Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

The iPad: A Hella Long Journal and Review

I’ve spent the last three days playing with my iPad. While there are many very savvy and very insightful reviews of the device out there, this probably isn’t one of them. It’s more of a log of my experience trying the device and the things I noticed as I set it up (Oh my God the Setting Up and the Waiting for the Setting Up) and tried to read on it, and my thoughts after a few days of doing so. My apologies in advance for the length of this review, but I think it communicates a lot about a device when you understand the setup and adjustment that someone goes through as they try it.

Saturday 3 April: It arrived!

5:15pm: There’s a box on my porch!

5:40pm: snacks are distributed, iPod is unboxed, iMaxi is tried (cannot operate one handed - heh - so is truly for novelty or travel).

5:45pm: Great. I have to upgrade iTunes and Apple and a bunch of other crap.

6:00pm: Still updating.

6:30pm: Still updating.

6:45pm: Still updating. Dear Lord.

6:50pm: OH MY GOD WITH THE UPDATING.

Hint #1: Update all this crap long before… read more »

The iRex 800SG: A DNF Review

When the wireless iRex was announced online, with the news that it would be available at Best Buy online an eventually in stores, I was so supremely curious. Even though the price tag is still way high, and way out of reach for most people, I ordered one thinking that if it would solve my Kindle problems, and perform the way I wanted a wireless reader to perform, it might be a better option for many.

Currently, I’m using Kindle II for most of my reading. I was using a Sony 505, but it had a very sad and unfortunate accident with the leg of a table, and half the screen doesn’t work. Plus, I have difficulties loading the content onto the 505 because I can’t always connect external devices to the computers I’m using.

I like using the wireless connectivity to load books on the Kindle. I like how light it is. I like the sticker I have on the back. I especially like that I can buy .mobi files from vendors other than Amazon and, by using Calibre’s preference set for Kindle, email those files… read more »

The Sony Daily Edition: a Drive-By Review

Yesterday I went to the mall to return a sweater and found myself fondling digital readers. It’s really quite risky to take me anywhere, I suppose.

Me: Oooh. Sony Style store. Forgot this mall had one of those.

Sony Style Store: Look! The Readers are right inside the door front and center. Come and feel the sleek power of my sexy

Me: Ok!

Sony Pocket: We’ve already been introduced.

Me: Yup.

Sony Touch: Hayadoin?

Me: Good.

Sony Daily Edition: Hey baby, wanna stroke my beard?

Me: Oh, yes, I do.

Me: Hmmm. Hmmmmmm.

Sony Daily: Didja see the spiffy home screen layout?

Me: Yup. Pretty damn nice. The covers all line up and I can view by cover or by title as text, and my last-read title is all big and huge up at the top.

Sony Daily: Hey, want to visit the store?

Me: Yes, I do. But if I touch the store button, then load the store, I get an automatic sequence that takes me through buying a Nicholas Sparks book, and asks if I’m sure if I want… read more »

The Words Move Me Celebration and Giveaway Winners

After reading through 1000+ entries at Words Move Me, I’ve developed an extensive reading wish list (dammit) and have picked the two winners for the Sony Pockets (yay!). Sony USA provided me with two, and without further ado, here are the winners:

One Sony Pocket will go to SueSuex for this entry that summed up many, many romances in one scene.

And the other will go to Shaina Maydel for an entry from Anne Michaels’ Fugitive Pieces.

Winners: please email me at sarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOTcom with your name and mailing address, and put Sony Pocket Winner in the subject line. Congratulations - and thank you to everyone who entered. The depth and expanse of your reading experience is astounding and I’m so pleased (though a little cross-eyed but that’s normal) to have read through your favorites. Stay tuned for more giveaways and fun stuff for the rest of the month.

Words Move Me: A Celebration and Contest

Sony Style has a very cool page called Words Move Me, where users submit short passages from written works that they find memorable, moving, or personally important. They’ve come up with a rather neat promotion and have asked me to take part in helping spread the word about Words Move Me.

Oh look! A widget! Here are some examples:

So let’s get to celebrating the words that move us and have us a contest!

Everywhere you go, there’s a Kindle or an App

In other news of the digitally bookward today, Kindle has released a PC application that allows you to buy Kindle books without… actually owning a Kindle.

It’s currently available for that oh-so-smexxy Windows 7, and with the app installed you can read Kindle books, download anything you’ve already purchased from your Kindle leased-titles library, and add and synchonize notes to and from your Kindle app on iPhone and iTouch.

The new upgrade to Kindle for iPhone or Blackberry adds that notetaking and annotation functionality to the phone, so now whatever you’re reading is accessible with your notes and bookmarks on the Kindle, your iPhone or iTouch, or your Blackberry, and now on your PC.

When I asked the PR person who sent me the alert about the Kindle for PC application, I replied and asked, without whining, “What about Mac?”

And holy crap on a Kindle-shaped cracker, Amazon’s director of communication sent me the details: “Yup. Kindle app for Mac is on the way in the coming months.”

Ok, so here’s the TMI portion of our blog entry. It’s below the fold. (Snort).

Hey Waiter, There’s a Slot in my Nook

In the financial world, companies and investments are upgraded and downgraded in a big ol grade scale, and I’ve been using a similar scale to try to track my interest in the Barnes and Noble reading device, the nook. Only instead of A or B or + and -, I’m a little less specific. Right now, I’m on the border between, “Meh” and “ORLY?” We’re a good ways off from “OH HELL YEAH,” in other words.

I’ve heard some folks bellowing from the rooftops that This is the Digital Reader that will SAVE CHRISTMAS, make EGGS, and maybe revolutionize digital reading to become….drumroll please…THE KINDLE KILLER.

*cue Wilhelm scream and the sound of a hundred hardbacks hitting the carpet*

To put the device in baseball terms, and I say this without having touched anyone’s nook yet (cue another Wilhelm scream from the nook in question at being approached by yours truly): it might be a triple but no one has brought in the run yet.

You can read about the nook at Wired and Engadget and DearAuthor and a whole mess of other places, so I’m going… read more »

Digital Reading, Tools of Change, and Reading Tools

First: from Teleread, a Kindle 2/DX Hack to improve the font. I recently used two Amazon gift cards and a refurb discount to order a Kindle II, and it’s charging in the wall unit behind me. I’m not sure if it’ll replace the Sony 505 or 700 as the device I like best, but I want to try to use it again because, until the Sony wireless device comes out and until I can try the Touch or the Pocket edition, I’ve said many times, as have Jane and Angie, that the Kindle ease of use has everyone else beat. I like the shopping options with the Sony, not to mention the fact that I can borrow digital books from the library, but I also know it is could to take almost an hour to go through the steps to load a book should I buy it.

This past week, Angie James, Jane Litte, Kassia Krozser, Malle Vallik and I presented at the O’Reilly online web conference Ebook Strategy and Innovation. Our panel was titled “What Do Readers Want?” and the point Kassia, Malle, Angie and I made last year at the 2009 Tools of Change in Publishing is still… read more »

Sony 505 Review: A Report from Karen

So I’ve been looking at ebook readers for a while, as I’m a voracious reader and I am rapidly running out of space for all my books.  Like with my iPod I wanted the freedom to have options with my reading on the go, not to mention not having to lug heavy hardcovers.

The main thing keeping me back at the time?  The variety of formats and the price.  There was no way I was going shelling out $350 Canadian for something when I couldn’t be sure I was going to be able to buy books wherever I want and read them on the device, and without trying it out first.

Enter the test drive (vroom vroom!).  So far I’ve had my Sony PRS-505 for a month and I’ve found it to be much like my iPod was when I first got it: it fits easily into my life as-is.

Let me explain.  I commute on the bus to work every day, and in the last month I’ve read more during that commute than I think I have in the 6 months before that.  It’s… read more »

Sony 700 Review: A Report from Laura

I've had a couple of weeks to spend with my borrowed toy, and here's my impressions, based on my unscientific but personally demanding testing methods. Overall, I like it, but the technology still has some serious limitations that keep it from being a serious solution for my personal library growth issues. I knew there would be a learning curve, so I gave myself several days to just play with it. I tried a couple of freebie downloads, but really wasn't warming up to the e-paper format at all. Then I downloaded the new Jeaniene Frost release I'd been dying to read. For the first few pages, the flicker of the entire page at the 'page turn' drove me nuts. And then, I quit noticing. Somehow. I was reading along, completely sucked into the story, and I lost half an hour. Poof! Gone! I was well into the book by then and had ceased to even notice I was doing the page turn thing. Yep, I was warming up to the Sony PRS-700. Still . . . my wish list for the perfect e-reader goes something… read more »

Sony 505 Review: A Report from Anita

My background in ebook reading is online with my laptop which I don’t like because I can’t get comfy and also with my iPod Touch which is small but allows me to read in bed. I’m looking for something between the two so I jumped at the chance to test drive a Sony eReader.

I received the Sony eReader 505. The whole family stood around and oohed and awhed. The only rule I told them was not to touch it since it didn’t belong to us. Inside the box with the eReader was a folded poster-size pictorial manual, a USB cord, and a CD. When I put the eReader on for the first time, it worked. But the directions said it should be charged so I plugged it in. Now here’s where I have my first problem with the eReader – when you plug it in, you’re not able to use it as it goes into a hibernation mode and the directions say you can’t unplug it until the little red light goes off. Now this sounds straight forward however, it takes several… read more »

Sony 505 Review: A Report from Theresa

There are few things I like doing better than reading. Which means it’s surprising I haven’t picked up an e-reader of any kind until the SBTB Sony e-reader test drive challenge. Up until now paper books and I have had a die-hard lovefest. In fact there are times when my husband is jealous of my books taking up so much of my time and having to share space in the house with them. Enter the e-reader.

When I first opened the e-reader I didn’t bother reading the directions. I wanted to see how organically I responded to the device. I’m not a tech whiz by any means, but I know how to twitter and I can update my website now and then. If I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on, navigate between books and load new books on without a lot of directions, then it wasn’t going to be something I could really recommend to my completely non-tech friends/family. I was delighted that the 505 was almost like putting a key in the ignition and ready to drive with the content… read more »

The Sony 505: A Novella Review by Lee

Lee’s review is a novella, complete with cover illustration, in PDF form, titled “The Broke-Ass Housewife’s Expensive Plaything. It’s available here, and there’s a sprawling map of crazy inside. Really. HA.

The BrokeAss Housewife’s Expensive Plaything

Sony 700 Review: by Test Driver Linsey

I was waiting for the bus, reading The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss on my Sony 700—finally HPs and I could once again indulge in our secret love!—when the guy next to me leaned over. 

“Hey, is that a Kindle?”

Sadly this was not the first time I’ve been asked this question during the test drive, and it wouldn’t be the last. Oh, Sony marketing fail. 

“Nope,” I explained, “it’s a Sony PRS-700 ebook reader.” 

I showed him the touch screen with its iPod like icons, and I showed him the catalogue function. I even did a little demo to illustrate how the touch screen could be used to flip pages with a swipe of the finger. 

“Best of all,” I ended my little sales pitch, “it has the ability to operate outside of Amazon!”

“Nice,” he agreed. “Where do you get one?”

Ah, yes, about that. They’re extinct, and it’s pretty hard to convince someone to go Sony when your model is already obsolete. Even as I write this review the 700 is nowhere to be found on… read more »

Sony 505 Review: A Report from Corrina

In retrospect, I think I expected a wondrous magical device.

When I was picked to test drive the Sony eReader, I was more than thrilled. I could buy books, load up my reader with as many as I wanted, and never run out of something to read. My kids were happy, too, because they could get a book FAST without waiting for it to show up in the mail or running to the bookstore. (Kids. Instant gratification is all they want. J

I thought that my whole reading life was about to change.

Not so much.

The stuff I believed would be problems actually turned out not to be a problems and I ran into problems I didn’t anticipate.

I worried that I could never enjoy reading without a physical book in my hand. But the reader feels substantia. I held it just like a book and I soon forgot that I wasn’t holding a paper-bound book.

The text is readable and I just love the feature that allows you to switch to large print in one click. Love the large print to pieces.

I… read more »