[delphin]

Originally Posted by hughes

Hi GeoffC


A bit harsh, and contrary to what I've heard from others elsewhere, but I'll take that as a challenge to try to win you around via improvement.

. . .

In the meantime, I will work to add the Sony PRS-650 and PRS-950 alternatives (across all factors) and add a new factor regarding touch screen input. I'll post when those changes are completed.

Thank you for the feedback, delphin, and I hope to have a chance to win you over in the future.

Sorry for the harsh response. I see that you now do have a category for Overdrive library services, and are adding a lot of new information.

I agree that having a single point objective comparison site would have a lot of value.

This is not an easy job though because there are so many nuances.

I would suggest is that you use at least a 5 point weighting system for your site.

For expressing preferences about features -

5 MUST HAVE
4 DESIRABLE TO HAVE
3 NEUTRAL (no preference, or don't care either way)
2 NOT DESIRABLE
1 MUST NOT HAVE

This gives you a MUST HAVE and MUST NOT HAVE set of conditions to define features that the buyer considers either essential or to be 'show stoppers' plus levels to express mild like, mild dislike, and don't care.


For relative ratings of capabilities or performance -

5 EXCELLENT (best in class)
4 VERY GOOD
3 AVERAGE
2 BELOW AVERAGE
1 UNUSABLE


Just a thought -


Some folks do use the MP3 player feature for background music while reading though, so the fact that the Kindle has such poor MP3 support should be at factored in somewhere.

But again, it's complicated and anything but black and white . . .

Listening to free MP3 Library Audio Books on the Amazon Kindle is nearly impossible (basically UNUSABLE) because it lacks quick random access, so if you nod off, or have to answer the phone, and forget to pause, it's almost impossible of find your place -> BAD

Kindle is also very poor as a MP3 music player while reading because it lacks track selection and playback controls for background audio playback. -> BAD

But Kindle can play Audibles proprietary protected audio format so you can easily buy audio books from Audible -> GOOD

The Sony PRS-650 and PRS-950 have really nice built in MP3 playback support for both musical albums and audio books in MP3 format -> GOOD

But the Sony's audio player only works with unprotected MP3s, and has no support for "Audible's" protected content. -> BAD


And I would be the first to admit that some of the other stuff I mentioned is also anything but black and white -

For example, I complained that Amazon ties you into a single source -> BAD

But on the other hand, Amazon, as single source, offers some of the lowest pricing and best availability -> GOOD.


So these things are very hard to quantify, unless you can come up with a way for users to assign weights to all these things, so they don't end up surprised that the device that is recommended to them lacks some feature or has some defect that they thought was really important.

Good luck.