PRS-950 Is the sony daily edition worthless?

[digital_steve]

I'll still take it

[vxf]

A number of your complaints are actually due to how unfriendly the user interface on SONY readers is, rather than to a true lack of features. It's not your fault - I think everyone who have ever used a SONY reader has been frustrated and disappointed until they finally figured out that things could be done... just not in an intuitive manner.

Really, sometimes you have to wonder, did they really try to make this thing as complicated as possible?

The highlighting/bookmarking thing is one lots of people miss.

The fact that you can turn the device off by using the sleep slide-button (just hold it there longer) was lost to me and I was upset about having to go through multiple screens to turn it off.

Or the fact that you can select a page to jump to by tapping the bar at the bottom of the screen...


Some things you mentioned...

1) Sync. Don't use it. It is difficult to setup correctly. Turn the synch off and just drag-and-drop documents. It's actually faster and it works correctly, without overwriting stuff. The problem with the synch is that, for some reason, it always wants to overwrite content on your reader with the content from your PC. Which means, if you have notes on the reader, they get overwritten. If you drag, it will transfer those over - and if you already have an annotated version of the same file on the reader, the notes will be merged.

2) Not sure I get the Goggle reader comments. Are you talking about some software I don't know of or about getting books from google books? Because you can get books from google books, but only over WiFi, not over 3g. Open the store when connected in wifi, or access the store from your PC. But no, SONY does not support apps. of any form.

3) WIFI is hit or miss. Something is wrong there, I agree. I can connect to some WiFi networks, on others is just hangs on 'connecting'. Sometimes, turning the device off (not putting it into sleep mode... turning it off) fixes it.

4) Yes, 3g is only meant for purchases (accessing the store) and for delivery of subscription content. I don't complain, it's a free connection... But I do think SONY should be more honest when it comes to marketing. I think a lot of people assume they will be able to browse the web over 3g (sure, a bit of research will clear that up, but SONY certainly seems to like the ambiguity). And the web browser is pathetic, I agree. I am personally happy - the 950 is for me an upgrade on the 900 and I just wanted the better screen, so the web browser or wifi were completely irrelevant and I have not been disappointed. But I can see how other users with different priorities will be.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Syncing works fine for me. Guess I'm in the minority of people who prefer to use the Sony software. Make sure you select to merge your notes in preferences, which is what prevents them from being overwritten.

[kartu]

Originally Posted by zylvere

All of these things make what was at first sight the excellent product ...

To me, only the part about the zoom is fair, but as far as I understand even with weird decisions by whoever is managing requirements for sony readers, it's PDF viewer is the best on the market. (and zoom thingy will probably get fixed if not by Sony, then by hacks)

950 allows me to do unthinkable: read complex A4 PDFs.

[ShaneR]

Originally Posted by vxf

The highlighting/bookmarking thing is one lots of people miss.

I've only been an owner of a 650 for a few days (first ereader as well), and I have to say that I can see why the above is true.

I figured out how to do highlighting, bookmarking, and adding notes to each easily enough, but the process was so cumbersome I read the manual, and elsewhere, as I assumed I was doing it the hard way.

Turns out that, nope, the hard way is the only way.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great feature and I'll make use of it quite often. The steps are easy if not intuitive, but there are too many steps for adding, as an example, a note to a highlighted piece of text. I can't help but think that there must be an easier way they could design this into the interface.

[grooks]

There are two ways (that I know of) to highlight text and add a note to this highlighted text. I would agree that the easy method of highlighting and note taking is not intuitive but once learned it is very simple with as few steps as possible. It takes 2 steps to highlight the text, then 2 simple taps on the touch screen to take you to the note taking keyboard.

The longer method does require 6 or 7 steps to take a note.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by ShaneR

I've only been an owner of a 650 for a few days (first ereader as well), and I have to say that I can see why the above is true.

I figured out how to do highlighting, bookmarking, and adding notes to each easily enough, but the process was so cumbersome I read the manual, and elsewhere, as I assumed I was doing it the hard way.

Turns out that, nope, the hard way is the only way.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great feature and I'll make use of it quite often. The steps are easy if not intuitive, but there are too many steps for adding, as an example, a note to a highlighted piece of text. I can't help but think that there must be an easier way they could design this into the interface.

Double tap a word to highlight it, then tap on it again to add a note... very simple and quick once you figure that out...

[patomonk]

I don't think that anyone has cleared up this point, but concerning the zoom on pdfs, all that needs to be done after you have zoomed it to the desired size is to hit the lock tab that appears at the top of the page and it will lock the zoom at that level when you turn the page. Hit unlock to adjust the zoom or the x to get rid of the zoom. Presto

It has by far the best handling of pdfs on any ereader that I have seen. My friend just took all of his pdfs off of his kindle because they were such a pain to view due to the zoom on the kindle being basically worthless, because the levels that they give you to choose from practically never match up with what you want to view.

I am still having problems with connecting, not at home, but at some of my friends places, but as far as pure reading goes...for me it is the best on the market! I love how easy it is to highlight, look up words in the dictionary, view footnotes, etc., all with the touch of a finger! And I think that the screen size is just right.

[doreenjoy]

I suspect the problem you're having while synching to the Reader Software is a missing or corrupted ebook file. You migth go through your Library listings to see if every book listed in the software can open on the computer.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kartu

... (and zoom thingy will probably get fixed if not by Sony, then by hacks)

@kartu,

This statement has piqued my interest. When I see the words 'Sony' and 'hack' in the same sentence, I think of you, kartu. (I'm a happy user of PRS+ on my 505)

Do you think the "PDF zoom thingy" is something you, personally, will be able to fix on the PRS-x50 models? Pretty please.

[ShaneR]

Originally Posted by vxf

Double tap a word to highlight it, then tap on it again to add a note... very simple and quick once you figure that out...

You'd think so, but not on the 650. You need to:

1) Double tap. This brings up the dictionary window.

2) Tap the "highlight" icon in that window.

3) Tap the highlighted word.

4) Tap either "by Drawing" or "By Keyboard".

As I said above: Simple, but unintuitive steps.

If I were to fix it, I'd have a double tap of a word to bring up the dictionary and a double tap + slide to highlight only.

[viviena]

Originally Posted by ShaneR

If I were to fix it, I'd have a double tap of a word to bring up the dictionary and a double tap + slide to highlight only.

I agree the quickest method is unintuitive, but it's simple and fairly quick once one gets the hang of it. Double-tap and slide to auto-highlight seems too error prone unless you would suggest a 'do you want to highlight this?' confirmation button also, which then defeats the purpose. I could see how your proposal would save time if you want to highlight a single word, but I tend to highlight phrases or entire sentences, and sometimes my first double-tap and drag attempt is off. I would be bothered if Sony ever took an interest in releasing updated firmware and introduced such a change.

[kartu]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Do you think the "PDF zoom thingy" is something you, personally, will be able to fix on the PRS-x50 models? Pretty please.

I'm going (some time end Feb - March if all goes well) to try the following:
1) "where was I" after scrolling - a thin line to show you where the previous page ends. I think the chances that I succeed with this are about 80%.
2) Find a way to let user to actually cut left/right margins. This will be tricky as affected functions are huge and code messy. Chances are a bit above 50%.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kartu

I'm going (some time end Feb - March if all goes well) to try the following:
1) "where was I" after scrolling - a thin line to show you where the previous page ends. I think the chances that I succeed with this are about 80%.
2) Find a way to let user to actually cut left/right margins. This will be tricky as affected functions are huge and code messy. Chances are a bit above 50%.

Well, good luck. Hope you succeed.

[Rick1971]

I will address this for you

2. Syncing - What? I plug it in and it will sit for hours saying "do not disconnect". The fix for this is to eject it in the reader library application, but that sounds inefficient. Also, the syncing program logic seems like it was planned out and then untested. Processes usually do not finish and you have to cancel them and reconnect in order to fix it.

close the software (Reader Library), that is why it says that...

at least on mine it works that way, but heck I will take it off your hands