Sony or Nook Touch

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by ST-One

It would be very nice if this would work with the Nook too.

Still, how does a person that doesn't use Calibre or any other library programme sort their books on their Sony?
Is that, the actual sorting on the device that different than on the Nook?

The books come with tags when you buy them, such as crime or romance and the Sony automatically puts them into collections. Because the Sony opens as many collections up as there are tags it depends on the publisher and where you bought the book at, how ridiculous it is going to be. These are the tags one book came with for example:

opium, boston irish, nell sweeney, gilded age, boston, mystery, governess historical mystery, 19th century mystery, governess mystery, boston history

This is just a mystery about an Irish governess in Boston. Now the Sony would open a collection for governess and another one for mystery, then a third one governess mystery and so on.

You can manually change the collections or delete or rename them. But this is faster and easier done with a library programm. This is why most of us use Calibre.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by delphin

This brings up a good point though, that I think may weigh in B&N's favor with some people, which is that B&N now has both a Android based Touch Screen eInk device -AND- a Android based touch screen TFT LCD tablet device.

I know several folks who actually prefer to use a backlit LCD tablet for reading indoors, especially with magazines or other periodicals, and to also have an eInk device for reading outdoors.

One can do that with other devices too, though. Eg, I have both an eInk Kindle, and an iPad on which (among other things) I run the Kindle app. The two will seamlessly sync.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

The books come with tags when you buy them, such as crime or romance and the Sony automatically puts them into collections. ...

When you say "Sony", you really mean Calibre. I don't see any special attention paid to tags when I only use the Sony software.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by John F

When you say "Sony", you really mean Calibre. I don't see any special attention paid to tags when I only use the Sony software.

Sorry, haven't encountered that situation. Are you saying that when you drag and drop a book to a Sony Reader directly, without using Calibre at all, the Sony takes no notice of ID tags in terms of creating new collections and/or including the books in others?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Sorry, haven't encountered that situation. Are you saying that when you drag and drop a book to a Sony Reader directly, without using Calibre at all, the Sony takes no notice of ID tags in terms of creating new collections and/or including the books in others?

Those tags are not a part of the book; they are fetched from somewhere (I'm not sure where) by Calibre.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Sorry, haven't encountered that situation. Are you saying that when you drag and drop a book to a Sony Reader directly, without using Calibre at all, the Sony takes no notice of ID tags in terms of creating new collections and/or including the books in others?

Yes. I put one tag on a book and I had the book in a series, using Calibre. I exited Calibre. I tried dragging directly using File Explorer, no collection(s) were created. I tried the Reader Library, no collection(s) was created in the desktop app or on the device.

The only place I think I see the "tag" is in when I selected book info on the device (I think the Sony calls it a Category on the info page).

This was done with a Sony 505. I don't think the newer Sonies behave any differently.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by John F

Yes. I put one tag on a book and I had the book in a series, using Calibre. I exited Calibre. I tried dragging directly using File Explorer, no collection(s) were created. I tried the Reader Library, no collection(s) was created in the desktop app or on the device.

The only place I think I see the "tag" is in when I selected book info on the device (I think the Sony calls it a Category on the info page).

This was done with a Sony 505. I don't think the newer Sonies behave any differently.

I haven't yet tried to see if the tags work with the drag and drop method on my new Sony 350, but I can create collections directly on the device now, which is nice.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Yes, we can create Sony collections on the fly and that's good. However, if I'm trying to create a unified approach to collections and use the id tag method primarily, introducing another formatting process to achieve the same result can create inconsistencies of which it's too easy to lose track (for me, at least).

Whereas I find manual collections to be mandatory on the kindle. Otherwise, navigation becomes a sprawling mess, since you don't have the same view options you do on the Sony.

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Whereas I find manual collections to be mandatory on the kindle. Otherwise, navigation becomes a sprawling mess, since you don't have the same view options you do on the Sony.

So, good on the Kindle - bad on the Nook?

[SocialCarpet]

Originally Posted by mcooke66

This just sounds to me like B&N bashing. I have the new nook and not only is it very responsive the form factor is one of the best things about it...

Sorry, didn't mean it to sound that way. It's really personal preference more than anything. I think most of the e-readers are more alike than they are different.

I wanted to like the new nook, I went into B&N ready to buy one actually. But a few minutes of using it convinced me it wasn't for me. For one thing, why make a small e-reader and then make it needlessly wide with a huge bezel so it's uncomfortable to hold with one hand? To me, it feels too small for two hands and too wide for one.

The touch screen was nice, but the Sony was far more responsive, again just MHO.

The buttons the Nook did have were super stiff. Didn't like that either.

There are things I don't like about the Sony too, and the Kindle, but for me ergonomics are key, if I pick a device up and it just feels clunky/wrong from the beginning, it's hard for me to get past that.

The Sony gets the ergonomics right IMO. Fits beautifully in one hand, no ridiculously wide bezel.

On the downside, Sony's software is atrocious and of course with the PRS-350 you get no WiFi, the nook is going to be way easier to buy books on and for a lot of people that will be a deal breaker.

All that said, for me, the Sony is perfect. Ergonomics and the interface are far better than my Kindle (IMO) and I'm enjoying being free of Amazon honestly. With Calibre I'm free of the Sony software for the most part too. I'd say the E-350 is worth the $170 they ask and at the $120 BestBuy sold it to me at, it's a steal.

If B&N refines the new small nook further and narrows it down and maybe improves the touch screen, I'd definitely take another look at it further down the road. I'm not blindly faithful to any one brand.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

The books come with tags when you buy them, such as crime or romance and the Sony automatically puts them into collections. Because the Sony opens as many collections up as there are tags it depends on the publisher and where you bought the book at, how ridiculous it is going to be. These are the tags one book came with for example:

opium, boston irish, nell sweeney, gilded age, boston, mystery, governess historical mystery, 19th century mystery, governess mystery, boston history

This is just a mystery about an Irish governess in Boston. Now the Sony would open a collection for governess and another one for mystery, then a third one governess mystery and so on.

You can manually change the collections or delete or rename them. But this is faster and easier done with a library programm. This is why most of us use Calibre.

Originally Posted by John F

When you say "Sony", you really mean Calibre. I don't see any special attention paid to tags when I only use the Sony software.

No, I don't. I mean what I say. Please refer from twisting my words or trying to "interpret" me. I am fully capabable of saying precisely what I want to say.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

No, I don't. I mean what I say. Please refer from twisting my words or trying to "interpret" me. I am fully capabable of saying precisely what I want to say.

My apologies, I didn't mean anything by it. I do not see the behavior that you do. I've never had collections "automatically" generated (either buy my Sony 505, or by the Reader Library) when I purchased a book through Sony. Is there some option I need to enable to have this done?

[Poppaea]

This would imply one has to make the collections by hand or would be forced by Sony to use a 3rd party software like Calibre. Which is nonsense. I don't know when you have used the RL or which (old) version of it, but it does make collections automatically. And it does so rather annoyingly IMO as I said before as it values the publishers tags.

This was my reason to enable the sync, as I always ended up with stupid collections like: "Vivisection in Boston" or "Followed by a pig in Chinatown"

[John F]

I'm using version 3.3.00.07130. What version are you using? The last time I purchased some books from Sony was in Sept, 2010. I use it for side loaded content quite a bit.

I normally use it (Reader Library) for LRF, but I just tried loading an EPub that was generated through Calibre (and had a tag on it), and NO collection was generated in Read Library.

What version of the the Reader Library are you using? Do you use it with ebooks generated through Calibre?

Is anyone else seeing generation of Collections based on tags using the Reader Library?

Sorry for sidetracking the thread.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by John F

I'm using version 3.3.00.07130. What version are you using? The last time I purchased some books from Sony was in Sept, 2010. I use it for side loaded content quite a bit.

I normally use it (Reader Library) for LRF, but I just tried loading an EPub that was generated through Calibre (and had a tag on it), and NO collection was generated in Read Library.

What version of the the Reader Library are you using? Do you use it with ebooks generated through Calibre?

Is anyone else seeing generation of Collections based on tags using the Reader Library?

Sorry for sidetracking the thread.

I am totally confused now. Either you are right and I mixed it up with Calibre or I disabled the function so thoroughly I am not able to recreate this.

Sorry. Let's assume you are right.