Quote:
Originally Posted by delphin
I should probably have made a distinction between the Sony's onboard firmware (which I think is fairly nicely organized), v.s. the PC side 'Sony Reader Library' (which is usable, but not all that well written).
I now use Calibre on my PC, so this isn't an issue for me though.
As, others have noted, even the firmware could use a few tweaks, like user selectable fonts, folder navigation as an alternative to navigation though a single main library listing, and the ability to disable touch screen page turns.
Some of these issues can be fixed by hacking the firmware with PRS+, but Sony should have stepped up and incorporated these features a long time back.
Winston Churchill once famously remarked, "democracy is the worst form of government -- except all the others that have been tried."
So if the O.P.'s point was that the Sony has it's faults, I would agree, and these would probably make it a terrible choice -- except that it's much better than all the others I have tried.
As to the point about 'too much of a good thing' --- in a single afternoon and evening, I was able to find and download about 1500 titles from feedbooks public domain sections, including all the wonderful classics by Dickens, Carroll, Verne, Wells, and hundreds of others.
This, and the hundreds of contemporary books I have on my 'Overdrive' waiting list at my local library, do create a bit of an overload situation - but a nice one.
Kind of like the feeling I had as a young child the first time I walked into a public library, and was told that I could have my pick from ALL OF THESE BOOKS.  |
I think the Sony hardware is undoubtedly better than Kindle but Amazon have done a better job on the marketing front. They have just brought out a sub-100GBP e-reader which is what I think the market has been waiting for and it will inevitably knock Sony right out of the water. And, more importantly, as one reviewer has said, Amazon provide a better 'ecosystem'. Getting new books and magazines is easier and the quality is better. Thats true, but its also very irritating as you are tied in to Amazons proprietary format. I got the Sony because it supported the open-source EPUB format. Like others here I have got some good books from sources like feedbooks. But these are all out of copyright. You can get new books in EPUB but not as easily and efficiently as with the Kindle. The one stop shop is very attractive to readers. I have no idea whether magazines are available in EPUB. I should like to be able to download articles from the web and wikipedia in particular to read in EPUB format. The Readability extension for Firefox is very good for reformatting text on screen for reading and they provide a service for downloading web pages to an e-reader. However, it only formats for the Kindle. I wrote to Readability and asked them if they intended to provide EPUB format too and they said they had no plans to do so. And EPUB is supposed to be the industry standard! I fear we are seeing the battle of VHS and Betamax played out again -- and we are on the Betamax side -- sadly.
RobW