PRS-T1 PRS-T1: Navigating big SD Cards and Viewing Scanned-Book PDFs?

[RKanarek]

Greetings.

Perhaps a kind owner of a Sony PRS-T1 ereader will be nice enough to answer a few pre-purchase questions?

1. My Aluratek 7” Libre Color ebook reader (and multimedia center ;-) officially supports (full sized) SD cards up to 32GB, but its poor navigation system and its propensity to repeatedly and extremely slowly scan the card for books makes storing large libraries unworkable. How about the PRS-T1?
2. All of my +8GB of ebooks are in DRM free format; most are scanned-book PDFs (e.g., Google [PDF] Books). Can the PRS-T1 effectively view these sorts of PDFs (in addition to “ordinary” PDFs)? Can it fit to margins, scroll vertically from page to page while keeping its horizontal position, zoom as needed rather than in fixed increments, etc. efficiently enough to make reading a long scientific reference book efficient and practical?
3. Can I transfer books either way, as well as avail myself of the notes (I understand) it will allow me to make without having to install extra software on my computer?
4. Anything else I should know?

Thanks in advance!

[wytwolf]

If you have a fair number of pdf novels (i.e. just text) then calibre might help with that. It will convert the pdf to epub and help reduce the size of the file. I had 1-2 pdf that once converted they were less then 25% of the original size but your miles may vary.

[vishcompany]

About navigation:
You will have to root the device, in order to get folder view at all. But this is really easy by now. Then install Relaunch and navigation will be ok, even on the eink screen, as long as you don't have hundreds of items within one folder.

I don't know about pdf. I try to avoid it by all means.

[RKanarek]

Greetings.

Thanks for the replies.

wytwolf: I have approximately 100 novels (they came with my new ebook reader) and about 800 late Victorian and early twentieth century textbooks and reference books. Most are scans of public domain books which are hardly likely to convert nicely to an epub format. Further, as everyone associated with the books is, regrettably, long dead, I doubt new editions in electronic format are likely. ;-)

vishcompany: I am shocked and appalled to read that the Sony PRS-T1 would need to be hacked in order to display files in a folder view! I truly can’t fathom the thinking, if any, behind building a device that can handle 32GB of Ebooks, but which deliberately thwarts any attempt to organizer them! I confess I was hoping to devote my scant spare time to reading, not screwing around with some gadget!

Do you -- or does anyone -- know if having hundreds of Ebooks in folders will cause it to run more slowly? (As I mentioned in a different thread, my new Aluratek 7” Libre Color [UNLIKE my previous 5” Libre Pro] has a mania as far as repeatedly and unnecessarily scanning it memory/ies so as to create useless commingled alphabetized lists of its contents.)

Thanks to all for the information, and thanks for the Relaunch hint.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RKanarek

vishcompany: I am shocked and appalled to read that the Sony PRS-T1 would need to be hacked in order to display files in a folder view! I truly can’t fathom the thinking, if any, behind building a device that can handle 32GB of Ebooks, but which deliberately thwarts any attempt to organizer them! I confess I was hoping to devote my scant spare time to reading, not screwing around with some gadget!

It does have organisational capabilities, but in the form of collections (ie tags), not folders. Most reading devices have gone for tag-based organisational abilities, because they are more flexible. The same book can have many tags without needing to have multiple copies of it on the device.

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Most reading devices have gone for tag-based organisational abilities, because they are more flexible.

The definition of "flexible" here is, ahem...flexible.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

The definition of "flexible" here is, ahem...flexible.

There are pros and cons, certainly, but many people want to group their books in different ways - eg, by genre, by author, and by series. Collections give you a lot more flexibility to do that than folders do. The only thing that you really get with folders that you don't have with tags is the ability to nest them.

[Zetmolm]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The only thing that you really get with folders that you don't have with tags is the ability to nest them.

For some of us this "only thing" is crucial! I don't see how I could organize my collection of 1000's of books and keep some sort of overview without nesting folders.

The "major brands" may have gone for the tag-based structure, but luckily for me and others there are also some fine brands that have native support for folders, e.g. Onyx and PocketBook.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

The "major brands" may have gone for the tag-based structure, but luckily for me and others there are also some fine brands that have native support for folders, e.g. Onyx and PocketBook.

Absolutely. Get what's right for you. Personally, I like tags.

[wytwolf]

That's why I said your miles may vary. If they are old scans in some obscure Victorian font they may not convert well. Calibre is pretty good at converting though and it's free so it wouldn't hurt to try. My pdf's came out just fine.

[possiblyimagine]

Half of the purpose of my ereader is for reading pdfs, and here are my thoughts regarding the PRS-T1's capabilities. Basically, it is the best ereader on the market for pdfs. Compared with Kobo's Touch, the Nook Simple Touch, and the Kindle Touch, only Kobo and Sony allow for landscape mode. However, Sony's handling is different in seemingly minor ways, which turn out to have a big effect on the pdf experience. For starters, you get pinch to zoom, which is much better than zooming in with a slider and then moving to the right position (what Kobo does). Second, there are physical left right keys, which change turn the page and leave you in the same zoomed place/state you were on the previous page. (Kobo has soft buttons, which take two or three taps to access, and it takes you to the next page on the top left side, which is much more annoying. Or you can scroll to the right of the page and click a soft button, also slow.)

Perhaps a more important comparison is between the Sony Reader and any kind of tablet. The problems with the PRS-T1 are overal slowness, a small screen, and not very robust search-options (it forces you to zoom out). Also, the only way to change the orientation is via a few taps on the screen, since there is no accelerometer. The upside is that an ereader (especially Sony's) is far lighter than any tablet---even the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet---and the screen is much easier to read (though maybe this is subjective).

I have personally compared all four of these products (Kobo Touch, Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, and Sony Reader), and my personal tastes have settled on the Sony Reader. The extra functionality on the tablets is nice, but in the end, if your main focus is reading things sequentially, with a bit of jumping around to search for references and stuff, then I think the advantages lie with the ereaders. If you want to use your books as purely references, where you are flipping back and forth between pages all the time, perhaps using the search function heavily, then you might be better served by a tablet.

Those are my tastes, but you might want to actually get your hands on these devices to try them out. Amazon and Barnes and Noble have generous return policies that make this possible.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by possiblyimagine

Half of the purpose of my ereader is for reading pdfs, and here are my thoughts regarding the PRS-T1's capabilities. Basically, it is the best ereader on the market for pdfs. Compared with Kobo's Touch, the Nook Simple Touch, and the Kindle Touch, only Kobo and Sony allow for landscape mode.

I must very respectfully disagree. No 6" reader is good for PDFs. The T1 may well be the best of the bunch, but that doesn't mean that it's good. You really should be looking at 9.7" devices if reading PDFs is your main priority: the Kindle DX, Pocketbook 9xx, or Onyx M9x ranges. Any of these will be enormously better than the T1 when it comes to PDFs.

[possiblyimagine]

I also tried the Kindle DX, now that you mention it. At the time, I found that it had many limitations, including the lack of a touch screen, and the limited software (I believe there are few options for controlling zooming). It also has a fairly old and unintuitive operating system, although this is perhaps not such a big deal. Another issue, though, is the weight: the DX weighs 3 times more than the PRS-T1, and is fairly large and thick. Finally, the Kindle DX is using an older version of E-Ink technology, and the contrast is very poor, so for example, while you might think that it'd be okay to read in portrait mode, because of the size, the light contrast makes this difficult.

During the summer, when I was weighing in these considerations, I chose the Kobo Touch over the Kindle DX (after trying them both, for a good period of time). And now I think the Sony Reader Wifi is better than the Kobo Touch. But that was before the large price drop for the Kindle DX.

I tried to emphasize---although it may not have come out clearly in my first post---that in the end it comes down to taste quite a bit, and there is not really a clear choice. You'll have to decide whether you like e-ink vs lcd whether you like portability or having a large screen.

[possiblyimagine]

Today I found three more features that make pdf reading on the PRS-T1 easier. These are probably well-known, and I should have known about them, but nonetheless they slipped my notice until I decided to play around with the options, given the OPs questions.

First is the page mode feature, which will automatically go into landscape mode and zoom in to what it thinks is the width of the page. Then you can just press the right arrow and it will take you systematically down the page (i.e. like "page down" does on a computer), and then to the next page once you're at the bottom. It also has similar modes for pdfs that come in two or three columns. A bonus perk is that you *can* perform text searches while in these modes (i.e. it won't zoom out, as it does when you are in pinch-to-zoom mode). One issue is that in these modes, however, you cannot choose how much to zoom in, but instead have to reply on the preset zooms. (Crop mode doesn't fix this; it does something else.)

Second is that for pdfs that are text-based, you can actually change the font size, which will reflow the pdf and make it more like an ebook, so for instance you can make the font big enough to read in portrait mode. Of course, this fails to capture things like special formatting, equations, etc.

Third is that in the manual pinch-to-zoom mode, rather than dragging the page around once you've zoomed in, you can just tap once on any direction, and it will perform a "page down", except in the direction that you tap. In most cases, this is exactly what you want.

In addition to the features I already mentioned, these put the Sony Reader well ahead of the Kobo Touch. Furthermore, while it does take some getting used to (unlike, perhaps, with a tablet), once you get used to them you can use it quite effectively for reading straight through some text.

[RKanarek]

Thanks for the additional information!

I think that “possiblyimagine” has struck upon a point well worth emphasizing for the sake of other Ebook shoppers: quality of software and overall attention to detail are more important than mere screen size. My new eBook reader has a bigger screen than the Sony, but my reader is a *remarkably* pathetic PDF viewer due to its software.

Regarding the metadata-directory tree debate, with *all* operating systems supporting shortcuts (Windows), hard links or symbolic links (Linux, et al.), or something that could be used in to achieve a similar effect (DOS), I don’t see the advantage sorting eBooks by metadata. I also don’t see any reason whatsoever for not at least allowing the user to (also) navigate the ebooks on the device in a traditional, file based way. Surely, creating a directory viewing utility for one of these devices must be absolutely the easiest part of creating the devices themselves.

While you fine folks have made clear the eccentric (to me) way that the Sony PRS-T1 arranges files, no one has mentioned whether it can handle a large number of files efficiently and sensibly. As I mentioned, my new AluraTek Libre Color 7” seems to have a mania for v...e...r...y... s...l...o...w...l...y... scanning and rescanning its file system. How about the PRS-T1?

(In fairness to the AluraTek Libre Color -- which should not be confused with its cleverer little brother, the Libre Pro -- I *think* the Color is able to handle ePUB files satisfactorily, and it was nice being able to view an MIT OpenCourseWare video on it. Its PDF handling and file navigation are, however, absolutely atrocious.)