Help, what reader?

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by delphin

Sorry, that is not correct. External 3rd party Android Apps are able to do landscape just fine.

Here's a video showing early results with a number of 3rd party Android PDF Apps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayAcdHuI5hw

Thanks,

I was not aware of that, like I explained on my post.

However, you need to root the device, which I don't agree with. Why buy something that does not work out of the box? Also, it is third party app. that you need to buy or pay (Kindle and Sony does that for free, plus is a capability that it is fully implemented and supported)

Also, does not look like run "just fine", scrolling looks really slow, at least on that video you posted.

I don't think different now. When I tested the Nook Touch I was excited, because I was expecting that feature out of the box.

Granted, good for those who still prefer the touch capabilities and can't afford a Sony, or prefer B&N.

[delphin]

jocampo@

I agree that the availability of 3rd party apps is no excuse for B&N not to fix some of the issues with their built in PDF reader. On the other hand, when handling EPUBs the Nook STR does things that you have to hack the Sony to [poorly] duplicate, so it cuts both ways.

In any case, I have no moral objection to hacking my reader if it can be made to work better.

I am typing this on a Netbook running Linux, which works better and more reliably than the cripple-ware version of Window 7 that it came with.

I do have several practical concerns though about hacking eReader devices.

I don't like hacking my Sony because it's not too hard to get it into a state were future updates from Sony may not work, or other strange unrecoverable problems may occur. You can even turn it into a completely unrecoverable 'brick' fairly easily if you get in and start hacking the underlying Linux OS.

This is because Sony STUPIDLY made hacking their PRS-x50 series MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more risky compared to their older 505 series devices.

The earlier Sony 505s had near bulletproof emergency software reload and recovery, but if such a thing is even possible for their PRS-x50, it would appear that even Sony support doesn't seem to know about how to do it.

The author of PRS+ went out of his way to put in a low-level emergency way to disable all the PRS+ hacks at startup to try to get around the fundamental issue that if you crash the new Sonys good and hard, they will refuse to do ANYTHING (even let you re-load firmware to recover from the error). Again, this was MONUMENTALLY STUPID, and is actually a step backwards (you could always force a firmware reload on the earlier 505 series Sony devices).

By way of comparison, B&N seems to have WISELY made choices which make hacking the Nook STR fairly safe. This was done by simply insuring that the device can always reboot and reload factory recovery code from the SD card. So fixing a 'bricked' Nook STR involves simply putting a recovery card in the SD slot and rebooting the device.

Fixing a 'bricked' Sony PRS-x50 involves shipping it off to Sony and hoping that they will replace it (something they will flatly refuse to do if they find out you were 'hacking' it).

The fact that you have to pay for some of the more sophisticated commercial apps for the Nook is made a little more palatable by the fact that they typically only cost a couple bucks.

Which would you rather do, pay someone a buck or two for ezPDF and have a portable PDF viewer that can do things your Sony can only dream of (like being able to save PDF annotations right into the PDF file) or pay Sony a ninety to hundred dollar premium and NOT have those features?

As to your comment about Sony and Kindle having software that already works, and providing FREE UPDATES for the things that don't - believe me, update wise, you pretty much get what you pay for, which is to say - pretty much NOTHING.

When the Kindles3 was introduced, I was very disappointed to find that it's built in MP3 player was pretty much USELESS - and guess what? After Kindle's recent update, IT'S STILL USELESS (you can't even select your background music tracks).

And though I would admit that the Sony models have above average software that is fairly bug free, this is really fortunate, because when it comes to updating their software to add features or respond to users, they are just horrible. When I purchased my Sony, I was disappointed to find that, unlike the newer Nook and Kobo models, the Sony is the ONLY major player with an EPUB reader that doesn't let the user select fonts - and guess what? After Sony's recent update, YOU STILL CAN'T SELECT FONTS.

Sony does updates on a willy-nilly-almost-never schedule that corresponds roughly to providing updates during alternate Mayan leap years (the Mayan calender runs in cycles of 144,000 days or about 394.3 years [and has no leap years] - so don't hold your breath.)

There are ways to hack the Sony to add additional font options, but none are very convenient and, as I said above, Sony makes hacking the device much more of a pain than it should be.

I can heartily recommend the little PRS-350 as an incredibly nice little eReader in an amazingly compact package (if you can find one at a reasonable price), but in the case of the Sonys, expandability through 3rd party software is pretty limited, and is not really their strong suit.

With the Nook STR and Nook Color, their Android OS opens up a lot of other options, and I think it's only fair to point this out.