DS Forums

 
 

Sony e-book


Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 27-11-2008, 09:51
gwynne
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 569

Was in Waterstones yesterday and the shop had a Sony e-book demo set up i.e you could go 'hands on'!
After a few minutes I lost interest as found the device very slow and unresponsive-cannot see it making much of an impact-and at £200 not cheap either!
Anyone else managed to try one of these e-books out-and what were your impressions?
gwynne is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old 27-11-2008, 10:12
sancheeez
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 6,762
I've used my media player (Cowon A2) for reading e-books.

It's not really designed for it, but it has the ability to read text files so with a bit of formatting beforehand, it can be used for it.

Works pretty well.

No lighting required at night. The device itself is smaller than a normal paperback but capable of holding thousands of books as their filesize is so small. Can listen to music at the same time (don't think this applies to the proper e-book reader though). Easy on the eyes once you find a font and colourscheme that works for you.

Drawback - the paging system is not ideal and a bit clunky but the advantages outweigh this for me.

I even read a couple of books as text files on my old Motorola E1000 mobile phone!

But .... my wife is a far more avid reader then me and she still prefers a proper, old skool, paper book.
sancheeez is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 10:15
kimindex
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Cornwall (ex-London)
Posts: 65,312
I bought an e-book for PDF documents so I could refer to them, whilst working on my screen. But it has a 6in screen and I really need an A4 so it was a waste of money.
kimindex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:00
Acidomduso
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Andover
Posts: 1,155
I bought an e-book for PDF documents so I could refer to them, whilst working on my screen. But it has a 6in screen and I really need an A4 so it was a waste of money.
You can zoom in, you know.
Acidomduso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:24
kimindex
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Cornwall (ex-London)
Posts: 65,312
You can zoom in, you know.
Yes, I do know. That wasn't really the point.
kimindex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:39
Acidomduso
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Andover
Posts: 1,155
My mother-in-law bought one for my father-in-law and I’ve had to test it out over the last two days so i can show him how to use it on Christmas Day!

Firstly, it can play music, which is cool-ish but not a selling point. No external speaker so headphones only. You can view pictures but as it is a B&W screen i can't see this as being appealing either. It comes with about 250Mb (or so) of internal memory but has two memory card slots (SD and Memory Stick Pro Duo) to boost your capacity. I haven't received the SD card yet so cannot confirm how that works.

The screen is small and not offensive to the eyes as some screens are. There doesn't seem to be any screen flicker on it and the fonts are quite crisp. The screen has a kind of matt look to it - like the texture of a matt photograph - so the screen does not glare under a light source. It is not backlit which to me is a good thing. Your normal books are not backlit so why would you want back lighting on this. The pages turn relatively quickly and you can zoom in to make the words appear larger (good for readers with failing eyesight).

It is very light - around the weight of a small paperback - and it is thin. It comes encased in a leather (or leather-look) outer sleeve which gives it the appearance of a thin, bound book. It is easy to hold and the page turning button is close to your thumb (there are two buttons on the side of it too that can be used to turn the pages). You can add bookmarks to the books you are reading. Later, you can go to the Bookmarks section and browse through all the bookmarks you have set.

Downsides...
If you have existing PDFs or word documents you need to change the tag data as it uses this to name the file on the reader.

The only other downfall is the £200 price tag. Get it below £150 (and a bit more maybe) and it starts to look quite attractive (not in a drunk, sexy lady kind of way though).

If you like reading, I think you'll like this.
Acidomduso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:41
Acidomduso
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Andover
Posts: 1,155
Yes, I do know. That wasn't really the point.
OK. Just wasn't sure if you were aware, that's all.
Acidomduso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:46
kimindex
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Cornwall (ex-London)
Posts: 65,312
OK. Just wasn't sure if you were aware, that's all.
Thanks. It's not the size of the print. I can use it - but it's not really efficient for me. I need to see the whole page at once and go through the pages quickly for my work (and to be able to mark them would be good). Too long to explain but thanks. I think there's some A4 ones in the pipeline.
kimindex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:52
sancheeez
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 6,762
Firstly, it can play music, which is cool-ish but not a selling point.
Well thats a bonus. Didn't realise it could do that.

I though the wife would love one of these (she has, literally, hundreds of books .... we have a library wall in the bedroom to accomodate them all) but she just isn't sold on the idea. No idea why. She just loves her old skool paper books I suppose.

It is expensive for what it is though. My media player was about £200 but being able to read books on it is just a nice aside. Personally, I think I'd struggle to justify a £200 price tag solely for a book reader. Which is a shame, if it was half that price I'd probably buy one myself.
sancheeez is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:54
Acidomduso
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Andover
Posts: 1,155
Thanks. It's not the size of the print. I can use it - but it's not really efficient for me. I need to see the whole page at once and go through the pages quickly for my work (and to be able to mark them would be good). Too long to explain but thanks. I think there's some A4 ones in the pipeline.
I think, at the moment, it is more of a gimmick than a useful tool. Useful for reading a few novels but not for serious work (study material, manuals etc). I think you might be right in the assumption that A4 will be here shortly. I suppose they need to pump out the gimmicks and see if it is successful before investing in, and expanding on the technology.
Acidomduso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 14:58
kimindex
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Cornwall (ex-London)
Posts: 65,312
I think, at the moment, it is more of a gimmick than a useful tool. Useful for reading a few novels but not for serious work (study material, manuals etc). I think you might be right in the assumption that A4 will be here shortly. I suppose they need to pump out the gimmicks and see if it is successful before investing in, and expanding on the technology.
Yes, there isn't the range of books to download yet. Plus there's the browsing problem (mainly for non-fiction). You can flick through the pages OK but not as quickly as you can with a book. Not a serious issue but one that big readers and fast readers might find puts them off.
kimindex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-11-2008, 15:14
Acidomduso
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Andover
Posts: 1,155
Personally, I think I'd struggle to justify a £200 price tag solely for a book reader. Which is a shame, if it was half that price I'd probably buy one myself.
Agreed... but i like gadgets!! Can i resist a new gadget......?
Acidomduso is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2008, 14:18
ellibin
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 64
What are the actual mechanics of downloading an 'ebook' and then loading it onto the devise from your computer, can anyone help me with this question, just a rough idea would do. My wife really fancies one of these things, as when we go on holiday she regularly takes between 10 and 15 paperbacks, so an e-book would lighten our luggage.
ellibin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2008, 14:43
grassmarket
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 23,320
The problem with all these devices is that the content - the books - is always tied in to proprietary systems - that is, you can only download the books from the company's website. And until you have the same choice as Amazon and AbeBooks combined - that is, all the books ever published - what is the point? There's no reason to buy one just to read the latest John Grisham or whatever.

Just had a look at the website - it's insane, worse than I thought. Rather than charging the same price for all the books, they are charging a varying price based on HOW MANY PAGES THE PRINTED BOOK HAS!!! What on earth is the justification for that? Some of the e-books cost $60! They must be daft, seemingly they have learnt nothing at all from the whole MP3s thing, once again the hardware manufacturers and the publishers have ruined what might have been a viable technology.
grassmarket is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply




 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 16:35.