Sony Reader gets a 6/10 from Ars Technica

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

PDF we know is a problem.

RTF is not really a problem.

Text is not really a problem depending on how the lines are formatted.

What Sony should do to make the 500/505 a better experience is put in large friendly letters on the box... htp://www.mobileread.com/forums

And the first question is really .. "I've downloaded a lot of illegal ebooks online and they are in PDF/RTF/TXT and how do I make my illegal ebooks look good on my Sony Reader?"

My point was that the average person who came across it in Borders would not know that PDF and TXT are problems until after they got home.

And as for all the help we provide on this forum, I see it as a sign of failure on the part of Sony that we should have to do it.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by JeffB

I don't think there are any restrictions to running your own books through an OCR or scanner in order to get them into the device. The only problem with this is that it is a lot more work to copy a book than it is to copy a CD.

Leaving aside the legalities (unclear to me) of scanning/ocr'ing, it's just too much work and the end product is not that great unless you do a lot of proofing. Compare this with getting a cd, put it in the cd-rom, open your favorite ripping program, giving it the command and then relaxing until the work is done.

If a magic wand appears that will take your p-book and you stand back and relax while the book gets digitized, then we talk... I can see such a magic wand possible (you enter an identifier from your print book into say Google books and you get access to the digital version for free), but very unlikely since the trend is for the publishers to want to sell you the same content over and over again..

[coleman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

RTF is not really a problem.

Text is not really a problem depending on how the lines are formatted.

Well, they really are a problem still in that the tools to really make other formats usable on the Reader don't come with it. You have to find the tools, then learn how to use them etc.

It's beyond what most users would want to do.

It's a tough problem for Sony who needs to balance selling content with not crippling the device so much that no one would buy it at all.

[JeffB]

Originally Posted by coleman

It's a tough problem for Sony who needs to balance selling content with not crippling the device so much that no one would buy it at all.

The tools that Sony provides are meant to funnel users into the Connect store. For those of us that are on Macs or those that want some flexibility with tagging the files correctly and managing their imported content, the eBook Library software is next to useless.

They've made some minor progress with the 505 by allowing it to be mounted as a USB drive and for content to be added that way, but there really is no excuse for Sony to not hire some competent software developers to create sofware along the lines of iTunes that allows 500 and 505 owners to seamlessly manage both purchased content and imported content that they own.

[astra]

I believe that TXT and RTF are not for Joe Average anyway.
Any user who is aware of those two formats and the difference between them and how actually to find them on their own PC and transfer them to Sony reader, will be above Joe Average.
For Joe Average there is LRF format with Connect store. People who don't know what is "format", what is a difference between DOC/RTF/TXT, they will not be interested in the formats and problems associated with them anyway. It is not just Sony's problem. Cybook supports HTML...do you believe Joe Average will be able to master reading HTML formated books easily? I don't thinkl so. Joe Average will use Mobipocket.
How easy-to-use is Connect store it is another matter. I don't know. I don't use it.
The only drawback of any 6" screen reader is when they say they support PDF without any warning about "a must" to format pdf for 6" screen. Then again....maybe it just shows that I am Joe Average that I didn't know all the details about PDf being A4.....

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Actually, I will say this about the article, that it clued me to something that I must have seen a dozen times in this forum, but never registered on me: That you can turn the text 90 degrees on the screen (landscape mode). That means being able to read A4 or letter PDFs at full size, widthwise, and scrolling to get the whole page. Could the 500 do this?

Can anybody tell me how well letter or A4-sized PDFs read when the screen is in landscape? It must be clearer than when it's in portrait (standard) mode... right?

[astra]

It is clearer but still bad. Plus it doesn't divide the page properly. Bottom lines are a bit hazy, they reapper on the next half though..
Pdf2lrf does help with the problem. It removes margins and rotates it 90 degrees. It is readable after the margins are removed.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Man... couldn't even get that right...

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And the first question is really .. "I've downloaded a lot of illegal ebooks online and they are in PDF/RTF/TXT and how do I make my illegal ebooks look good on my Sony Reader?"

That's a load of crap. I had alot of "e-books" that are PDF's. These are PDF's that I bought online, or PDF versions of published books. For me they were mostly programming/reference type books. I really planned to be able to access these books on my Sony reader... prior to buying it since it "claimed" to support it.

Of course, I found different once I got the thing and tried it. Oh sure, my reader would display the PDF, but it wasn't readable.

I did keep the Sony and use it to read fiction books and still much prefer it to paper. However, I do agree the PDF "support" is really a joke. (Yes, I know there are a bunch of tools/methods to read PDFs.)

Sony other big problem is the content. There is really nothing available on the connect store unless you want to read mostly best sellers. They really need to support Mobipocket and MS Litreader DRM formats.

Of course, the ultimate would be if there were some standard eBook format similar to .MP3 for music that all readers could support and publisers would make DRM free... even with watermarking would be fine with me.

Once again to your post...

I DON'T STEAL BOOKS!!! I just want to be able to read/buy what I want to read.

You sound like Steve Balmer (I think it was) that claimed that all iPod owners were music theifs... the RIAA thinks the same thing. I have an iPod and don't even have any music on it, just freely available Podcasts and audio books that I have ripped from CD's that I have bought!

BOb

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

However, I do agree the PDF "support" is really a joke.

Actually, for anything other than print-ready content exchange, PDF is a joke. Sony is just another in a long line of people/companies who fell for it.

Pound nails with a screwdriver long enough, and people will start to think it's a hammer.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Actually, I will say this about the article, that it clued me to something that I must have seen a dozen times in this forum, but never registered on me: That you can turn the text 90 degrees on the screen (landscape mode). That means being able to read A4 or letter PDFs at full size, widthwise, and scrolling to get the whole page. Could the 500 do this??

Sure. Just hold down the size key until the mode rotates. It does make it a bit easier though still not as great for busy documents as a larger screen or a reflowable style.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Of course, the ultimate would be if there were some standard eBook format similar to .MP3 for music that all readers could support and publisers would make DRM free... even with watermarking would be fine with me.

Yup, we're all still holding out for ePub, too.

[PHugger]

This all sounds so similar to MP3 players. Regular users have no clue about the different audio formats and DRM schemes. Sony has simply followed Apple's model - make the player, build the store and publish the content. Millions love the way that particular Koolaid tastes..... (c8

As long as I'm not prevented from doing what I want to do, I'm happy. I can ignore what I'm not interested in, just like I choose to ignore the iTunes monolpoly. I give Sony kudos for making it at least as easy as an iPod.




PCH

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

It is clearer but still bad. Plus it doesn't divide the page properly. Bottom lines are a bit hazy, they reapper on the next half though..

I asked Sony about this and they told me it's definitely a "feature". I know, I find it also quite annoying. But thanks goodness there is pdflrf, the most important Sony Reader tool I got on my harddisk!

[astra]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

But thanks goodness there is pdflrf, the most important Sony Reader tool I got on my harddisk!

Agree

Just today I converted small 40 pages PDF into lrf with the help of pdflrf. Could not save it as HTML or RTF in Adobe Pro because both methods completely destroyed layout.