Sony e-book reader...PRS-500

[deanmass]

I have been hearing very good things about this device. I own literally hundreds of books, and read voraciously. I was not too hot on the e-book thing at all, until I heard of this one, now i am looking at it thinking it may well be worth it.

 

I am typically reading 3-5 books at a time, averaging 3 or so a week. I like to buy most books, because I tend to re-read what I like. the other thing I really like about this is supposed really good battery life and the ability to read in no-low light (i.e. in bed or camping)

 

Anyone else had experience with one?

[deanmass]

---and----

 

queue crickets....

[the recluse]

My father is a tech geek/college professor, and he has been really enthusiastic about the sony reader. He got his about a year ago and has yet to break/lose/retire it. For him that is saying something. His main praise is that the text is not pixelated (I think Sony's press calls it "digital ink"-similar to the smoothing effect on text that happened in internet exploder in the version 7 update). The result is that eye fatigue is MUCH less likely that on previous similar devices. Hope that helps.

[slight-return]

here's a little reivew/commentary (I figure Id post this b/c it's not a glossy "product review" but just a geek's [i use that with love] podcast and he talks about the new toy and the state of the ebook market)

 

http://overclocked.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=147175

 

 

e-books, weird stuff man - I think theres this whole market waiting for the e-book to stabilize and mature (formats, perhaps convergence with audio players?, form factor, display)

 

note : of the stuff Ive played with, I always get concerned with how good it looks in high light conditions, but that's just a concern - never really capital U used one (just lower case used em -- no, just "tried" em)

 

 

for me - 2 big big things I'm looking for

1) I annotate the poop out of stuff (yup, fiction too) - the margins in my hardcopy are full and often have post-its sticking out

2) searches

[deanmass]

I seem as replacements for schools books and people who do tons of reading and traveling. I am gonna try to go check one out at Borders this weekend.

[rasputin1963]

It actually looks pretty kewl. Are the eBooks it reads in Adobe PDF format? Or is SONY trying to play hardball by introducing their own proprietary format?

 

I sure read a heckuva lot of software manuals in PDF format. It sure would be nice to hold these, book-style, in the palm of my hand, rather than craning my neck at my desktop 'puter monitor.

 

Honstly, I'd have to try one--- demo it in my hands--- to see whether I like the look and feel of the book and print. I'm assuming plenty of options exist to tweek the print just the way you like it (fonts, colors, backgrounds, anti-aliasing, a read-aloud TTS function, usw.)

 

Right now, the SONY is selling at $349.00 US.

When they get down to $65-75--- and they will--- I'll buy one.

[techristian]

It seems like a lot of money for this dedicated device, but my friend swears by it. The best thing ,is that you can read it in direct sunlight. It depends on reflected light. It also works with *.pdf files.

 

Dan

[STFU NOOB!]

do all ebook readers work with .pdf's or just a selected few? I have several hundered public domain books in .txt and .pdf files and every one told me there was no way to get my files into the any ebook.

 

This site says it only works with proprietary files

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2619

 

what i really want is an ebook like the sony that can read .pdf files can create simple .txt or pdf files (for notes and such) in a layer that can be turned on and off with a simple switch and has a built in hard cover that folds back into it self. basicly an old Palm PDA that is bigger and has a better screen, as this sony appears to have.