Sony Portable Reader

[curveto]

I just got one (in my case as an iPod for some pdfs I have) and would like to hear any tips anyone has about more normal uses (e.g., rss connectivity, public domain content, for purchase ebooks (beyond just the obvious Sony source)).

Thanks!
JR

[iamback]

I thought an iPod is from Apple, not Sony, and its most normal use is to listen to music?

Confused...

[Kelvyn]

The portable reader was supposed to have been made available in the UK a couple of months ago but has not appeared and is not listed on the Sony UK web site. It is on my wishlist...

[Michael Rowley]

Kelvyn:

It is on my wishlist

Why? Aren't books portable enough? (I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that book are not chained to the desks still where you live.)

[curveto]

Yes. Books are generally portable enough. ...and before you go on to the next, classic, "what if you drop it in the toilette?" argument, recall that books don't fare to well when you pee on them either. ...and people that drop things in toilets are generally better off without those things in the first place (dreaming of a day when more people drop their cell phones in the crapper).

That said, my particular use pertains to keeping a bunch of (custom) things that I normally keep on pdf. The reader supports a number of content formats, including PDF (that and the battery life is what hooked me). From the looks of it, Sony licensed the tiny rendering engine (can't recall its name) that makes up the basis of Adobe's Acrobat Reader for Symbian et al. ... and, some day, the future (maybe today? ... it's been a few years) of the core of all things Adobe.

My sheets, while portable, tend to make a tangled, ever degrading mess (when on paper) and my laptop doesn't have the best of batteries these days.

Plus, I'm coming to find it's a pretty, darned nice tool by which to simply read a book. I bought and have been reading Steven Levy's Crypto this weekend. When one considers that you can cram a few zillion works into it's 1/4 inch thick Statement sized frame the notion of portability (of books) gets a little turned on it's head.

Those who have no idea what I'm talking about think of it as a (small, see above) jukebox (very iPod/iTunes-like experience) for books. It has some internal memory and an SD card slot so you could literally put thousands of books in it if you wanted. It has exceptional battery life measured in pages turned (think weeks) not really hours of use. It sleeps until you turn a page then wakes, turns the page and goes back to sleep (the image on the panel stays, of course). ...and you can zoom to a few different levels of magnification so for those of you who've become visually challenged it presents (Crypto, for example) as a running galley in one of three sizes (no clipping/panning for books like Crypto it just re-flows the galley). Largest magnification looks to be about 15pt type (give or take). You can, of course, create collections (i.e., playlists), mark pages and all those good things one can think of when thinking of a eBook reader.

The typo goddess by the river (who shall remain nameless since all who know of her have managed to loose their mind) will probably be appalled by the terrifying justification (of non-pdf content) but hey... it was built by the classic Sony/Apple/Microsoft class of learned/worldly software engineer known to mutter phrases like "if you have a moat that you need to cross but only have two short boards at your disposal..." (to which my brain silently emits thoughts like, "useless mind numbing puzzles ... ick!") and "what does 'coming to the defense of...' have to do with text?"

Think...

No hyphenation.
LOTS of,well, randomly placed word space.

A good, solid Microsoft Word 3.0 typography experience. 'Nuf said.

The (textual presentation) font is nice enough and the screen is a buck and a half dpi so it's looks quite nice. She's no Apple product but all in all...

I'm pleased,
JR

PS - It has a full MPEG/AAC music player too but that's what I plan to use it for (albeit maybe a little). The batteries run down much faster given that type of use, of course.

[curveto]

HEY! That's NOT cool!

You're fancy bulletin board ripped out all of my crappy word space, err... double spacebands. I smell a rat by the river.

JR

[Steve Rindsberg]

You're reading books on an ipod size screen and you're b****ing about the typography on our little web pages?

Get a GRIP, sir.

[Michael Rowley]

you could literally put thousands of books in it if you wanted

Well, that's a good argument: if you have, say, the whole of the OED on a Sony (or anyone else's electronic book), that would perhaps be an advantage. It would possibly cost a few thousand pounds, but think of the advantage of pursuing etymological research while having one's daily crap!

[curveto]

Grip? What grip?

For the record it's a Statement sized (8.5x 5.5 ish) box. So the galley (if you will) is about 3x5". They call it a 6" screen but they used that magic diagonal vendor ruler we've all come to love so dearly.

[Kelvyn]

Originally Posted by curveto

They call it a 6" screen but they used that magic diagonal vendor ruler we've all come to love so dearly.

It seemed bigger than that on the demo model I saw.