Sony's Portable Reader System

Many times a reviewer gets a piece of hardware to look over by the company. Those guys are lucky. I however get to spend my own money on these toys, a fair bit of money truth be told, and may never get that luxury. This may be to your benefit, especially since I don't like buying crap, and I hate it even more when my friends buy crap (Nick, come on, Shadowrun? At least you admitted I was right afterwards). I don't want any of you to make any mistakes I might get into, and I'm far more critical given a good paycheck can go into a single electronic item...

I haven't had much time with the Sony PRS, but considering Engadget stinking scooped me with their "How would you change the Sony Reader" post, I felt it was important I get this out here before I fall into a also-ran or worse yet a mere reproduction of their efforts!

When will books become obscure items instead of heavy, smelly mass-produced items littering my office? They're difficult to search and cross reference and have a distinct ability to go up in flames. With our drive to modernize everything would drag this child of Gutenberg into the 21st century, it's not surprising that this isn't the first attempt at bringing a portable reading device to the masses. Surprisingly marketers thought it would be profitable, over-sized PDAs, fraught with energy hungry LCD screens for thousands of dollars.

By contrast, at $300 (US), this Reader has fewer limitations technologically. It's display drains no energy except when it refreshes the content, giving it a ridiculous long battery life, a thin sleek case and light weight. Sony claims 7,200 page turns per charge and I have gone through hundreds to thousands of page turns with no drop on the battery meter. Despite any photos I'd seen its small size took me by surprise -- it's smaller than a DVD case.

A few issues with the device, the interface is poorly thought out and the battery is not user replaceable. And I don't really understand why it needs an mp3 player or RSS reader. To place time sensitive information like an RSS feed this device is beyond me. Also, if you happen to have PDFs that are merely photo replications of your books (*ahem*) the image will be unreadable, the screen is so small. The Sony Connect software is PC only, and feels slightly unresponsive. Frustratingly you cannot change the meta-data info of any file you import into the Connect Softwares library, as if Sony is deathly afraid you might change the spelling of your favorite authors' name. While not criticisms of the device itself, it's a major hinderance for me as a Macintosh user and anal-retentive controller of my meta-data.

All in all, if you're interested in the Sony Reader I say you should buy it. Just make sure you have a library of txt, rft, or pdf files at the ready. For $300 it's not cheap but I justified it, and feel comfortable purchasing books from their store. There are exceptions. Someone who already has a large dead-tree library of books should pass it up. Nor should you get it if your library contains lots of encrypted PDFs -- the Reader can't read encrypted files except BBeB format, Sony's proprietary book format. But I think it's good for students just starting their collection. those who likes the classics, or are obsessed enough to use an Optical Scanner to convert every book they own.

Comments

[Robert Dye]

Chris,

Sorry about doing this this way, but I could not find your email link.

I just bought a Sony Reader 700, and I'm very much on the steep part of the learning curve.

I have managed to get one book into .lrf format and into the Reader, but I don't seem able to replicate th efeat.

I was hoping you might have some expertise to share.

Thanks!

Rob

[Chris]

Robert,
The easiest way to figure out adding content is a simple google search, there's plenty of community sites on converting as well as additional software for the windows-challanged.