Sony reader pluses and minuses

Liviu_5 · 08-10-2007, 09:42 PM

After having the device for about 10 days now and reading from it about 3000 pages, I would like to share my impressions:

+++
- impressive display especially in daylight
- lack of backlight not that big an issue as expected since I can read on it with my little booklight dimmed, which I could not do on a print book because of double pages
- excellent size with appropriate font - usually I hate print pb's because of font size, love hc's or tpb's though they are more unwieldy, Sony is just right having a very nice size and adjustable font
- ok for appropriately prepared pdf/djvu/image scans
- nicer for my ocr'ed scans than 770 because of bigger screen that allows me to see easier the typos
- easy use tools for converting to lrf which is the best format for it in my opinion - here big thanks to the creator of libprs, especially the lit2lrf since I usually do a fast lit book from my rtf/html file with the free MsWord tool, and then use lit2lrf - I do it this way since it works better than going from rtf directly for some reason
- enough internal memory for more than a hundred novels since lrf is a compressed format, so I do not need a memory card
- nice bookmarking and page memory features that help a lot in navigation

-
- The one big minus is very slow navigation in a book or between books. Page by page turning and going back to recent pages that are in your history are ok, though still slower than on my 770 or on my Ebk, but otherwise the navigation is sometimes unbearably slow, so my reading on it is considerably slower than on the other 2 devices. I read a 600 print hc page book on it and I am reading another similar one now and enjoyed the experience a lot because both books keep me interested page to page, but on a 300 print hc page book that bored me from time to time so I felt the need to go fast through it, I went back to my 770 to finish it, and I shudder at the thought of trying to read magazines or ss collections on it.

Overall, I expect I will be using the PRS more than I have expected, probably about 50%, with 770 the other 50% depending on the particular book(s) I am reading, with sadly the Ebk1150 relegated to very rare use.

JSWolf · 08-10-2007, 10:02 PM

As far as page turning goes, you'll learn to know when to turn the page. Such as maybe 1 or 2 words from the end of the page. And then you'll finsih those words before the pages turns and you'll be reading well then.

Liviu_5 · 08-10-2007, 11:15 PM

Actually for sequential page reading and when each page retains my interest, the somewhat slower page turning does not bother me. The problem is when you want to navigate fast through a book or between books.

However the other reason I read slower on Sony (and for that matter print) than on 770 is due to the way I read.

On my 770 layout I always have 22 lines of text with ~ 6 words per line on each screen, so about 135 words. On Sony with a reasonable font I have about 19 lines of text with ~8 words per line, so about 150 words per screen, though sometimes the Sony has more spaced out lines so I get back to about 135 words too.

Actually I checked with 2 or 3 books and the Sony has between .9 and same number of "pages" as 770 with my preferred fonts, and that is not surprising, since they have similar resolutions (800x600 vs 800x480)

However I do not read sequential words, but I scan the text, and read chunks at a time, and there area makes a difference. 770 being smaller, I scan faster the text than on Sony (or print for that matter) which is larger, so consequently I read about 20-30% faster per page screen on 770, while the number of page screens is only 10% at most higher on 770 than on Sony.

On a book that captivates me it does not matter since I want to enjoy the experience anyway, but on a book that only partially captivates me it matters and there comes the fast flipping...

Conversely the larger screen of Sony makes it much nicer to read books with typos, formatting that's not optimal (e.g. ocr'ed scans), since the larger page allows my optical scanning more space to "take in and process" those typos...

08-10-2007, 09:42 PM	#1
Liviu_5 Books and more books Posts: 917 Karma: 69499 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: White Plains, NY, USA Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)	Sony reader pluses and minuses After having the device for about 10 days now and reading from it about 3000 pages, I would like to share my impressions: +++ - impressive display especially in daylight - lack of backlight not that big an issue as expected since I can read on it with my little booklight dimmed, which I could not do on a print book because of double pages - excellent size with appropriate font - usually I hate print pb's because of font size, love hc's or tpb's though they are more unwieldy, Sony is just right having a very nice size and adjustable font - ok for appropriately prepared pdf/djvu/image scans - nicer for my ocr'ed scans than 770 because of bigger screen that allows me to see easier the typos - easy use tools for converting to lrf which is the best format for it in my opinion - here big thanks to the creator of libprs, especially the lit2lrf since I usually do a fast lit book from my rtf/html file with the free MsWord tool, and then use lit2lrf - I do it this way since it works better than going from rtf directly for some reason - enough internal memory for more than a hundred novels since lrf is a compressed format, so I do not need a memory card - nice bookmarking and page memory features that help a lot in navigation - - The one big minus is very slow navigation in a book or between books. Page by page turning and going back to recent pages that are in your history are ok, though still slower than on my 770 or on my Ebk, but otherwise the navigation is sometimes unbearably slow, so my reading on it is considerably slower than on the other 2 devices. I read a 600 print hc page book on it and I am reading another similar one now and enjoyed the experience a lot because both books keep me interested page to page, but on a 300 print hc page book that bored me from time to time so I felt the need to go fast through it, I went back to my 770 to finish it, and I shudder at the thought of trying to read magazines or ss collections on it. Overall, I expect I will be using the PRS more than I have expected, probably about 50%, with 770 the other 50% depending on the particular book(s) I am reading, with sadly the Ebk1150 relegated to very rare use.

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08-10-2007, 10:02 PM	#2
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 74,037 Karma: 129333114 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	As far as page turning goes, you'll learn to know when to turn the page. Such as maybe 1 or 2 words from the end of the page. And then you'll finsih those words before the pages turns and you'll be reading well then.

08-10-2007, 11:15 PM	#3
Liviu_5 Books and more books Posts: 917 Karma: 69499 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: White Plains, NY, USA Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)	Actually for sequential page reading and when each page retains my interest, the somewhat slower page turning does not bother me. The problem is when you want to navigate fast through a book or between books. However the other reason I read slower on Sony (and for that matter print) than on 770 is due to the way I read. On my 770 layout I always have 22 lines of text with ~ 6 words per line on each screen, so about 135 words. On Sony with a reasonable font I have about 19 lines of text with ~8 words per line, so about 150 words per screen, though sometimes the Sony has more spaced out lines so I get back to about 135 words too. Actually I checked with 2 or 3 books and the Sony has between .9 and same number of "pages" as 770 with my preferred fonts, and that is not surprising, since they have similar resolutions (800x600 vs 800x480) However I do not read sequential words, but I scan the text, and read chunks at a time, and there area makes a difference. 770 being smaller, I scan faster the text than on Sony (or print for that matter) which is larger, so consequently I read about 20-30% faster per page screen on 770, while the number of page screens is only 10% at most higher on 770 than on Sony. On a book that captivates me it does not matter since I want to enjoy the experience anyway, but on a book that only partially captivates me it matters and there comes the fast flipping... Conversely the larger screen of Sony makes it much nicer to read books with typos, formatting that's not optimal (e.g. ocr'ed scans), since the larger page allows my optical scanning more space to "take in and process" those typos...

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