I've now spent about a day with my new Sony Reader. I love it, the screen is great. That said, I have a few beefs with the physical design of the device.
- Button Placement: No matter how I hold the Reader, the next and previous buttons are poorly placed.
- Held in my left hand with the reader well balanced in portrait mode, the "next-page" button is about 1 to 2 inches below my left thumb.
- Held in my left hand with the reader well balanced in landscape mode, the circular silver button is about 1/2 inch too far up the reader to hit it with my left thumb.
- Held in my right hand with the reader well balanced in portrait mode, the "next-page" button is once again about 1 to 2 inches below my right thumb. And the text is upside down
(and how 'bout a fix for that, eh Sony?).
- Held in my right hand with the reader well balanced in landscape mode, the joystick is almost in the correct location -- just a bit too high for my right thumb. Of course the text is upside down
, and even if it wasn't, the joystick won't advance the page anyway.
- Screen resolution: 180-or-so dpi beats the heck out of the RCA REB1100 I've been using. But for really comfortable reading we need a display up in the 600dpi-or-more range. Over 1000dpi would be much better. To see the difference, compare a dot-matrix print-out with a paperback book, and then look at a high-end textbook or coffeetable art book or a fancy glossy magazine. There's a real difference in long-term readability with the higher resolution printing. Of course, the Sony reader is the best (resolution-wise) of what's available today. (OK... easily available in the US, anyway.))
I strongly recommend that Sony (and any other eBook device maker) have their designers take a close look at the physical design of the REB1100. I know that the screen sucks, the device is too heavy, etc. BUT... No matter which hand you hold it in, when you have the reader well balanced in your hand the next-page button is right under your thumb. And it's a
biiiiiiig button, so that's true whether you have giant hands or the tiny hands of my youngest niece. The device is designed so the battery is in a bulge that rests directly in your hand -- makes it easy to hold onto. The battery placement also means that the side-to-side center of balance of the device is well off-center towards the battery-and-button side -- the side that you'll naturally wind up holding in your hand. That's
muuuuuch better and more comfortable than the Sony eReader. And if you choose to switch hands, you can trivially tell the REV1100 which side of the screen is the top -- and it automatically switches the next/prev buttons around so that the one that is under your thumb is always "next-page".
To sum up: Yes, the eInk screen's readability clearly trumps all of these other considerations. But Sony really should have worked a lot harder on the ergonomics of the device. There's no excuse for doing this much worse than a well-known (at least within the eBook world) previous device.
Dean