[RWood]

Welcome to MobileRead.

Originally Posted by Roy White

Greetings all. I'm an avid reader and have been waiting for a portable reader like the Sony for quite a while but gave up a few years back. I hate sitting at my computer reading and the eyestrain from the CRT is too tiring. The electronic paper is a fascinating concept!

I agree, the Sony Reader is very easy on the eyes. IMHO it looks and works as well (if not better) than the pictures and descriptions of it.

The Sony Reader intrigues me for many reasons. I do, however, have a dial up connection at 50 kps per. So... I've already downloaded tons of books from manybooks.net and am, as I type, downloading George Macdonald's books. Phantastes is one of my favorite books ever. And I've read thousands.

Since the LRF format is compressed there is very little problem downloading almost any book. What is two large hardbound books weighing almost 20 pounds was posted her in less than 1 MB.

I LOVE the idea of carrying around in my pocket 80 books!!!! I have a couple of questions though. Will dial up work with the Sony connect bookstore? By no means do I read only out of print classics although I've already downloaded all the Tarzan books someone posted on this site and the Barsoom series. The incomparable Deja Thoris, how I loved her as a teen ager! And H.P. Lovecraft ROX!

Yes it will work. Most of the files for the titles at the Sony store are smaller than the files posted here in the MobileRead Sony Reader Download section.

I read with great interest the bible thread and downloaded the New English version somneone posted.

Can you resize the print at any time while reading or is at a one time thing when you set up the device?

For LRF and RTF files you can resize the print to Small-Medium-Large at any time while you are reading. Books vary in their base size. The font size for PDF files are fixed when they are made and cannot be changed when you read them.

I'm probably going to buy a Sony Reader soon but I'm still researching the difference between it and the illiad. It seems the features the iliad has are things I'm just not interested in. Making notes, sharing files, intenet access to newspapers etc... I'm trying mightily to swallow the 350 dollar price oin the Sony let alone the 700 bucks for the irex. My wife wants me to buy the irex becasue she thinks I will want those features after I've had the Sony for awhile. Does anyone miss thise things with the Sony?

Some do, I for one do not. The reading experience is great and to me those are features that would remain unused. Some with the iRex have moved to the Sony and some that wanted a Sony now have an iRex. It is a choice for each person. The iRex has just introduced support for the MobiPocket format and that opens a whole new area of possibilities for current books for the iRex.

One more thing. I wish the Memory could hold say, 800 books instead of just 80. How much money does the extra memory stick cost and how many books can you put on one. Can you replace the existing memory chip with say a 2 GB card and have done with it?

I have a few more questions but I'll stop now.

Thanks.

Roy White

I have a SanDisk 2BG SD card (~$30) that can be inserted into a slot in the Reader. (It can also use a Sony Memory Stick. Many people have reported problems with 4 GB cards. Check the MobileRead Wiki for which cards are well supported.) The 80 books that Sony claims are stored in the ~91 MB of internal storage on internal chips that we cannot easily change and would not want to change. While you could carry thousands of books on the SD card, the Sony has a flat file system so all books are organized by either their title or by the author in alphabetical order. At 10 books displayed per page, as you increase the number of books you also increase the time it takes to find any one book. A collection function exists but at the moment it is limited to books in the internal memory only.

Good luck,