Sony Reader: So close ….
This is so close to the eBook that I imagine. It has what appears to be a great display, thanks to the e-Ink technology, great battery life and a good form factor. It is essentially a very slim, light electronic paperback, with an enormous amount of storage. It has a very iTunes like store with 10,000 titles to start with from what appear to be every major publisher and prices that range form the “almost reasonable” to the “this is a great deal” categories. The lack of wireless and a backlight don’t bother me; I think both are very overrated, especially considering the power drain they represent.
However, it is expensive at 350 dollars. And while it reads many non-DRM files, like PDF and txt, it doesn’t read any other DRM files except its own. Which means that retailers like Amazon’s Mobipocket and Fictionwise will sell quite a bit of material that cannot be read on the Reader, barring some sort of conversion process that doesn’t appear to exist right now. More importantly, no magazines appear to be available at the Reader store. Something like this Reader would be fantastic for collecting subscriptions to my magazines and reading them anywhere. If they provided that service, I could almost look past the high price.
But without it, and with the amount of uncertainty about what books I could and could not read on this thing, I guess I have to keep waiting. Unless the user interface — something I obviously haven’t been able to test — is simply outstanding, I think the Reader doesn’t quite get all the way there.
If there’s information, someone will discover a way to convert it to the most eccentric formats possible. I’d be amazed if there wasn’t already a simple click executable to, although I also suspect it comes tarballed. Not sure about magazines… seems like that would require some fairly nasty contracts somewhere.
The cost is the real stopper. For that cost, why not grab an older Palm? Does a hell of a lot more, has more 3rd party software available, and if you’re lucky, usually costs a half or third of Sony’s model. Sure, you lose a bit of battery life (although most individuals don’t need more than nine or ten hours of lifespan) and some screen size, but nothing to make up for a two hundred dollar difference in price.
Gat
I ave two problems with palms as book readers: the screen size is too small, and I don’t like reading for a long period of time on computer screens. Memory is another, smaller concern, but the eInk supposedly loks paper like.
And, yeah, the magazine have to want to sell on the connect store, so I am not sure its going to happen. Although, some of the sci-fi mags sell issues on Fictionwise, so there is a precedent.
If you think that the only thing your missing screen-wise is size … well then, you clearly haven’t seen e-ink for yourself.
Find one and have a look at its display for yourself, *then* see if you still think it’s only a screen size difference.
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