I got the Sony 600 a few weeks ago, and I found figuring out how to use it to be quite a daunting, frustrating, and unpleasant experience. If the initial Sony-600 user experience is representative of ebooks in general, they are not ready for the mass market.
I finally found Calibre, discovered Calibre and the Sony software don't play nice together, figured out how to keep the Sony software from taking over my computer every time I plugged in the ebook, found a source for a wall charger that supposedly does not burn out the battery after finding out what a klunky nuisance the USB charging is, and so on.
If Sony were to make it easier to just use a file utility like Windows Explorer to load books, that would be a blessing.
Sony should have a manual that is progressive and simple, and they should have it in epub format. I had to google for it, and then it was a PDF, which I had to convert to make it usable on the device.
Sheesh!
One should not be forced to install and use the Sony software even to fire up the damn thing.
Sony should include a wall charger as a standard accessory, and the Sony 600 should sell with a fully-charged battery, and the manual should be in EPUB on the device. This ebook is quite unintuitive.
If the Sony marketing folks lurk on this forum, and if they think word-of-mouth is an important tool in any mass marketing scheme, check out the following sentence:
I would not recommend the Sony-600 to anyone who is not a techie sort, willing to noodle out inadequate documentation and spend several hours doing it. That's probably 90% of Sony's potential customers.
It's too bad, because I think the Sony-600 is a good product once one figures out how to use it. I figure I have at least average intelligence and greater-than-average computer savvy, and if it took me 4 or 5 hours to even understand out how to use its most basic functionality, the Sony marketing department are not earning their keep.
I am considering writing a review of this reader for my blog in a month or two, after I have explored its many and undoubted strengths.
Regards,
Alan OldStudent
The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living -- Socrates
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