. I have settled into my seat on Continental Flight 11, preparing for departure from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J. Rather
than open up my Clive Cussler novel, I decided to continue reading, on screen 18, "John Adams." No sooner had I turned on my REB
1100 than the flight attendant asked me to turn off my "portable electronic device."
This, I had never considered.
For the next 25 minutes, I read the opening chapters of Clive Cussler's novel. Apparently, this book posed no threat to the
navigational devices of our Boeing 757. Unfortunately, once I started to read my Clive Cussler fantasy novel, it was hard to return to
American history. I had that same problem in college.
EBooks have other disadvantages. My family and I were taking a beach vacation. One of the wonderful things about a "real" book
is that, to remove sand from its pages, all I do is turn the book upside down, shake it a few times, and voil~, the sand is gone, and the
http://dailyjournal.com/search/components/print/publication.cfm?sid=1060115274&tk... 2/7/02
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book is as good as new.
The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the REB 1100. The sand and water of the Atlantic coast were no match for the
delicate circuits, glass and metal of the REB 1100.
While I carried the 1100 with me everywhere I went this summer, I never could get enthused about it. Maybe it's a generational
thing. I grew up with paper, I like the feel of paper. Hell, I even like the smell of paper.
One other thing.
I love having a bookshelf. I can tell a great deal about people by going to their homes or offices and scanning the bookshelves to
see what they read. I feel tremendous satisfaction in finishing a big, thick hardcover book and placing it, like a trophy, in my bookcase.
Somehow I just don't get that same satisfied feeling knowing there's another title in my eBook.
I finished the last few pages of the Clive Cussler novel as my plane descended below 10,000 feet on my way back to Los Angeles.
I reflected on the irony that, had I been using my REB 1100, I would have been unable to finish the book, since we were in "our final
descent into the Los Angeles area."
While this is not a book review, those of you who have enjoyed Clive Cussler's books in the past will be pleased with "Valhalla
Rising." I never got much farther than the 18th screen of "John Adams."
What do I think of the RCA REB 1100?
Ask Amazon.com, which is filling my order for the hardcover version of "John Adams."
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