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CommanderROR · 05-28-2006, 12:39 PM

Well...not all Sony devices are great...I had some VERY bad useability issues with my Sony MD-Man...
I'm not saying that all Sony Devices are bad, but they aren't all good either...^^

The biggest issue for me when it comes to the Sony Reader is it's lack of SDK and Dev. Informtaion.
Hanlin promises to bring that, and iRex also promised that...wel'll have to wait and see who keeps their promises...

Also, the Sony Reader has almost no "interactivity". This is OK for a really pure book-device for reading fiction, but makes educational material a lot less interesting. You can't underline, can't highlight, annotate.
You also can't fill in forms or anything...so the device is rather limited in that respect, reflecting only half the book world so to say.
It also bars the gate to dictionary implementation the way we kow and love it from our PDA...language learning could greatly profit from a feature like this, but the Sony lack the touchscreen you badly need to do this.

The Hanlin has no real touchscreen either, but at least they have a "compromise", but unfortunately no lookup feature either (and none planned as far as I could find out).
What it does have however is a calender and some basic organizer apps...if these are done well they could be a real asset.

But Nr.1 deciding argument for me is the fact, that the Iliad is the only device so far that offers access to the device without additional software. Sony Connect Software was one terrible curse for me...itunes is not really one of my favourites either. Making a device depenant on a specific software app and/or format is alsways a bad thing in my opinion.
I use an iRiver H340 for music (mainly recording, but sometimes listening as well) and it's just great to be able to copy files to the device and back any way I like.
Converting to and forth with my MD-Man was a lot of hassle and dangerous too due to the "security" the device contains.

I once did a recording of a concert (I played a Beethoven Violin Sonata) with my MD, got hom and transferred the tracks. Unfortunately I used the wrong format, so the music was compressed. I went ahead and copied again, this time using the higher quality version. Want to know what happened? The transfer/conversion was done, but the files on the device were gone and so were the files on my HDD...nada...all gone.

Luckily I had Norton Unerase installed and could "rescurrect" the old "low-quality" files, so I had at least that version. Otherwise the whole recording would just have "gone".
I still don't know what exactly happened, but that was just ablout the last time I ever used a Sony Product.
With the iRiver I simply attach the device, open the new "External Drive" under "My Computer" and have full access. I can copy the files as often as I like and still have them on the iRiver. No Problemo.
I'd prefer that method any time.

05-28-2006, 12:39 PM	#5
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	Well...not all Sony devices are great...I had some VERY bad useability issues with my Sony MD-Man... I'm not saying that all Sony Devices are bad, but they aren't all good either...^^ The biggest issue for me when it comes to the Sony Reader is it's lack of SDK and Dev. Informtaion. Hanlin promises to bring that, and iRex also promised that...wel'll have to wait and see who keeps their promises... Also, the Sony Reader has almost no "interactivity". This is OK for a really pure book-device for reading fiction, but makes educational material a lot less interesting. You can't underline, can't highlight, annotate. You also can't fill in forms or anything...so the device is rather limited in that respect, reflecting only half the book world so to say. It also bars the gate to dictionary implementation the way we kow and love it from our PDA...language learning could greatly profit from a feature like this, but the Sony lack the touchscreen you badly need to do this. The Hanlin has no real touchscreen either, but at least they have a "compromise", but unfortunately no lookup feature either (and none planned as far as I could find out). What it does have however is a calender and some basic organizer apps...if these are done well they could be a real asset. But Nr.1 deciding argument for me is the fact, that the Iliad is the only device so far that offers access to the device without additional software. Sony Connect Software was one terrible curse for me...itunes is not really one of my favourites either. Making a device depenant on a specific software app and/or format is alsways a bad thing in my opinion. I use an iRiver H340 for music (mainly recording, but sometimes listening as well) and it's just great to be able to copy files to the device and back any way I like. Converting to and forth with my MD-Man was a lot of hassle and dangerous too due to the "security" the device contains. I once did a recording of a concert (I played a Beethoven Violin Sonata) with my MD, got hom and transferred the tracks. Unfortunately I used the wrong format, so the music was compressed. I went ahead and copied again, this time using the higher quality version. Want to know what happened? The transfer/conversion was done, but the files on the device were gone and so were the files on my HDD...nada...all gone. Luckily I had Norton Unerase installed and could "rescurrect" the old "low-quality" files, so I had at least that version. Otherwise the whole recording would just have "gone". I still don't know what exactly happened, but that was just ablout the last time I ever used a Sony Product. With the iRiver I simply attach the device, open the new "External Drive" under "My Computer" and have full access. I can copy the files as often as I like and still have them on the iRiver. No Problemo. I'd prefer that method any time.