Bitchin' Blog Posts
: E-Reader Olympics
by SB Sarah | September 10, 2009 | Thursday at 2:15 pm | 9 Comments
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…
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by SB Sarah | September 05, 2009 | Saturday at 4:05 pm | 11 Comments
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…
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by SB Sarah | September 03, 2009 | Thursday at 12:01 pm | 6 Comments
I was tickled pink when the magic box of future books showed up on my front porch. The Sony 505 is a thing of beauty. It’s sleek, fits nicely in my purse, and impresses people in meetings. Not having Internet at my house, I took a laptop to my favorite bar (it’s like a coffee shop, right?), sat down at my bar stool and ignored the scowly face of James Joyce on the wall next to me as I set up my new toy.
The “Quick Start Guide” was not really quick. Nor did it really get me started and it sure as hell didn’t guide me anywhere. I had some touch and go moments where I worried about pulling the plug at the wrong moment (the picture and the grammar in the guide contradicted each other nicely), but I figured it out. Using the Sony bookstore and and the reader was a lot like navigating iTunes or an iPod, without the magic of Steve Jobs to make it idiot proof. To wit, the first two times I tried to buy books, the Sony bookstore…
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by SB Sarah | September 01, 2009 | Tuesday at 2:58 pm | 9 Comments
I never thought I would be in this situation—a woman torn between two devices. After six months of blissful monogamy with my iPod Touch, I believed myself to be settled and perfectly content with a device that gave me everything I asked of it.
But then came temptation—the promise of a no-strings-attached fling with a device promising a larger screen and a longer battery life. Size and stamina, baby! But I’ve been a romance reader my entire life and I know this plot well—the fling becomes True Love and I live happily ever after (until September) with the Sony, the iPod having revealed some nefarious flaw proving it to be unsuitable as a hero after all.
My iPod is a device of many talents. I hold it in the palm of my hand, where it jumps to do my every bidding at the merest swipe of my thumb. I have to push the Sony’s buttons to get it moving and trying to find those metal nubbins drags me out of the book I’m trying to lose myself in. It’s awkward to hold,…
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by SB Sarah | August 31, 2009 | Monday at 11:53 am | 4 Comments
Pt. I: Meet Cute
So Sony 700 showed up on my front porch in a plain brown box, with none of the exotic fairy-tale wrapping of his distant cousin Kindle. That didn’t stop my teenage daughter from squealing “SOOOOO CYUUUUTTTE!!!” at the sight of him, and despite my embarrassment, I privately agreed. Short, sleek, and slim, he was almost everything I love in a hero; I only hoped he didn’t exhibit the psychotic tendencies I also had a fondness for – in fiction.
I’m not much of a one for small talk, so after a cursory tussle with the unwieldy (and uninformative) instructions, I decided to see how well Sony operated on intuition alone. Unlike others who found him hard to get started, I thought charging, installation, and set up was a breeze. He was a bit of a nuisance to shop for – the design of the Sony Store seems deliberately obfuscatory, and certainly had no desire to pander to my innate cheapness. Once I made my selections, though, loading them on the e-library and thence to the reader was a matter…
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by SB Sarah | August 30, 2009 | Sunday at 3:33 pm | 2 Comments
Since getting a hold of my Sony Reader I now characterize my life in two parts: BS and AS (Before Sony; After Sony, natch). Before Sony, my TBR pile overflowed ominously, the uncracked spines of unread books glaring at me whenever I entered my office. They glared even harder when new books joined them, impulse buys I can’t resist when I go to a bookstore or a store with a book section. Because of the volume of books left unattended, I find myself less and less willing to put a dent in the pile because I’m the kind of reader who will read the first 10 or 20 pages of a book before doing to same to the next, as I struggled to decide what to read. Granted, I find myself doing this on the PRS 700, but I feel less guilty because the TBR pile is, well, a TBR list of electronic books.
The second the Reader arrived in the mail I ripped open the packaging to hear the Hallelujah choir singing. In my hands was the device I’d coveted for years, the…
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by SB Sarah | August 30, 2009 | Sunday at 11:39 am | 17 Comments
I made the switch to Ubuntu when I got my new laptop - Ubuntu is a Linux-based operating system.
As far as the Sony estore is concerned, Ubuntu does not exist. In fact, I had to do some work to uninstall the Sony software after I realised it wouldn’t actually work. Just corrupt my poor laptop. Further, when I plugged in my ereader (just to charge it!) I actually had the opposite response as in the newest comic. The laptop was all ‘ooh, new technology’, and the ereader wouldn’t even light up. But the software side is funnier, and more pertinent to the spirit of the test drive.
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by SB Sarah | August 29, 2009 | Saturday at 3:25 pm | 4 Comments
I think I’m a little different than most of the other test drivers. I’ve had an eBookwise reader for 5 or 6 years, that I used to use constantly. In December 2007, I bought an EEE PC 701 4G, the first of these new fangled ‘netbooks,’ and switched most of my ereading to it. Going into this test drive, I didn’t need to be convinced of the gloriousness of ereading, I was looking for a chance to convince others.
My initial impressions: The quick start guide is a mess. Also, it’s not really useful. Or quick. It is a starting place, I’ll give them that. And, I suppose it is a guide. Vaguely. That’s about about all that can be said.
Charging wasn’t intuitive. Plug it in and it charges. That part I was fine with. Knowing when it was done charging wasn’t so easy. There were three very computer-literate people in my house that afternoon, and none of us could figure this out. We stumbled over the answer when we disconnected the Reader so I could take it to work with me. Sony really…
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by SB Sarah | August 29, 2009 | Saturday at 12:19 am | 23 Comments
PERMISSION GRANTED
Now that I’ve poked, prodded, played with, dropped, and otherwise abused my Sony PRS-700 eReader (thanks again to the generous folks at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for giving me the opportunity to test drive one of these babies!) it’s time for The Review.
In order to fit my review in the wordcount requested by the Smart Bitches, I basically had to resort to bulleted lists and incomplete sentences. It was horrifying. Worse than that, it was boring. Drier than the thanksgiving turkey at Aunt Edith’s.
Taking pity on me, the Smart Bitches graciously permitted me to ramble.
*cracks her knuckles* Obviously, they had no idea what they were getting into.
“Hold on to yer lug nuts, it’s tiiiiiime for an overhaul!”
The faint of heart will find the original bulleted lists at the bottom of the post, nestled lovingly in the TLDR (too long, didn’t read) section.
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by SB Sarah | August 25, 2009 | Tuesday at 5:17 pm | 13 Comments
The website isn’t updated at Sony and I’d give anything for a detailed press release, but here’s the data on Sony’s new Daily Edition wireless reader, from the ZDNet live blog:
$399, and on sale in December Wireless connectivity via 3G network (Oh no, I hope it’s not the Absolutely Terrible & Tawdry network I’m already familiar with) 7” Touchscreen Mac and PC compatibility Horizontal and vertical orientation for reading Online bookclub at Words Move Me.com
Here’s a picture of the three new Sonys side by side, from Slashgear:
Oh noes! Even as I write this, I am bummed. From the Slashgear article:
It will be available in December and use AT&T 3G, though there will be no monthly charges for the data connectivity.
My hopes dropped like the calls I try to place on the AT&T 3G network in the NY Metro area, illusory like the five bars of signal strength that taunt me when I have no connectivity.
I love the idea of bargain shopping at different bookstores from the Sony unit wherever I am, and I hope the shopping and downloading process is as easy as…
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by SB Sarah | August 14, 2009 | Friday at 6:50 pm | 10 Comments
I was picked for this test drive because I said, “I don’t think so. Convince me.”
And then I was picked. And then I got excited.
First reaction: my Sony 505 eReader has a brown cover. I’m so not into brown.
It has a gray screen. I’m much more into gray.
It’s a bit heavy. More heavy and solid than a paperback. Lighter and more streamlined than a hardback, though. It’s a tad awkward too, because the cover is pretty lightweight compared to the actual reader, so it’s always off-balance.
I also have this nightmare vision of my toddler-who-throws-things getting her hands on it. That’s a lotta bucks straight down the tube if she does. I keep it in a high drawer.
The instructions. Oy. I read the first part of them – they fold out to cover approximately the same square footage as my house – and have winged it since then with not too much trouble.
I had downloaded the ebook Library software from the Sony website before I got the reader, because I wanted to…
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by SB Sarah | August 13, 2009 | Thursday at 2:49 pm | 5 Comments
First: from the ever-so-sexy Shelf Awareness newsletter:
Sony will announce that it will sell e-books only in the open ePub format and will scrap its proprietary anticopying software in lieu of Adobe software that restricts how often e-books may be copied, the New York Times reported. As a result, e-books bought for the Sony Reader will be readable on most other e-book readers, except for Amazon’s Kindle, which operates on a proprietary format. Later this year, Sony will introduce a new e-reader that allows wireless downloads of e-books a la the Kindle.
The New York Times article from 12 August has a great quote from Allan Weiner from Gartner, who says
there is one more company that must declare its allegiance to either an open or closed world for e-books: Apple.
If, as expected, Apple soon introduces a tablet computer that can function as a reading device, and if it embraces an open standard like ePub, Amazon will have to reconsider its closed approach, Mr. Weiner said.
“If you see some Adobe executive up on stage with Steve Jobs when they announce the tablet, at that point Amazon has a lot to worry about,” he said.
Mega whopping high-fives…
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by SB Sarah | August 07, 2009 | Friday at 12:06 am | 16 Comments
Behold! A video review!
First: I want to play with her Lego collection.
Second: the DRM visual analogy at the end made me howl.
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by SB Sarah | August 05, 2009 | Wednesday at 4:00 am | 42 Comments
Dubbed the “Pocket” and the “Touch,” Sony has released formal data about the two new digital book readers they plan to release later this month - earlier than they planned, after a few tech blogs posted pictures when J&R music listed them for sale prematurely (oops!)
The NY Times and Engadget have more info, as does USA Today and a whole heap of other folks. The Pocket Reader will be $199 and the Touch Reader will be $299 US retail.
The highlights I’m most curious about:
Sony’s eBook Library software 3.0, which now includes support for many Macs as well as PCs The Touch “comes with a stylus, which can be used to highlight text or make handwritten notes.” Cue many joyous reactions, especially from me. I am ALL OVER THAT. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Wireless? Nope - soon come: “Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division, said the company aims…
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by SB Sarah | August 02, 2009 | Sunday at 7:00 pm | 21 Comments
The $199 barrier has been broken by a digital reader, if J&R Music World is to be believed.
After much discussion of the Sony service manuals MobileRead reader komugi found them on sale at J&R available for pre-order.
The PRS-300 is priced at J&R at $199.99 - breaking the $200 barrier by one whole penny (before shipping and taxes).
The product description includes a 5” screen and 3 font sizes, but what caught my eye was this part:
# Media Formats Supported: Unsecured Text: EPUB File (Non DRM/ Adobe DRM protected), BBeB Book (Non DRM/ PRS DRM protected), PDF file (Non DRM/ Adobe DRM protected) DRM Text: Text file, RTF file, Word file (unsecured)
Am I missing something? DRM is text, RTF, and Word only?
The 600 is priced at J&R for $299.99 - obviously before shipping and tax, and includes a touchscreen, but no onboard light like the PRS-700.
I am really curious about the 600 because of this part of the description:
Take freehand notes and highlight sections of text you want to revisit later, just as you would in a…
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