What I hate on any ereader, is why the fuck do they put a headphone jack in it?
If I want listen to music, I put on my crappy iPhone.
There's no point of having one built into the reader.
@jetRink:
Yeah. I have to agree here. I never use it but so what? It's not like it's in my way. These days it's such a cheap feature, it's not like it added a bunch to the price. It's one of those things where everyone in the mobile device space has it. Because everyone has it, everyone has to have it. We all know how it goes with product managers. There's a list with bullet points and this is on it. Big deal.
So, I can have a 2G Kindle with 6" screen and wireless for $300, or I can get a PRS-600. What's the advantage of the Sony? I'm assuming that with sufficient motivation I can get any format into the Kindle.
@theimmc:
Sony has touchscreen which is nice. Looks like it might be a bit smaller and lighter with the same screen size. While I'd like all that, I'd still rather have the EVDO access. It's pretty darn convenient. Even if Sony comes out with WiFi, it won't be as compelling to me. I do hope this will inspire Amazon a bit on the hardware front, though.
@aerospaceman:
1) Backlight screens introduce eye fatigue (probably the most important distinction).
2) There are no PDA devices that are this thin and light like these, and with large screens like 5" or 6"
3) These readers have awesome battery life which no PDA or laptop can even remotely compare to.
@diabolusunknownTheSecond:
I agree. I can read on my phone's 3.5" screen for awhile but it's not nearly as comfortable as eInk even though the resolution is quite nice. Now give me a lightweight tablet or PDA with a PixelQi screen and then we can talk.
@Noobs-R-Us:
I love Sony's hardware designs. They just seem to struggle with software and user experience. They've had readers out since 2006 and still got their butts handed to them by Amazon because their store, feature set, and management software sucked. I watched them go through two generations of readers with great interest but never bought one because they lacked basic features like content search and a dictionary. Most people I know that have Sony readers don't even bother with their store. They buy at places like Fictionwise, Baen's and Books on Board. Four years later, Sony's finally getting a clue about the features people want. That's an eon in this business. It took them almost two years to realize that having a reader with fewer features and a store that charged more for books was not a winning strategy against Amazon. Duh.
As a proud owner of a PRS-505 and someone thinking very seriously about an upgrade to the 700, this genuinely breaks my heart.
Glare on a device intended to accommodate the human eye for hours on end as it sweeps across the viewable field in an attempt to resolve tiny characters? Unreal.
Reminds me, to a large extent, of a certain non-matte-screen-able laptop...
All I want to do is auto download the Red Eye/Tribune on the fly every morning. Can the Sony do that? I heard the Kindle can auto-download the latest newspapers. I think I'll wait the for the Next Gen kindle though. If if sucks, at least they'll drop the price of the original. E-ink should be cheap by now.
@ishook: there's no "on the fly" download for the Sony Readers, but there's a program called Calibre that can download any number of newspapers and RSS feeds for free. I download the NY Times and the Washington Post just about every morning, and Time Magazine and the Economist on a weekly basis. It's not perfect, but it works well enough that I've actually saved the cost of newspapers over the last year and then some.
It's ironic because the main reason to use an ebook is for situations when there is a lot of direct light. I have the Sony Reader 500 and, while it's not as good as the 505 or the Kindle for readability, it is very good and much, much better than an LCD most of the time. I stare at an LCD all day for work and the e-ink is much easier on the eyes. It's also better for when I want to go out to the park, read on the train (which is where I do most of my news reading) or read in bed (where I do most of my fiction reading).
This is proof that some days are just truly bad: Went out this morning and bought myself a new reader. Loved the display on the old one, but hated the controls, so I played around with the new one at the store for, oh about 30 seconds, and decided that the interface had improved vastly-- enough that I had them wrap it up... and out the door I went. Bought about 5 of sony's shit proprietary ebooks that will soon be pretty worthless to me (taking it back of course)-- while I waited for it to charge, then loaded them up, and finally prepared to settle into Wally Lamb's latest masterpiece in all the vivid glory of e ink. But something was wrong and I was not filled with anything approaching glory. And so insult to injury, I go online to do some googling but since my homepage is GIZ I had the internet's fastest ever answer - like suddenly the watershed moment had arrived, when questions will be served with the needed information as they are formed. But wait, it's nothing that cool at all. No, it turns out that was just stupid irony beating me down and calling me an idiot via the lead story. Not that I can argue.
@Arthur Peterson: Go back and exchange it for the PRS-505. Try it out for a bit. You'll get used to the controls, and the display is apparently a lot better.
@The Lab: Because this product's flaw is so critical, I compare it to being surrounded by zombies, knocked to the ground, having the "Hunter" ripping your chest out - just before the "Tank" finds you in the narrow alley.
08/04/09
If I want listen to music, I put on my crappy iPhone.
There's no point of having one built into the reader.
08/05/09
08/05/09
Yeah. I have to agree here. I never use it but so what? It's not like it's in my way. These days it's such a cheap feature, it's not like it added a bunch to the price. It's one of those things where everyone in the mobile device space has it. Because everyone has it, everyone has to have it. We all know how it goes with product managers. There's a list with bullet points and this is on it. Big deal.
08/04/09
08/05/09
Sony has touchscreen which is nice. Looks like it might be a bit smaller and lighter with the same screen size. While I'd like all that, I'd still rather have the EVDO access. It's pretty darn convenient. Even if Sony comes out with WiFi, it won't be as compelling to me. I do hope this will inspire Amazon a bit on the hardware front, though.
08/04/09
08/04/09
1) Backlight screens introduce eye fatigue (probably the most important distinction).
2) There are no PDA devices that are this thin and light like these, and with large screens like 5" or 6"
3) These readers have awesome battery life which no PDA or laptop can even remotely compare to.
08/05/09
I agree. I can read on my phone's 3.5" screen for awhile but it's not nearly as comfortable as eInk even though the resolution is quite nice. Now give me a lightweight tablet or PDA with a PixelQi screen and then we can talk.
08/04/09
BTW, your book store sucks. Ever try to find anything there?
08/05/09
I love Sony's hardware designs. They just seem to struggle with software and user experience. They've had readers out since 2006 and still got their butts handed to them by Amazon because their store, feature set, and management software sucked. I watched them go through two generations of readers with great interest but never bought one because they lacked basic features like content search and a dictionary. Most people I know that have Sony readers don't even bother with their store. They buy at places like Fictionwise, Baen's and Books on Board. Four years later, Sony's finally getting a clue about the features people want. That's an eon in this business. It took them almost two years to realize that having a reader with fewer features and a store that charged more for books was not a winning strategy against Amazon. Duh.
11/25/08
Glare on a device intended to accommodate the human eye for hours on end as it sweeps across the viewable field in an attempt to resolve tiny characters? Unreal.
Reminds me, to a large extent, of a certain non-matte-screen-able laptop...
11/25/08
11/24/08
11/24/08
11/24/08
11/24/08
11/25/08
11/24/08
11/24/08
11/25/08
11/24/08
Isn't that statement assuming that we all carry books around right now?
11/25/08
11/25/08
It will actually fit into the back pocket of my jeans, though that thought terrifies me. (Hearing the "crack" in my head as we speak. Jibblies!)
11/24/08
11/24/08
11/25/08
11/25/08