03.23.08
The Book
I’m a happy owner of a Sony eBook Reader and I’d like to share some of my thoughts after using the device for a few months now…
So first of all – happy, yes. I saw an very early version of the Sony eBook reader a few years ago in Tokyo in the Sony building and ever since had no doubt that I would own one of these whenever they become affordable and open enough for me.
The critical threshold was the introduction of the new 505 model late last year which removed many of the issues that I saw with the original device. It has a SD card slot and allows for the simple import of PDF and text files without the use of the Sony eBook store – which I assume is still as ridden with DRM as it was a few years ago.
I’ve been using it now for several months and I love it! The display is beautiful and the buttons are exactly where I want them. It’s very light and it very much looks like a device at home in the 21st century.
Since I’m on a Mac I use the open source libprs500 application to manage the files on the eBook and that is working like a charm. With a 1GB SD card I could probably easily store several thousand books on the device, so there is never again a worry about running out of something to read.
While I still read quite a lot of “real” books, the eBook is now my preferred reading material out and about in town, and in my mind it has become “The Book”.
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miguel said,
March 25, 2008 at 9:04 pm
How do you find it compared to the Amazon Kindle? I’ve been contemplating both of them and wonder which one might be a better buy. How does the eBook reader do in terms of English support? (probably not a good idea to buy it in Japan since English support here is abysmal…)
thomas said,
March 25, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I haven’t used the Kindle, but I think the screen is a little smaller with the Kindle, and just from a Industrial Design perspective, the Sony looks soooo much better!
The Sony Reader being sold here in the States is fully localized into English and I’m not even sure how the US version would deal with Japanese texts or PDFs… it sure works great with English texts and the menus are very clear and easy to use.
One more thing about the Kindle – it is much more integrated with the Amazon store. For once, Sony’s touch is very light as far as forcing users to sign up for any online service – I didn’t and I don’t miss it.
I use the open source tool to update my Reader and I download books from various sources on the web, including publisher’s websites (many free books are out there from publishers), and also Mule and Bittorrent. Usually, if I download a book from Bittorrent, I probably already have the very same book in paper form or it’s out-of-print stuff that has not been seen in a book store for several decades.