|
I think it's an excellent reader. One of the best things about it is that it's very narrow, so holding it in one hand is easy.
The touchscreen sets it apart from most of the competition, too. It makes navigating complex documents and larger libraries a breeze, and double-tapping words to look them up works nicely (the device comes preloaded with two English language dictionaries and dictionaries for several other languages).
But since there are so few hardware buttons, completing some tasks can take longer than you'd like (for example, going "back" after you've clicked on a footnote or run a search or accessing the table of contents).
It can be hard to find accessories for it: I've had mine for months and have yet to find a cheap cover and light for it that I like. For more popular readers, there are many more inexpensive accessory options.
Displaying books just the way you like them can be difficult, too. Changing the default font, for example, requires that you fiddle with every book you put on the device or that you install third party firmware. You can't configure the device to open every book with the same view settings (e.g., "always cut margins.") PDF viewing could be much better. I don't have experience with other readers, though, so Sony may be as good or better on all these fronts than its competitors. I think few other readers have a "PDF reflow" feature, which I find indispensable.
The size of the device makes text display options important. You can't fit much text on a single page at the default font and with the default spacing. But I don't find the small size to be that annoying, especially now that I've managed to adjust some of the page display settings.
Overall, it's a great device, and I'm glad I bought it a few months ago. I bet I'd be happy with nearly any ebook reader, though - they're all very similar, when it comes down to it.
|