What to do with your sad old android phone, lying in a drawer?

Samsung Spica i5700

In my case it’s a Samsung Spica i5700 (see picture), which was the cheapest I could get in 2010. I replaced it with the Geeksphone Zero last year, but it’s still a nice phone with a nice screen (which actually appears bigger than that of the Zero, but isn’t). I discovered quite by accident that I liked reading books on it.

It has no SIM card, but doesn’t need one to be a dedicated e-reader (and music player, and photo album, perhaps, when I get time). All it needs is an SD card (I bought a cheap one on ebay) and wi-fi, which it has, plus decent book reading software.

Aldiko 2 does the latter job just fine.

I use it mostly to download public domain books, as (a) there’s a lot of classics I haven’t read, and (b) I like to buy hardcopy contemporary books. I actually have hard copies of many of the classics I’ve downloaded – so why bother?

Indeed, but why go hunting for a book when I have an electronic copy to hand? And now that books by Joyce and James Stephens, and Virginia Woolf are in the public domain, it’s nice to dip in quickly and read a few pages of books one knows quite well, perhaps, just to relax after a long day.

I’m not sure if I’ll manage Moby Dick or War and Peace, or Proust (none of which I have managed to finish in hard copy either, to my shame), but it’s nice to have them handy. Just in case. As for re-reading The Prince, or stories from Dubliners, well, it’s just perfect. The Book of Tea is delightful bedtime e-reading, I assure you.

Another reason to stick to public domain is that I haven’t got my head around DRM. If I publish another book, and I hope I will, no doubt I’ll have to face up to its rights and wrongs, but for the moment I’m shying away.

Aldiko taps into a number of e-bookstores for both paid and free material, and Feedbooks is excellent for public domain titles. If I ever get around to purchasing ebooks, I’ll no doubt do it at Feedbooks. Hosting public domain books is an excellent way to promote loyalty, I would say.

I have no fears for hard copy books. They’ll survive, just like cinema and radio. They’ll just have to learn to live with their e-family.

Meanwhile, Thus Spake Zarathustra on your smartphone, anyone?

[and speaking of meanwhile, I got two spam about e-books while writing this]