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Old 08-09-2011, 05:16 PM   #16
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I am also not a native speaker, reading almost exclusively English ebooks, using the dictionary lookup a lot.
  • You do not want to navigate with a D-Pad (Kindle, Gen3), it's too cumbersome.
  • eink is preferrable, as the battery will last for weeks, compared to LCD (lasing only hours). It's also better on the eyes (for most people).
  • If you still want to be able to load dictionaries of your own choice onto the device, you might consider the current Pocketbook models (forget the 302). However, they do not have a pearl screen (yet), there is one additional tap or pressing of a key involved (because of the user-interface), and the touch technology is wacom, so you have to get the stylus to use the touch function. With ths Sony, you just double-tap the word and that's it.
  • The Sony lookup is the fastest available.
There is a lot of speculation going on about the new Sonys, they very likely will have wifi, but when it comes to reading and - especially - dictionary lookup: It already is as fast and easy as can be.
There are also some speculations about a next Kindle coming up, maybe with touch this time, who knows? This would give you the freedom of choice (of dictionaries) combined with the ease and quickness of accessing the dict. through touch.
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Old 08-13-2011, 08:29 PM   #17
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Hang on! New Sony readers? Can you confirm this? And do you have any idea when they might be coming?

I've been looking for my perfect reader for a while now, and have my heart set on a PRS-650 (looking for much the same as you, it seems), but they've prooven to be impossible to get (at least here in Norway). I'm very close to giving up and spending waaay over my budget on the PRS-950, but if they're releasing new readers in the near future, I'll just have to wait and see what they come up with.
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Old 08-13-2011, 10:29 PM   #18
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Mear, new Sony readers are all but officially confirmed, so yes new ones are almost definitely on the way. If I you can wait and see what comes out you should. From what I hear a September/October announcement/release sounds likely.
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Old 08-13-2011, 10:42 PM   #19
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I'm a native speaker of English and I still use the dictionary function on my Nook, especially when reading books of the steam-punk genre because I'm not too familiar with some words that are outside of popular usage right now.
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Old 08-13-2011, 11:30 PM   #20
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Well, it can be a while from announcement to release. *sigh*

I'm considering giving up on comfortably reading PDFs and going with the 350, at least that one I can get my hands on. Pocketbook 603 might be an option as well, I think, they seem to have fair dictionary support, but I haven't looked too much into it.

How frustrating when I'm sitting here all ready to give them my money, and then I can't.

Edit: I see most news from July set the release time for August, but I guess since Sony refuses to say anything specific, it's gonna be later. Pity. But perhaps we can at least hope for SOME news this month. Either way, it will take far longer before it's released here in Norway, so I won't be holding my breath waiting for it.

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Old 08-14-2011, 01:04 AM   #21
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IMO, the Kindle so far beats others when it comes to dictionaries. Mobipocket (used by the Kindle) includes a well-documented dictionary format (unlike epub). You can have a gig-sized dictionary on the Kindle running smoothly. The only issue is that pop-up does not work for languages that are not based on Latin (Russian, etc.)
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Old 08-14-2011, 01:08 AM   #22
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That may be true, but the navigating is cumbersome and it doesn't support ePub - which means no borrowing from the library. A major drawback for a poor student (and a bit provoking to a nerd).
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Old 08-14-2011, 10:11 PM   #23
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Well, it can be a while from announcement to release. *sigh*

I'm considering giving up on comfortably reading PDFs and going with the 350, at least that one I can get my hands on . . .
One thing you should remember about the 350 is that the display is actually the same resolution as the six inch displays of the Kindle, Nook, and Sony's own six inch reader the PRS-650 (800x600), so if you put on some reading glasses and hold the screen a little closer, you will see (or not see) about the same thing when trying to view a full page PDF on the 350's slightly smaller screen.

Small as the 350 is, I would still rate it higher on PDF handling than the Kindle because :

- The Zoom works better.

- There are specialized two and three column modes for reading multi column PDF's.

- The 350 has built in PDF text reflow.

Re-flow lets you enlarge the PDF's text to any size you want, with the trade-off being that you loose the original page formatting.

For mainly text PDFs, the Sony's reflow capability is pretty good - the main issues being that it looses or misaligns images, and for the text, it occasionally doesn't get the line breaks and page breaks perfect. Also, it doesn't try to de-hyphenate words that were originally hyphenated at the ends of lines, so in the re-flowed text you will see a few words hyphenated in the mid-dle of lines.

I just finished reading an older novel from one of my favorite authors that was only available from my library in PDF format, and I didn't find these issues to be more than a very minor distraction.

Personally, I would go with the 350 for pleasure reading, and plan on using a netbook, notebook, or full sized tablet for those occasions when you must deal with technical PDFs with complex formatting.
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Old 08-14-2011, 11:51 PM   #24
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That may be true, but the navigating is cumbersome and it doesn't support ePub - which means no borrowing from the library. A major drawback for a poor student (and a bit provoking to a nerd).
Have you ever used a Kindle? I have two and, although the Sony double tap is certainly a faster way, use the D-pad of the Kindle to get to the word you want to look up it's not cumbersome. It's just not faster as Sony, but it is still very quickly and easy. I can't complain about, even when it's about the large screen of the Kindle DX.

None of you have said here that looking up a word in the Kindle in cumbersome has one, so their opinions are just guessing.

And I don't know if you live inside the USA, but the Kindle library lending is just announced, directly from Amazon, to be available later this year.

http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/r...x1MRWHJW9RLUZE

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Old 08-15-2011, 12:44 AM   #25
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. . .

None of you have said here that looking up a word in the Kindle in cumbersome has one, so their opinions are just guessing . . .

And I don't know if you live inside the USA, but the Kindle library lending is just announced, directly from Amazon, to be available later this year.
We have both Kindles and Sonys in our family, and just to avoid the hassles of book conversions, I have swapped my Sony for a Kindle 3 a few times when someone wanted to read a library book checked out on my Sony.

Basic reading functions aren't too bad; page forward; page back; even Amazon couldn't foul that up.

Once you figure out that there is no touch screen so you can't just swipe to turn pages, and that you have to be damn careful when picking the Kindle back up to avoid loosing your place by grabbing one of the page turn buttons, the page turn buttons work fairly well for basic book reading.

But I found all other aspects of the Kindle interface to be shear torture.

To look up words in the dictionary (as indeed, to navigate anywhere on the Kindles menus) you end up having to use Kindle's MICKEY MOUSE '5 way' navigation buttons.

Amazon cleverly made these navigation buttons the smallest hardest to use buttons on the device.

Use the Kindle's dictionary? Yeah, right - Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, right, right, right, right, down, right, right, right, down, right, right,down - oops, to far, up, right - Wallah! there you are - simple!

Uh huh, so is pounding your head up against the wall - doesn't mean it's much fun.

Trust me, "Cumbersome," was putting it nicely; less nicely, would be to point out that it puts me in mind of that great Jack Nicholson line from the movie 'Terms of Endearment' - - "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes!"

Last edited by delphin; 08-15-2011 at 12:59 AM.
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Old 08-15-2011, 10:41 AM   #26
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Have you ever used a Kindle? I have two and, although the Sony double tap is certainly a faster way, use the D-pad of the Kindle to get to the word you want to look up it's not cumbersome. It's just not faster as Sony, but it is still very quickly and easy. I can't complain about, even when it's about the large screen of the Kindle DX.

None of you have said here that looking up a word in the Kindle in cumbersome has one, so their opinions are just guessing.

And I don't know if you live inside the USA, but the Kindle library lending is just announced, directly from Amazon, to be available later this year.

http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/r...x1MRWHJW9RLUZE
I have/had a Gen3. It has dictionary lookup. Through D-Pad.
I was really, really glad, when I got it (still much faster than looking up a p-dictionary), but even before I ever tried the dictionary on a pocketbook or sony, I sometimes would just think, "wait, this word is right in the middle of the page (thus most work to navigate to), is it really that important, or maybe I just skip this one?"

I see, that you only have Kindles. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure, it's a pleasure, but did you actually ever even try a different reader?

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Old 08-16-2011, 10:59 AM   #27
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Ok,

Like i said earlier I followed this post closely and I'm now more convinced than ever that it's time to move on toward something more convenient than my Gen3. The last two posts summarize perfectly what I feel today

So considering that I'm French and that I'll spend the next few days in Bangkok, do you think that I could grab a Sony PRS-650 there ? I'm not even sure they are sold around

Any directions would be appreciated !

Cheers,
Vincent.
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Old 08-18-2011, 04:58 AM   #28
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Already 2 days in Bangkok and still no luck to find a PRS-650 around here. 1 more day to go... It looks that it's really not sold in Thailand
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Old 08-20-2011, 02:25 PM   #29
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Use the Kindle's dictionary? Yeah, right - Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, right, right, right, right, down, right, right, right, down, right, right,down - oops, to far, up, right - Wallah! there you are - simple!
This certainly means you don't use a Kindle and have only played with it (you don't like it? ok). But in order to look up a word you don't have to do what you are describing. The process is much more simple. It's obvious you are exaggerating (you perfectly know that) and I don't know why since I agreed that the Sony have a faster dictionary look up feature; just with the Kindle the process is easier and faster than you think and want to demonstrate.

To look up a word using the Kindle you move the D-pad up or down, (according to if the word you want to look up is at top or at bottom of the screen); then keep holding the D-pad and release it when you get to the line where the word is (so, you don't have to go word by word, ¿ok? and the cursor moves really fast). If it's necessary, you have to move the cursor two, three or four words inside the line (never more and generally less). And that's it, once you are in front the word the definition intermediately appears at the bottom or top of the screen.

With practice the process become even faster and easier.

Then again, it's not as faster as the Sony, but it's not how you are saying.
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Old 11-11-2011, 10:55 AM   #30
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What about the dictionary feature of the kobo touch?

A few months ago, I bought an Ipad 1 because it was only marginally more expansive than a Sony PRS650. I love it, it doesn't strain my eyes, but... my girlfriend won't let go of it (for reading mangas online ).

The Kobo Touch is about to be released here with a competitive price (33% less that the Sony PR T1 and same price as the Kindle 4). But I do need good English and French dictionaries, and possibly an English / French one.

I've read the Kobo Touch now allows the use of dictionaries with epub books, but are they convenient and fast to use?
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