I'm wanting to get an idea of just how many Readers are in MobileReader hands, so here's a one question poll.

Please vote as you receive your new toys. :smile:

I'm also hoping this might be a tool to evaluate how much trouble we have in the way of glitches, DOA, and other failures, in comparison to the number of units fielded.

Surely there are more than just 25 of us!

And what's with you two others -- you iLiadites or somethin'? :tongue3:

* bump *

We're up to 50!

17 on the frappr map. 5 of whom aren't even in the US. :)

in the next few days, I'm hoping to get Kyrgyzstan on the map (assuming that USPS live up to their delivery promises and noone in the post office here takes a shine to the device). Aiming to be the furthest afield with a Sony Reader :happy2:

17 on the frappr map. 5 of whom aren't even in the US. :)I too, was noticing how many non-U.S. folks had this U.S.-only product. Most amusing. :grin:

I can't get to Frapper from work *grumbles about internet policies* -- but I'll add Phoenix on there tonight if it isn't already :)

*bump* 53 and counting!

*Bump*

56 Readers and 3 guys who can't find the right button (you brought it on yourselves!). :grin:

Well we're almost at 60. Weren't people guessing around 500 readers sent out in the first run? If that's accurate then over 10% of the total population is here, that's pretty good!

It is pretty impressive, when you put it that way, Leaping Gnome.

On the other hand, I have a sneaking, completely baseless suspicion that there are some MobileReaders with Readers out there that are holding out on us. :stare:

Maybe I should have set the poll to report who chose which option, then we'd know about those mystery 'Other' voters too. :laugh4:

And if you figure that only about 10% of people usually respond to a poll, that would put the MR share of devices at about.... 100%! :D

You've given me a thought, Bob.

Has anyone else encountered someone (in real life, I mean) with a Reader? (And were they also a MobileReader? :smile: )

I haven't, yet.

I don't mean deliberately arranged meetings, either! Or an iLiad for that matter. I'm curious if that sort of thing has happened any yet....

I don't mean deliberately arranged meetings, either!
You've given me a thought here, too, Nat ;)

Wonder how many are waiting until they receive their unit before voting. May want to include "How many have ordered a reader."

You've given me a thought here, too, Nat ;)Hmmm, now I'm thinking about whether I should be worrying.... :laugh4:

Wonder how many are waiting until they receive their unit before voting. May want to include "How many have ordered a reader."That's an excellent thought, slayda. I don't think I can change the existing poll, and I'm not sure I'd want to do it this way anyhow, 'cause I'd want them to be able to come back and click the other option when they actually received their Readers. I guess I'll just have to be patient about it. :(

You can check my most recent update on my order for tantalizing tidbits as to the possible shipping rates... (note, less than 1000 units per month to the web folks.)

Wonder how many are waiting until they receive their unit before voting. May want to include "How many have ordered a reader."


That's a great idea. Based on my experience, there's a big difference between ordering and paying for a reader, and actually receiving it! I could have driven to California, picked the thing up, caught a bus back halfway, walked the remaining distance, and still got home before the Sony package arrived! :blink:

Mine arrived today! Woo-hoo!

don't forget to stick a pin in the frappr map (http://www.frappr.com/sonyreader)

don't forget to stick a pin in the frappr map (http://www.frappr.com/sonyreader)First in Canada. :)

first in India :) (i am sure)

was really hoping to be able to say I had the first Reader in Kyrgyzstan (surely no competition there!) this week but it still hasn't turned up. Have ordered it through a forum member and it was supposed to take 4-7 days according to USPS but it's now getting on for two weeks and still nothing..i'm getting very concerned, particularly given how corrupt the postal services are in this part of the world...

dreadnought,

hang on there, I send sometimes packages to KZ, it could take from 8 days to 2 weeks easily (longest delivery time - 4 weeks). Don't forget, sometimes it takes USPS two weeks to deliver parcels to Canada via airmail.

dreadnought,

hang on there, I send sometimes packages to KZ, it could take from 8 days to 2 weeks easily (longest delivery time - 4 weeks). Don't forget, sometimes it takes USPS two weeks to deliver parcels to Canada via airmail.

Thanks Slava for the reassurance :happy2: yeah, it can be a real crap shoot getting stuff here, even with DHL and FEDEX. Still, i'm kinda enjoying my journey to the post office every day. Civil servants in this part of the world are *so* helpful.... :rolleyes5

First in Japan (that uses this frappr thing :p)

I am now a proud owner! My wife picked one up in a Borders for me. Bad news is I won't have it in hand until Haloween--Trick or Treat!!!!

I picked mine up at the sonystyle store two weeks ago.Five books later I still enjoy it

...I guess. The little program i wrote sent me an sms alert as soon as sony changed their sony style website and enabled the "buy" button :scholar:
We enjoy our handheld-library like little children :happy2:

Some shots (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56896489@N00/sets/72157594329632898/)

...have already read four books and have yet to have the battery fall below four bars.

Holy Smokes! I finally have the book in hand and I am stunned. It is absolutely gorgeous. Set up was a snap as was the dowloading of books from the Connect Store. It is better than I expected!

Now comes the fun part of experimenting with formats, converting files and adjusting to fit.

So far I think it is *great* Definitely there is room for improvement but reading from it is easy, comfortable and fast. I'm not bothered at all by the screen refresh.
I bought a leather cover which I will return. Was told that it didn't come with a cover but it does and the standard included cover is adequate for my needs. I also bought the cradle and am glad that I did but shouldn't this be included with the reader?

Just picked up mine at the Border's on 72nd and Dodge in Omaha Nebraska. You do have to see this thing in person to believe it, the screen is so readable screenshots don't do it justice. I'm glad I got one before Thanksgiving so I can show it off to the family.

Picked mine up yesterday at my local Frys. They had one working demo unit and about 8 for sale just sitting the the security cage.

Excellent, I didn't think that Fry's would have them so quickly!

Got mine today!

Frys????? WOW!

I ordered mine, but the Sony site says I might have to wait until the 30th before it ships. :wreck: Will add my count when I get my new toy!

I have one! The screen looks stunning! Oh joy! :D

Great icon, DiabloNL!

-William

Congrats diablo!!! Patience finally pays off.
Would love to see you start a thread to give us a peek at what you think of it after you've played with it a bit!

I'm doing the "Snoopy Dance" for you, DiabloNL. Well, figuratively, I'm not up to that much effort at the moment, my cold's trying to crawl down into my chest. :sad2:

But, anyway, I'm as pleased for you as I'm physically able to be at the moment! :grin:

Thanks guys! I will give my thoughts as soon as I played some time around with it.

NatCh, hope you are better soon!

I got mine October 31. It's a pretty unit. Battery life is wonderful. It's hard to read in less than bright light ON THE SMALL FONTS, but increase the font size and it's fine. Software 1.0 is functional but barebones. All in all I am delighted. :crowngrin

That's a good point Martye8, I just got mine too, and I didn't realize how useful the font size would be, if the light is dim, or I'm tired, I just bump the font size and all is well. It's such a nice device.

Do THAT on a regular book! :p

Hi all,i just got my Sony reader, it got here in 1 day !. This thing is so nice, thx i god i didnt buy the iliad. Going back to my reader.....so much to do.....

Hi all,i just got my Sony reader, it got here in 1 day !. This thing is so nice, thx i god i didnt buy the iliad. Going back to my reader.....so much to do.....

Solan0, did you register yet? And did you get you $50,- launch promotion credit?

k yes finished doing all that, got my 50 $ (expires 02/01/07). Now time for the fun stuff....

3 days ago.
Now i'm trying to get some read material from the web. rss..

I bought 2 over a week ago.

I just need more new books.

I just got mine in; I ordered it on a whim and then changed my mind, got the RMA printed out. Then I got it in and turned it on. Woa. Nice. Played with the store a bit (please more titles, and it would be nice if we could put our OWN RSS feeds on it).

RSS was broken in the sony store until today. Just played with that a bit. Overall I'm pretty impressed with it, even if it has some flaws. The PDF thing really bites though, I was planning on using it to view those but with no zoom function, it's pretty useless.

Overall though, I think I've decided to keep it...

You gonna love this thing, a week has passed and the battery indicator hasnt even changed. I finished reading and rereading some manga, bought 2 memory cards(4 gigs and 2 gigs put all manga in it that i converted with adobe photoshop and professional). It was the main reason why i bought it, but now i'm starting to reading more and more books. Gonna need another gift card soon, i really hope Sony open the borders soon........

Just recieved my reader. Got it through eBay as I am in England and had no trouble redeeming the $50 credit at connect. I am one very happy bunny and I'm going to read now!

I received mine from JR Music World this week. I live at an APO address and SonyStyle wouldn't mail to me. But ever faithful JR took care of it! One thing I noticed is that JR listed it in stock on their website for about half a day before it reverted to "backordered".

I had been backordered since October. It had said "expected in November". I was very pleased that it meant the beginning of November!

Also, I received (and used) my $50 credit-no problem! I was concerned a bit that Connect wouldn't take my APO billing address--it worked fine.

Overall I was very pleased with the Connect experience. I am hoping for a wider selection soon! It "just worked". I had read some negative reviews of Connect, but I thought it worked very well.

Got mine a couple weeks ago and love it. I've read about a quarter of a book with it, and so far prefer it to paper. It's just as easy on the eyes, and stays open. I do wish that it didn't blank the screen when it turns off (so that I could just pick it up and start reading again - and turn itself on when I hit the next-page button, without having to fumble with the on/off switch). I suppose there's a reason, like burn-in or somesuch, for working the way it does though.

I ordered one for my wife for Christmas.

I think the make-or-break issue for this reader will be content. At this point only about half of the authors that I regularly like to read are available via the Connect store.

Have had mine for some time now (on 6th book!) and must say I still love using it. There are (of course!) things I would change. (Unicode support, getting RSS to truly work smoothly and an elegant way to create content would pretty much do it for me. ). Atreis, what a wonderful Christmas gift for your wife! I think she will use it far beyond the holidays.

I just bought mine today after weeks of thinking ... will I? Won't I? So I finally decided ... to buy mine at Borders.

LOML and I just bought readers at the Borders store in the North Hills of Pittsburgh. They seemed to have plenty in stock, and were rather bemused that they were selling well in spite of not having any on display.

Anyway... We're now a 2-reader family. Kudos to Bob Russell for giving us a demo a couple weeks ago.

Dean

I got mine Reader a few days ago. I'm so happy. It's great, nice device. I just set up updated fonts (thanks igorsk and porkupan), but I still have problems with texts in RTF - Unicode TXT is fine after the update. But these little problems are marginal when I see all those possibilities for Reader :)

I just saw this and voted. :)

I picked mine up on Friday. My eyes are happy after many a year of Palm devices. My $50 credit is still intact at the Connect store and I have loaded a large number of RTF files for stuff that I have around the place. They all seem to work fine.

Be sure you use the credit before the end of January, RWood! It expires then.

You don't have to read what you buy before then but you'll want to go ahead and buy it by then. :grin:

Got mine this week. Can you believe it? I flew all the way over the Atlantic ocean to get the Reader in my hands... ! ;)

You can't purchase any books through connect though can you? thought it was US based? or is there a way around that, or does it matter to you?

You can use the $50 credit, no matter where you are (it doesn't ask for a Credit Card until after you run through the $50).

After that, there are ways. If you know someone who has a U.S. addressed card who will let you use it, then that'll work. And several extra-U.S. MobileReaders have confirmed that other gift certificates work just fine, if you can find someone to purchase and send them to you. There's been some traffic around here in that too. :grin:

Funny I had to supply a Credit Card before I used up my $50, and of which I have $10.07 left. This way if I go over my money that is left, it will just bill me what I still owe.

But I am glad if anyone can use it. I think it crazy to not be able to.... just doesn't make sense to me..... money is money so who cares if you live in the US or not.

You're correct that it does tell you that you have to enter the card info, but if you just ignore it, the store doesn't lock you out or anything. :grin:

As for why the U.S. non-U.S. restriction, our best (varyingly informed) guess about that is that it has to do with book distribution rights. That is, if Sony doesn't have rights to distribute e-books outside the U.S., then they'd get in trouble for doing so -- thus the credit card address check becomes 'due diligence.' :shrug:

like I say, it's mostly a guess, but we've got pretty good information to support it from various MobileReaders who know about such matters, and so far no reason to believe that it's not the case. :nice:

It's probably one of the reasons Apple doesn't offer the iTunes Store everywhere.

Hi All!

I'm new to this forum - lurked before I made my purchase.

Picked up my new Sony Reader tonight after work and now i'm messing with it. Hope I don't break it before the night's out.

This is a great forum! :-)

Hi All!

I'm new to this forum - lurked before I made my purchase.

Picked up my new Sony Reader tonight after work and now i'm messing with it. Hope I don't break it before the night's out.

This is a great forum! :-)

Hi OskiBear. Enjoy. Pretty new here myself and love it here and the reader..

I see we are neighbors, sort of LOL, Santa Ana.

Ok, so after weeks of talking myself OUT of buying one of these things because of the price. Man, I just bought a friggin' Ebookwise 1150 two weeks ago and it still works fine, so no real logic behind this! :)

<sigh> But the gadget geek in me got the better of me. I went to "just look at it" and maybe talk myself out of buying it. Surely after seeing it, I would be able to talk myself out of buying right? Um, no. I saw the display and I thought it was a sticker or a fake display--I didn't realise that it was the actual product. My first experience with E-Ink!

I mean, I know everyone here was saying it's really awesome, but I thought, just maybe it was hype. It's not just hype. I couldn't believe the display. The great thing is that i have read so much about here on these boards (thanks to you guys!) that I already had a SD card with me to try it out.

Didn't take long to fool around and when the Borders person came to help me, I knew more about the product than her. Um, it took me all of 10 minutes to decide to buy. I'm weak!!!

So anyway, I have it and I am in love with it. And my 16 year son inherited my recently bought Ebookwise 1150, so we are all reading. Yay!

I saw the display and I thought it was a sticker or a fake display--I didn't realise that it was the actual product. :grin: that's a very common reaction, tsgreer, and my personal favorite. :grin:

I'm glad that we could all help pre-inform you so that you could give it a thorough test drive. Congratulations! :smile:

I have had mine for about a week now (but just found this forum) and I have to say that I like it a lot.

I was in Borders the night the Sony rep was there. I have to say that a lot of what he said in answering my questions has proven to be only partially true, but I think that is because he just did not know, not because he was being untruthful.

I am hopeful that I can find more technical books formatted for this screen, and that the firmware / software matures a bit over time.

I'm in now too, picked mine up at the Sony Style store at Tysons Corner in VA. Looks really really good!

Kevin

I had ordered mine from Amazon right after they came out and was told it would ship today. Imagine my delight when I got the email on Nov. 15 saying it had shipped! Due to some foolishness by DHL I didn't get the package until Nov. 20. I had downloaded several books to my Dell Axim 50v and I sure was tired of the battery running down every few hours of reading! And the little tiny screen was a pain. I am madly in love with my Reader.

I think the attraction to a non-gadget person might be the ability to carry around a whole library, especially since you can get all the classics at Manybooks.org (thank you to the person here who introduced me to that site). I have a wall of bookshelves that are full to overflowing and I'm going to have to downsize in a few years. That will not be nearly so painful with the ability to carry a lot of books on my Reader.

Whoops, I should have said Manybooks.net. :o

I got my Sony Reader in mid-November and I'm really enjoying it. The size is great and I can easily carry it in my purse. The music capability is even better than I had expected.

I had a Rocket E-book and really liked it, but it was too big to take with me everywhere. Next, I used a Sony Clie and most recently, a Treo 650. These were okay, the screen size was a big drawback, especially on the Treo.

I *do* miss the backlight that I had on the other devices, though. I would like to see more contrast. I knew about this and other drawbacks before I bought the Reader, but I decided to get it anyway so I would know the pluses and minuses before the next generation Reader comes out.

Betty in NJ

Thanks NatCh for the reminder to spend the $50 before it runs out in January. It didn't last until the end of November.

Picked mine up about 10 days ago at the Borders on RT1 in Princeton NJ - they had about 8 - 10 more left if anyone in the area is looking for them.

Having a great time and excellent experience with it to date, downloaded a handful of books and collections from Sony - the rest are various ones I've purchased through Baen's Webscription site over the past year or so....have 75 books currently loaded and a handful more that I haven't put into as they were recent reads, but I have them in the connect library for when I do feel like re-reading.

I bought my avid reader / techie wife a Sony PRS-500 a month ago. She loves it and so do I. I just got one for myself and I'm already halfway through Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver," which somehow I never managed to get through in paper form.

I do look forward eagerly to some better tools to make creating RTF and LRF files easier. I have many technical documents in PDF form I want to have on my Reader, but so far the translation process to RTF has been tedious and loses too much formatting. Sony's DRM store seems fairly sane, and I've bought many books there, but long-term I need to use more open document formats.

Sony shipped the Reader to me a week ago (I just read through Eragon on it). I love it, and pray that this device and others like it will revive the e-book movement that has been near death since the fall of RocketBook and Gemstar.

:scholar: I'm wanting to get an idea of just how many Readers are in MobileReader hands, so here's a one question poll.

Please vote as you receive your new toys. :smile:

I'm also hoping this might be a tool to evaluate how much trouble we have in the way of glitches, DOA, and other failures, in comparison to the number of units fielded.

I persuaded my husband to give me my Christmas present early - I've been looking forward to this since I first read about e-ink! I love it!

Just got my Reader as a Christmas present, husband couldn't wait one more day to give it to me. :xmas:

Got my $50 credit at the Connect store, and purchased a few books (Anne McCaffrey, mostly), and have been playing with it and reading this afternoon, and now scouring the net for info. :) Converted one book from Baen's free library (I actually own the title on paper too), and trying to decide what else I want to buy.

Anyway, nice to meet you all! :D

Welcome to MobileRead, Lisana! make sure you use all of your $50 credit before it turns back into a pumpkin on February 1st. :nice:

I only have about $10 credit left for my bookstore but what I am really waiting for is my $100 credit from Sony CC.........

Yep I have got one
Andy J

Got one for my wife as well, but she's not a member of this forum, and I can't vote twice :(

Got mine at the end of November from a Borders store, but haven't had much time to play around with it other than read a bit until now...

OK, just went down to Boarders and bought one (charging as we speak).

I was interested when I first read about it but then discarded the idea because:

1) I thought only work with memory sticks. Everything else I own takes SD cards and after living through the SmartMedia disaster, I'm not about to go with another format. Especially one from Sony.

2) It wasn't clear to me that I could use it to read other formats -- I have a bunch of books from Baen and others that I bought or downloaded for my Garmin iQue and I would want to read them on any new device. I also didn't want to be tied to Sony, because from the blurb I read it sounded like you could only get content from Sony.

After reading here I realized that these weren't true.

The big test will be next month when I make a trip to London (lots of reading time :) )

And add me to the list...

Got mine last night for my birthday today. After using a bit of my $50 credit, playing with it, and wondering what communities exist for owners, I arrived here and started reading. Sadly (or fortunately?), I have most likely spent more time browsing the MobileRead forums than on my new Reader.

As I read about what everyone else has already figured out, I have progressively been adding more and more content (old ebooks, etc.), have discovered many useful apps, and have learned a lot about ebooks in general, in addition to the Sony Reader.

Rest assured, my Reader has not been neglected, and the more I play with and read about it, the more excited I get about what is now, without a doubt, the coolest gadget I own.

And add me to the list...
I arrived here and started reading. Sadly (or fortunately?), I have most likely spent more time browsing the MobileRead forums than on my new Reader.



That is what I have been doing, end up spending more time online still than reading.... plus now I am trying to figure out how I found this forum... maybe it was listed in the instructions? I just don't remember LOL..

OK, just went down to Boarders and bought one (charging as we speak).

1) I thought only work with memory sticks. Everything else I own takes SD cards and after living through the SmartMedia disaster, I'm not about to go with another format. Especially one from Sony.

To be honest, you really don't need a memory card at all. Reader compresses books in main memory, and in the 90-odd MB of main memory you can store several hundred books. The "flat" file system is such that you really won't want more than that on it, anyway, I promise you :grin:. The only real reason for using a memory card would be if you were a non PC-user, and had to load content directly onto the card, rather than using the Connect software, or if you want to put MP3 files onto the Reader, but I really wouldn't recommend using it as an MP3 player.

2) It wasn't clear to me that I could use it to read other formats -- I have a bunch of books from Baen and others that I bought or downloaded for my Garmin iQue and I would want to read them on any new device. I also didn't want to be tied to Sony, because from the blurb I read it sounded like you could only get content from Sony.

You're right - the web site is very confusing - last time I looked at it it said that Sony "Supplied software to convert other formats to the Sony e-Book format" or some such nonsense. The situation, as you know, is that the Reader handles formats such as text, RTF, and PDF "natively". There's no conversion.

Congratulations on buying a Reader - I don't think you'll regret it!

To be honest, you really don't need a memory card at all. Reader compresses books in main memory, and in the 90-odd MB of main memory you can store several hundred books. The "flat" file system is such that you really won't want more than that on it, anyway, I promise you :grin:. The only real reason for using a memory card would be if you were a non PC-user, and had to load content directly onto the card, rather than using the Connect software, or if you want to put MP3 files onto the Reader, but I really wouldn't recommend using it as an MP3 player.Actually, I was talking about the Reader with my boss and while discussing how many books could be loaded, etc. He pointed the same thing out. My response was setting up collections to keep things organized. I have yet to try this out, but it may be a reasonable way to keep a fairly large collection.

You also forget one genre which could really use the extra storage--manga and graphic novels (being 10+ megs typically).

As an aside, check out page 80 in the owner's manual (both the PDF and the one actually on my Reader show this...), user available memory is written in at approximately 64megs. Maybe they changed their mind pre-production?
You're right - the web site is very confusing - last time I looked at it it said that Sony "Supplied software to convert other formats to the Sony e-Book format" or some such nonsense. The situation, as you know, is that the Reader handles formats such as text, RTF, and PDF "natively". There's no conversion.

Congratulations on buying a Reader - I don't think you'll regret it!
Well, technically Connect Reader can convert MS Word (DOC) files to RTF for reading. That still really doesn't qualify in my mind as "converting other formats"...

That is what I have been doing, end up spending more time online still than reading.... plus now I am trying to figure out how I found this forum... maybe it was listed in the instructions? I just don't remember LOL..Haha, I actually found this place earlier in the day prior to purchase. I was trying to find out what the actual users were saying about the Reader. Of course, once I bought mine, this is where I returned.

I worked earlier today, and upon returning home I decided I was going to get intimate with Book Designer--the learning curve is a bit steep (well, maybe it would have been better if I actually read the help pages). I must say, I'm impressed. It's a bit rough edges here and there, but for a free product (thanks VVV!) doing such a specialized job, it really is tremendously useful.

Ok, I'm now way off topic, so I'll stop here and lurk around in some other posts.

Viewed for a while. Picked up a Sony yesterday. Joined here today.

*waves*

I got mine for christmas and have barely put it down since - needless to say, I'm very pleased.

I actually found these forums back in november when I first heard about the reader and was looking for reviews. There's so much useful info here! So anyway, I thought I'd join in the discussions. :)

X-mas gift :)

Almost done with my first book, Eragon, moving onto Eldest next, most likely.

We're 260
#260 - It`s me :)

eReader here in Philly! (Already pushed my pin in on the map, too!)

LOVE it!

Any good sources for books out there besides sony.connect?

Baen (webscriptions.baen.net),manybooks.net (http://www.manybooks.net) , Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page), and a whole bunch more.

Basically, if it's in RTF or can be converted to RTF, or is in LRF, you're good to go.

# 269 here.

I've had my Reader less than a week and I'm halfway through one book almost finished with another and sorely disappointed in the handling of .pdf's.

All around though, I love the thing and I see great strides going on here in the development forums with regards to overcoming some of the deficiencies in the sony softwares handling of .pdf's. I'm looking forward to firmware version 2.0 (whether its sony provided or community provided) and all the new features there in.

Aerlock

#284

After reading the reviews and feedback here I got mine shipped over from the US for my birthday - there wasn't a chance of buying one in Ireland. I was a tad worried that the display wouldn't be as good as people said. Its a pity Sony Conect is only for US residents.

I've been keeping my eye on e-ink tech for the last few years. I've really wanted a proper ebook reader for a long while. PDA just wasn't cutting it.

#292

I picked up my Sony Reader at Borders right after Christmas. I love it!

This site has been a great help already.

Disappointed in the pdf support - God bless PDFrasterFarian (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9106)

Hi I guess I'm 298 from this poll.

Got mine from a friend's relative in the US recently. Am staying in Singapore. Paid another S$25 for Goods and Service Tax at Customs in Singapore but its well worth it. Product is great.

Hi,
I have two Readers, supplied by friends in the States - they were reimbursed via PayPal. Very unhappy that I can't buy modern books from Connect as this is not made clear anywhere on the packaging that only US owners can buy anything.
Many thanks therefore to manybooks.net and gutenberg.
If you are planning on loading txt files, run them through BBeB Binder and they show much better on the Reader. Get it from code.google.

you can buy books from the connect store if you're not in the US you just need your US contacts to buy credit for you.

Bloomington, Illinois checking in with my brand new just-out-of-the-box-and-charged-up Reader. :wink:

- :happy2: :vulcan:

Just picked up a Sony Reader at the Borders in RDU Airport in NC.

My wife & I have a Sony Reader in Roslindale, MA.

I'm 337 on the poll. I'm in Cardiff, UK and bought the reader via an Ebay shop.

Congrats and welcome Patricia. How do you like it so far?

Well, I've had one for a few months now but I never voted here before...

Do we have any real number on how many PRS-500 were sold ? I heard that the preorder for it was around 10k.

I just saw an article at PCWorld on how Sony had a terrific last quarter (or was it year?) and that was mainly due to cameras and notebook computers. There was no mention whatsoever of the PRS500, but the article did mention that PS2 was not a part of the increase in profitability. I was sorry not to read a sentence such as "Sony attributes much of its increased profitability to the huge sales of its new PRS500 e-book reader." No mention at all, which makes me think I'm correct in assuming it is a tiny tiny niche of their business, sort of like a hobby-horse of one important executive that the others are letting go ahead just to satisfy that one person.

But this is all conjecture. I wonder how that preorder of 10K compares to preorders of their other electronic devices (i.e. non-computers.)

I think it's a safe assumption that the Reader is a minor portion of overall revenues, even in contrast to the rest of its electronics business such as televisions, computers, audio players, gaming, etc. One can also see that from the relative advertising budgets.

I bet the first Walkman was also "insignificant" revenue for Sony. We have seen reports that the Reader is doing much better than anticipated. All indications are that Sony considers this to be an early effort in a coming market, and there's no reason to think that sales will slow anytime soon. One good sign is that there seems to be a disproportionate amount of interest in the Reader, and it is doing amazingly well relative to metrics like returns, customer satisfaction, etc.

But it may be quite a while until we hear Sony talking about a book device as being a revenue or profit leader. Things like video games, tvs and computers are likely to rule the roost for a long time.

lol. I'm not even a big reader. I just bought one because I have to have every cool and unique, but useful gadget. Although I must say I've wanted to read more. So now I can! lol. I wouldn't have the barrier of running to the library, bookstore, or clicking on Amazon.

Looks like I'm 344.

I bought mine for 3 reasons.
1) I wanted an ebookreader for my manga. Too bad that the reader can not read through folders... So I had to program my own thingie to make the reader happy: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11261

2) I wanted a reader for the upcoming Harry Potter-novel this summer. As I don't want to hold a pound worth of paper. I usually end up using my old PDA to read the digitized version, but the screen's resolution is not good enough...

3) I wanted to see how well the epaper-technology work and see if I can start developing for it already.

For my main purpose, the reader is very good, although it takes a long time to convert my collection of manga. Even on a powerful computer...

I do believe that this is still an early-adaptor gadget. When the technology matures (in a year or two) I'd probably buy the 3rd generation.
Battery time is not really an issue now, so I'd think a stronger (faster page turns, able to read PDF and zipped-files), lighter and smaller reader with a colourdisplay would be my next wannahave.

Still undecided.

I own one since mid March and love it. Have a 4gb SD card for it. I'd definately recommend it.

I own one since mid March and love it. Have a 4gb SD card for it. I'd definately recommend it.
There are a lot of people reporting that only the first 2 GB of the SD card can be read.

I own one since mid March and love it. Have a 4gb SD card for it. I'd definately recommend it.
only the first 2GB of that SD card will work. You'd be better off getting a 2GB SD card instead so you won't have any problems going past the 2GB limit.

i was wondering if a 4GB (or even 8GB) memory stick would work correctly with the reader.

Still. it's cheaper to buy 10 2GB sd-cards than 1 8GB stick (or 3 2GB sd vs 1 4GB stick)
I just don't like swapping cards. The reader isn't really well suited for that.

Oh, it'll work, athlonkmf ... for the fist 2 GB worth of stuff anyway, but it won't see anything beyond the first 2 GB (and we don't have any idea how it decides which is the 'first' part of the card). :shrug:

2GBs of books without going to the computer?

Man that's a long holiday!

Yes, yes it is. :grin2:

There are a lot of people reporting that only the first 2 GB of the SD card can be read.

Well, the card shows up, I havent nearly filled it up tough :D

My only two complaints with the reader are the slow page refresh and the poor book organization method, things already mentioned. Having said that, it is still well worth buying.

Oh, it'll work, athlonkmf ... for the fist 2 GB worth of stuff anyway, but it won't see anything beyond the first 2 GB (and we don't have any idea how it decides which is the 'first' part of the card). :shrug:

I was talking about memory sticks. According to the manual, the reader accepts 4GB M-sticks.

2GBs of books without going to the computer?

Man that's a long holiday!


Either that, or it's a very large collection of manga and comics (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11261)
:2thumbsup

I was talking about memory sticks. According to the manual, the reader accepts 4GB M-sticks. Huh. I guess I hadn't paid much attention, since I use SDs rather than MSs. I don't recall if anyone has reported on a 4 GB MS yet or not ....

Now the average Harvard Classics volume in LRF is less than 600 kB in size. Assuming that there is 0 bytes of overhead on a 2 GB SD card, that would allow you to store 3,333 books per card. Even with a 20 MB overhead that would still give you 3,000 books which should be enough books to keep most people happy for at least a week or two. :D

Either that, or it's a very large collection of manga and comics (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11261)
:2thumbsup

That is not a large manga collection.:grin2:

Now the average Harvard Classics volume in LRF is less than 600 kB in size. Assuming that there is 0 bytes of overhead on a 2 GB SD card, that would allow you to store 3,333 books per card. Even with a 20 MB overhead that would still give you 3,000 books which should be enough books to keep most people happy for at least a week or two. :D

Like said, I'm using the reader mainly for manga and comics-collection. One with 2000 pages is about 100 MB. That is about the average for one serie.
So with 2GB I can "merely" hold about 40.000 pages. Which boils down to a 20 series...
Still good enough of course for quite a good time of reading.

But I like to say to people "see those two cabinets full of manga"? They fit inside this thingie.

Just a random thought -- has anyone tried running a Manga collection through BookDesigner? It gets a big size reduction over RTF, but I don't know how much, if any, it might get over a set of, say, JPG files. Just wondering if anyone's tried it, and could comment. :shrug:

Just a random thought -- has anyone tried running a Manga collection through BookDesigner? It gets a big size reduction over RTF, but I don't know how much, if any, it might get over a set of, say, JPG files. Just wondering if anyone's tried it, and could comment. :shrug:

well, my program creates pdf-files which I run through rasterfarian, while retaining the toc.

i don't know if bookdesigner can handle pdf otherwise i can try it.

(i doubt it can further compress such a mangacollection though. My program already cuts a lot of the size, and rasterfarian cuts even more)

Yeah, I have my doubts too, I just wondered if anyone had actually tried it. :shrug:

Just got mine about a month ago, and I love it! :D When I got it I made sure to download the latest firmware, and then along came the whole "battery not recharging!" panic. Did a hard reset per instructions I found here, and the problem went away. Drained the battery after using it, rechaged, and I was back to "battery not recharging!" panic again! ;) No firmware upgrade this time, so I figured I had a bad unit. Luckily I came across the soft-reset trick, and it worked fine after that.

So, love my Reader, but I do have a question. After I installed the firmware, did the hard reset reset the unit back to factory defaults (no update)?

Just got mine about a month ago, and I love it! :D When I got it I made sure to download the latest firmware, and then along came the whole "battery not recharging!" panic. Did a hard reset per instructions I found here, and the problem went away. Drained the battery after using it, rechaged, and I was back to "battery not recharging!" panic again! ;) No firmware upgrade this time, so I figured I had a bad unit. Luckily I came across the soft-reset trick, and it worked fine after that.

So, love my Reader, but I do have a question. After I installed the firmware, did the hard reset reset the unit back to factory defaults (no update)?
The best way to find out is to ...

1. Turn on the Reader
2. Go back to the main menu
3. Go to the Settings menu
4. Go to About
5. If you see it says Version 1.0.2.01300 then you have the new firmware.

I cannot tell you the version number of the old firmware. But I highly doubt that a hard-reset will downgrade the firmware. That would mean that the Reader would have to be able to store two complete copies of the firmware in memory. One to actually run and one in case of a hard-reset.

Yeah, I have my doubts too, I just wondered if anyone had actually tried it. :shrug:

just loaded a testfile up with bookdesigner. It didn't recognize the images in the pdf :oops2:


BTW. i was wondering if there's a changelog for the firmwares somewhere. Would like to see what's "improved"

I think there probably is a changelog, but it may be in Russian. Isn't there a Readme file in the zips? I don't recall offhand.

I didn't expect BD to handle a PDF, I think you'd have to try it with an RTF or insert the JPGs directly into BD, which would be a bit of a pain. :tired:

I think there probably is a changelog, but it may be in Russian. Isn't there a Readme file in the zips? I don't recall offhand.


Sony is writing the changelogs for their firmware in russian????



I didn't expect BD to handle a PDF, I think you'd have to try it with an RTF or insert the JPGs directly into BD, which would be a bit of a pain. :tired:

which means BD could use some kind of interface where you can automate things, or an intermediate format that it could read in things :)
But still, unless BD has some kind of image processing in it, the size of the result would be the big

just loaded a testfile up with bookdesigner. It didn't recognize the images in the pdf :oops2:
The PDF import for BD is very very simple. It won't load images. What you can try however is ABC Amber PDF Converter (http://www.processtext.com/abcpdf.html) and see how that goes for extracting the images. There are other converters out there. Just not easy to find ones that you don't have to pay for.

Sony is writing the changelogs for their firmware in russian????<tongue in cheek>Yeah, it's all part of their plan to comply with the GPL without giving us real access, or to make sure that folks like igorsk have a leg up on hacking the rascal. :laugh4: </tongue in cheek>

Seriously, though, I thought you were asking about the BD change logs, got a bit confused there. Sorry 'bout that. :smack:

I was looking for something like this for most of last year and decided I'd get that Star-e Book thing. By accident I came across PRS-500 yesterday in a Comp USA in New York where I'm on holiday and picked it up immediatly. It's a bit pricey but at the current exchange rate ($300 = £150) plus $50 free book-credit I can't complain.

It's gonna make my life so much easier at University.

Hey folks, new member here. Just registered here a few minutes ago.

I'm currently on a long business trip in Japan right now, and to help pass the time (too hot, humid and rainy to go sightseeing), I've been reading books.

Unfortunately, the English books here are on the order of $18+. Even for an old paperback! And I've already gone through three in one week. So, I decided to get an e-book reader. Less books to carry back with me.

Thanks to this site, and the helpful comments posted by all you folks, I decided to get the Sony Reader. I ordered it online, had it sent to my sister, and had her mail it across the Pacific. What a pain, but I've got it now!

Boring post, but nice to meet y'all, and thanks for contributing to the site.

Albert.

Not a boring post, this is the kind of stories we like to hear.

Welcome on board!:yes:

And you have plenty of good free books here to download to put on the reader to keep you going as well.

Welcome to the site ekbh. Glad you joined us and if you do have any reader issues, feel free to say so. Someone will try to help if possible.

Thanks folks. I've spent the last twenty minutes going through the e-books here. Great resource!

It's quite ironic, that I'm in Sony's backyard. And yet, I had to order their Reader from a US company (crutchfield), delivered to a US address, and mailed back to Japan. I suppose it makes sense to somebody.

Yeah! Lawyers! :laugh4: