My first thoughts on my new Sony Reader

[skoobwoman]

I was surprised by how much I liked it. I've used the Sony 500, the iLiad and the Kindle. So I have a fair amount of experience with ebooks.

Negatives

1. the contrast isn't great but I haven't found it to be a problem as I can also zoom to make the document larger.
2. The desktop software still sucks. It's crashed at least 5 times on me and I've only been using it for a couple of days.
3. I'm having the problem I posted with some PDF books. I'm sure I can fix these but it will be time consuming since I have so many files.
4. You can't download notes or passages (as far as I can tell) as you can with the Kindle.
5. The page turn finger swipes don't work predictably and the buttons are small and awkward to reach when reading. I'm sure I'll get used to these in time.

Positives

1. Much easier to read the PDFs I can open. It reflows the text and everything. It is not as good with OCRs but I'm sure I can work around it.
2. Compact. It feels great in my hands. Solid and compact.
3. I like the backlighting. I won't use it too often but it is better than having an annoying light clamped onto the reader like I do with the Kindle (and which always slides around or falls off).
4. The cover is much better than the others. It is attached at the spine leaving both sides of the device easy to access (the reset button is also easy to get at unlike with the kindle).
5. Easy access to memory cards--you don't have to open up the back like in the Kindle.
6. It reads Word files.This is great. iLiad reads Text files but the formatting of course is awful.
7. I like how easy it is to put on power save and how easy it turns back on from power save when you're ready to read.
8. Pretty easy to use. I haven't used the manual at all. Just hit the "option" button in any screen and you can see what you can do in that screen.

If I think of anything else, I'll post back. If I can fix my PDF problem on the Sony, I will probably sell my iLiad. I'm going to be using my Kindle for Mobi files and Kindle files and the Sony for Adobe and Word. Lauren