Gizmodo just tore the sony 600 and 300 a new one

[tompe]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I
And I've never in my life read a book in a way that made me want to scroll ahead or back by many pages at a time. Was he even reading a book? Or just trying to find excuses to trash the device?

You need to do that to see how much is left of the current chapter. At least for a paper book.

[fugazied]

Originally Posted by Crowl

Just as a matter of interest, but do many people on here actually read books the way he was describing, jumping around in them rather than reading them straight through? To me that just seems a weird way to read a book unless you were studying it or something..

For technical manuals and while studying you often have to read that way.

But yeah not an entirely fair review imo, I think the glare problem could be overcome with a simple screen overlay? Possible depending on exactly which technology the touch screen is.

But yeah the reviewer just glanced at the great features and got obsessed by glare. Reading under fluros probably affects students more than anything.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

And I've never in my life read a book in a way that made me want to scroll ahead or back by many pages at a time. Was he even reading a book? Or just trying to find excuses to trash the device?

I do it all the time with academic books.

I don't have the time or interest in many of them to read them like I would a novel.

I skim through and read the parts relevant to my own research, and highlight and annotate stuff in the margins for future reference. So being able to flip through (and write directly on the pages) is hugely important to those.

Hence why I still buy paper books for those, and print out PDFs of journal articles etc., and leave my e-books for my leisure reading.

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

the Kindle comparisons are a bit tiring...

The Kindle is the 800lbs gorilla in the room.

For better or worse, thats the device it will be compared to.

[evenstr]

Originally Posted by Ocean

The Kindle is the 800lbs gorilla in the room.

For better or worse, thats the device it will be compared to.

That's pretty much what I was going to say. Until people who aren't on the ebook bandwagon yet recognize other readers by name, Kindle is going to be the comparison point.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by John F

I don't know, right to left seems more natural, IMO. It's how I turn a page (on a book, newspaper, ...). Isn't right to left how OS X works?

Although I think I would prefer some mode where just touching the screen would advance a page, for casual reading (who needs to waist all that effort swiping).

You're right that with the right hand, a right-left swipe is the anticipated movement. Sony does not design with these things in mind...they figure it's a browser and the forward button points to the right, and the back button points to the left.

One excuse for this might be that if you drag like you are drawing a paper page back, you might expect the interface to be a little less sluggish since you'd be waiting for the visual feedback while you make the gesture.

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by Andybaby

lots of bad information. its sad.

paid by Amazon...

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Ocean

The Kindle is the 800lbs gorilla in the room.

For better or worse, thats the device it will be compared to.

That's fair enough, but the word kindle was probably used as much as punctuation was in that review, it was just lazy journalism to have done it quite that much.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by fugazied

For technical manuals and while studying you often have to read that way.

Yeah, studying or reference material clearly results in using a book differently, although to be honest I think I would still prefer that in paper form, especially if you were studying something where there would be diagrams in the books.

But yeah not an entirely fair review imo, I think the glare problem could be overcome with a simple screen overlay? Possible depending on exactly which technology the touch screen is.

The best solution is clearly to bring out an update to the 505 to round out the range.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I do it all the time with academic books.

I don't have the time or interest in many of them to read them like I would a novel.

I skim through and read the parts relevant to my own research, and highlight and annotate stuff in the margins for future reference. So being able to flip through (and write directly on the pages) is hugely important to those.

Hence why I still buy paper books for those, and print out PDFs of journal articles etc., and leave my e-books for my leisure reading.

Yes, I can see a function like being able to swap pages, searching, etc would be important for a larger screen reader, one that will be used mostly for academic books. But for a reader that is mostly geared for novels...

About the glare, there are various devices out there that have horrible glare and you won't hear people complain about that... (iphones come to mind here...)

[Lilly]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Yes, I can see a function like being able to swap pages, searching, etc would be important for a larger screen reader, one that will be used mostly for academic books. But for a reader that is mostly geared for novels...

About the glare, there are various devices out there that have horrible glare and you won't hear people complain about that... (iphones come to mind here...)

I go back and read favorite part on some of my novels. After reading the entire thing, I have a general idea were in the story I want to go back to, I use the Sony page system to skim the book. I hate that I cant do that with the Kindle.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Yes, I can see a function like being able to swap pages, searching, etc would be important for a larger screen reader, one that will be used mostly for academic books. But for a reader that is mostly geared for novels...

Well, most academic books I read are novel sized. I'm talking research related books published by other professors etc. rather than undergrad text books.

Those I get real books of since their free from the publisher when you're considering using them in your courses.

[emonti8384]

When the 700 came out I had no interest in it b/c of the screen everyone was complaining about so badly (also couldn't see it for myself as the demo model didn't work at Borders). When the 600 came out I was ready to dismiss it as well for the simple fact that it was a touch screen too. When I saw the demo version I was greatly impressed. The screen looks fine. Everything has glare on it-it does not bother me in the slightest and I read all day, all weather/light conditions, about one 700 page (on a reader) novel a day. Being a 505 owner as well, I love my 600!

As far as price goes, less than a year ago (actually, in March 2009) I bought my 505 and paid...$300. I think for the price and all that it offers it's a good deal. It's funny too, when everyone sees me with my reader, no matter if it's the 505 or the 600, the first thing they say...

"Is that a Kindle? Those things are sooo neat!"

It's annoying...why compare the Sony to the Kindle when the Kindle has its faults too? I could see if the Kindle were far superior than all the other readers, including Sony, but obviously that's not the case. What a crappy review.

Luckily to get the opinions that really matter on the subject we have MR Cruising the forums is what helped me make my decision in the first place, not the reviews.

[dmaul1114]

People don't say "Is that a Kindle?" to compare. It's just the Brand name is ubiquitous with e-reader in the general public to some extent due to Amazon's market.

Just like some people call all MP3 players iPods etc.

[emonti8384]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

People don't say "Is that a Kindle?" to compare. It's just the Brand name is ubiquitous with e-reader in the general public to some extent due to Amazon's market.

Just like some people call all MP3 players iPods etc.

Yeah, that's true. The publicity surrounding the Kindle is much higher and waaayyyy more well known than any of the other readers.
Doesn't make it any less annoying, lol!