Next Sony reader: wish list

[Taylor514ce]

Sure, I do. You immerse yourself in your reading. I porpoise, I guess... hopping in and out of the water.

[DrMoze]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Sure, I do. You immerse yourself in your reading. I porpoise, I guess... hopping in and out of the water.

"Porpoise" This is actually more interesting to me--reading styles/habits/experiences, moreso than Reader technical features! I never really discussed *how* people read with others, and assumed they mostly did it the same way (i.e.,"immersive" or,as it were, "fully-submerged"!).

[HarryT]

For me, DrMoze, it's entirely the opposite. It spoils my enjoyment of a story if I come across a word that I don't know the meaning of, and it bugs me until I can look it up. Being able to look things up "on the spot" for me, therefore, enhances the reading experience.

[DrMoze]

For me, the lookup procedure would be like watching a DVD and putting it on 'pause' every few minutes to go to the kitchen for a snack. When I read, the individual words disappear and a movie is playing in my head. I literally "see" characters, scenes, etc., and not words on a page.

So far, it appears that I'm in the minority. :^(

[HarryT]

We're all different. It's good that we have a choice of devices.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

For me, DrMoze, it's entirely the opposite. It spoils my enjoyment of a story if I come across a word that I don't know the meaning of, and it bugs me until I can look it up. Being able to look things up "on the spot" for me, therefore, enhances the reading experience.

I'm currently reading _Treasure Island_. And while I know what most of the words mean, there are a few I don't but think I got the context. However, there are just some phrases I'm not sure of. I doubt a dictionary would help here. Any kind of old english to modern english concordences out there?

BOb

[Taylor514ce]

I even look up words in the dictionary when I'm looking up words in the dictionary - just to test Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.

Is he joking? Is he?

[astra]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

So far, it appears that I'm in the minority. :^(

Not really I know what you are talking about. That was the main reason why I bought ectaco dictionary vs. looking up for a word manually. It made a huge difference. Another thing is that before I started to read books I like, I spent almost 2 years reading all sort of things, such as Astronomy magazins, Times, some non fiction books such as God's Fingerprints and few others of the same sort and built up my vocabulary (passive). I tried to read The Interview with the Vampire as my first fiction book...boy it was a disaster. I had to look up every fourth word or so and after 50 pages gave up and read it as "it is" because it was destroying the experience. Nowdays, I use dictionary maybe 1-2 time in 30 minutes when I feel like I really would like to know the meaning of the word and sometimes never for a few days. But mostly my big passive vocabulary saves the day for me otherwise I would have to skip the unknown words, although on the other hand I would miss details and it would destroy the experience too (if you miss all the small details of the story you miss a lot even though you know what is going on. I am speaking from my experience of watching movies in English. Never go to cinema because they do not have subtitles and I just cannot watch movies in English without subs.)
After reading in English for many years only a few months ago I was reminded for the first time in a long time how it feels when you don't know at least 1-2 word on each page. It did presented a problem. It was Perdido Street Station. It was a difficult read languagewise. If I had to struggle like that with every book I would give up on English and read in Russian. As it is now, I cannot read fantasy in Russian It sounds so childish, immature and silly

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

I even look up words in the dictionary when I'm looking up words in the dictionary - just to test Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.

Is this related to tompe's defenestration test? Probably safer.

[Taylor514ce]

Yes, safer. His test could result in broken spines.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Does the refresh speed of an eInk screen depend on the CPU speed? I'd have thought that it was primarily dependent upon the physical characteristics of the device - the time taken for all the little capsules to move, or rotate, or whatever it is that they do.

There was some data given in another thread that indicated that the eInk update was much faster then the current update rate. if the is because you have to wake the processor up for page turn or it is beacuse of the speed is hard to say.

[sealbeater]

I would like larger capacity, say 16G and I want it to be able to access all of my content. So if I put 5000 books on it, I want 5000 books to be accessible. That's it for me.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'm currently reading _Treasure Island_. And while I know what most of the words mean, there are a few I don't but think I got the context. However, there are just some phrases I'm not sure of. I doubt a dictionary would help here. Any kind of old english to modern english concordences out there?

BOb

Feel free to ask, Bob. I'm pretty well up on that kind of thing!

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

...
I am curious if many people actually interrupt their reading to look up words. I've been a voracious reader since elementary school (almost 40 years) and have never done this.

It is hard to say, and even with people like me replying "I do!" there's not really going to be any clear consensus. Clearly a lot of people like the dictionary lookup feature (me included).

For me, as with yourself, dictionary lookup while reading has been an inconvenience, even with a dictionary sitting next to me - you're going from one book to opening and looking up another, and I'd likely find it annoying. About the only exception to this was Primo Levi's If This Is A Man/The Truce where precise understanding of meaning was essential to me (and even then I used dictionaries in my PDA phone).

Saying that, the dictionary lookup feature in Mobipocket (I use an Iliad, though it's obviously applicable to the Cybook too) works, for me, seemlessly with the reading experience because you never leave "the book". You tap on a word and then pick the dictionary you want to look the word up in. It shows you the meaning, and then you tap out and you're back in the text you're reading. I never feel I've left what I'm reading.

For me, it's approaching the exquisite reading experience (it's not perfect - it's far more instantaneous and "seemless" on my laptop then it is on the Iliad). As I age (though my years are less than yours - I'm approaching 40), I find a need for precision in my reading experience. I find myself less forgiving on the books I read and less forgiving on my own comprehension (I don't let context or broad definition allow me to pass a word up that may have allegiances and origins behind it that add to, or specify, assumed meaning).

I suspect it's an anchovies thing, and I empathise quite strongly with your "immersive" reading experience, even if I do not experience the dictionary lookups as an interruption myself (people who keep talking to me while I'm trying to read are another matter entirely, of course. )

As for being in a minority, well, if I was you I'd glory in it. It has its negatives (trends tend to follow the majority, for instance), but individuality is a far greater compliment, in my mind, than that overwhelming smear of beige-ness sometimes called "normality".

Cheers,
Marc

[bookbinder]

I've seen a lot of requests to make the reader more "gadgety" but I think the more important improvements are in terms of readability. Let's have more than just the 4 stock fonts, or allow embeded fonts without slowing down the page turns. Having more than just 3 font sizes would also be nice. Let's keep working on making that background closer to white. I would like to see a page-turn on the top of the device, as that's where I usually have my hand.