Taken the plunge - ordered a 700

[warriorscot]

You need to authorise the reader with the sony library software if you want to use the .lrf format for books which I have for some things because the conversion software to .lrf seems to be more mature and the reader seems to like it better but that may just be me.

I usually leave it on unless I am not going back to it as it doesn't really draw a great deal of power. But I do turn it off if the light is on or music as that does drain it.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by tarq

Well what a wonderful piece of kit!

I've put word doc's, pdf doc's, and a large audio book (on 8Gb SD card) on it and it found them all.

The audio I had to drag & drop, couldn't see a way with Calibre, it still found it.

Sneeked into hubbie's darkroom to try light, it's great & shouldn't disturb him at night!

A question, do peeps switch it off when not using for a few hours, or just leave it on. I see it goes into standby after an hour, but thought better to switch off to conserve battery?
Or maybe it uses more power to turn back on.

Off to play some more.

it is brilliant isn't it ? glad you're having so much fun.

i usually do switch it off when i stop reading because it's actually just in sleep mode so it comes back on instantly. i've never done a full shut down of it which requires a longer startup afterwards. the sleep mode doesn't consume much power, so it doesn't seem to be much of a problem for battery life.

warriorscot, just a detail, you only need to use the sony software *if* you plan to shop at the sony store. however you can use calibre (or just the file explorer) to drag and drop regular lrf files onto the device. lrf is the sony proprietary format with no drm ; the sony store sells lrx, which is the sony proprietary format *with* drm.

[warriorscot]

From experience the lrf even without drm wont work without activation on my new PRS-700UC that I got from the US. Whether its peculiar to my device or just a slight difference in the base firmware I don't know but until it was activated it didn't see any .lrf drm or no and after activation they popped up clear as day and were readable. So draw your own conclusions but based on experience with sony Im going with a slight change in the factory firmware on some models that have altered the activation to get people to do it.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by warriorscot

From experience the lrf even without drm wont work without activation on my new PRS-700UC that I got from the US. Whether its peculiar to my device or just a slight difference in the base firmware I don't know but until it was activated it didn't see any .lrf drm or no and after activation they popped up clear as day and were readable. So draw your own conclusions but based on experience with sony Im going with a slight change in the factory firmware on some models that have altered the activation to get people to do it.

hm, that's odd, i've not heard of that happening before. when did you buy your device ? can you tell us what firmware version you have ?

mine is not activated (i installed the software but didn't register my device) and i've had no trouble reading non-drm lrf books, although it's not my format of choice. i refuse to buy drm lrx books, so i've never had a reason to authorise the 700 / test how they work. i don't use the sony software for much of anything, really, apart from occasionally checking what a book will look like before transferring it.

[warriorscot]

Not sure of the firmware version, will check after the reader is done with its transfer(so slow). I just got it on Thursday last and the supplier had them in about a week before that so its not old stock. Might just be mine or that batch its been a bit of a PITA which may be a firmware issue and I haven't seen any updates for the firmware for it or even the files to reload the firmware for the 700 just the older models.

I don't plan on buying DRM books, I buy no other media with DRM and Im certainly not getting books with it. I was pretty annoyed at having to activate it to use non DRM file format but thats what it took and its done now(was REALLY difficult to get the software running). Most of my stuff is in a mix of pdf,epub,lit and txt so at the moment everything is getting transfered to either epub or lrf. The lrf stuff so far seems easier on the eye and reader so I might use it exclusively but converting some of my lit files is tricky as calibre doesn't like them but Im soldiering on and in no rush as I have plenty to read.

Curious about where the OP got it, in the UK as will and got mine for digitalNaccesories how about you?

[tarq]

Another question, do peeps recharge when battery is flat or keep 'topping up' when a couple of bars on the scale are empty?

I was having a browse around last night looking for a particular new book, I can get it in P/b on Amazon.co.uk for £5, but not e-book. Amazon.com have it both p/b and kindle version, about the same price. Diesel have it in e-book, 'abode digital edition' is this the right format? I usually buy 'Palm' format, but these don't wor'k on the Sony, drm protected I think. Mind you I last bought a book for the Palm over 5 years ago!

It makes me wonder why a book is sold in p/b in Uk, but not ebook, you'd think they'd want as many sales as possible. I'll probably wait a while, before buying any new books, until I get more used to it.

Hi warriorscot, got mine from 'Bitesize' which I found out after I'd ordered was US based.

Took 27 days from order to receiving. I was concerned when I read a load of bad reports about them on a camera site. I think they must take orders then source the stock.

It seems to work fine, they even included a us-uk 3 pin plug, what for I don't know!

[Wetdogeared]

Originally Posted by tarq

Another question, do peeps recharge when battery is flat or keep 'topping up' when a couple of bars on the scale are empty?...

There has been a lot of discussion on how to extend the life of the lithium ion battery. Here is just one of them: Lithium-Ion battery care. The last post in this thread by Andybaby seems to sum up the best answer.

I never deplete my battery. I usually recharge when a couple of bars are empty.

[tarq]

Thanks Wetdogeared.

Another thought I had, as I bought the 700 and am in the UK, on the Sony site do I register it as in Uk or US?

I wasn't going to bother registering it, but I gave in to the temptation and bought the ebook I was looking for from 'Books on board' UK site. When I registered with them they offered a promotion of 27% off, so I couldn't resist at £3.57p.

I've d/l loaded it and can read it with 'adobe digital' on the laptop, but need to get it onto the reader. There doesn't seem to be way of doing that without registering with Sony.

Or am I missing something?

[Wetdogeared]

Originally Posted by tarq

Thanks Wetdogeared.

Another thought I had, as I bought the 700 and am in the UK, on the Sony site do I register it as in Uk or US?

I wasn't going to bother registering it, but I gave in to the temptation and bought the ebook I was looking for from 'Books on board' UK site. When I registered with them they offered a promotion of 27% off, so I couldn't resist at £3.57p.

I've d/l loaded it and can read it with 'adobe digital' on the laptop, but need to get it onto the reader. There doesn't seem to be way of doing that without registering with Sony.

Or am I missing something?

A few questions:

• What format is the eBook (ie. ePUB? or .pdf)?
• Have you created an Adobe ID?
• Have you authorized your computer with this Adobe ID?
• Have you authorized your reader with this Adobe ID?

If you have done all of the above, you can import the eBook into the ADE library, connect your reader and copy to the device. You shouldn't need to authorize with SONY unless you need to purchase Books from the eBook Store that are in .lrx drm'd format.

WDE.

[tarq]

Thank you so much Wetdogeared, managed to copy it.

The only problem was it said 'don't disconnect' for 2 hrs!

Anyway I shut down lappie and then disconnected sony and the book is on the sd card & reader, belts & braces me!

I am able to read either version, so it seems to have got it ok.

Also during my investigating I found that Harlequin have an offer of free ebooks at the mo.
If anyone likes soppy romance, etc. worth a look.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post the link, but can do if it's ok to.

[warriorscot]

I was just about to order from bitesize and then I got a niggling feeling so stopped to read some reviews then changed my mind after reading them. Ordered it via ebay from one of the sellers and it arrived 7 days later most of which was spent in customs here in the UK at the parcelfarce hub. It was a wee bit cheaper on ebay too so was a plus.

I haven't had to buy books yet. I got a whole tonne of books online from newsgroups and a few sites I found while researching readers. Mostly thrillers and sci-fi.fantasy stuff but there was plenty I didn't recognise. Just finished the whole true blood series(I like the TV show) and I found the whole series and it was all in pdf or lrf. And I have like 200 books to read and I haven't even had a total rake of gutenberg yet just grabbed the stuff I know I like.

I kind of wish my local area had an online library I would happily put up with DRM to use it.

Li-on you keep fully charged. Personally I always prefered Ni-cad batteries as the overall battery life was only a little less but if you used two batteries and rotated them you got a huge lifetime out of them. Got a sony CD player(the really really small one) and did that before I gave out and got a HDD based player.

The firmware on mine is apparently 1.0.01.12050 don't know if thats what everyone else has.

When it says don't disconnect its usually not something it turns off in my experience you just need to pull it or if you want eject it from the windows hardware menu.

I would really recommend book designer, so far book designer and basic drag and drop is turning out to be the most reliable method of getting stuff onto the reader and having the reader be able to read it and look good. Also if you have .lit files to convert it is a must because calibre doesn't seem to like some .lit files no idea why.

Also amazon has a seller that sells a psp charger for under a fiver that works great with the reader.

[tarq]

Well another week with this amazing device. I love it, it copes with everything I throw at it!

Bought it a 'cheapie' psp mains charger & that works fine, can also use it while it's charging as well, bonus.

D/l'd a couple of free books from the Sony site and dragged & dropped onto my SD card. The reader found them ok, so I haven't bothered to actually register the reader with them, just an account for my laptop.

I'm having so much fun with this, catching up on things I've been meaning to read for ages, but have not been in the right place with the right documents. Now I can put so much on it, it's so handy to know everything is where I want it.

It's rarely out of my sight!

[Journier]

That's what I do. I just save docs as text documents and then open my documents list from my hard drive simultaneously with my 505 or 700. I then drag and drop from my document file to my device. If I have problems with that method or do not want the whole document which is displayed, I will copy and paste to a word doc and then save it as a txt or rtf doc, both of which are supported by both my Sony devices. There's a lot of ebook sites which offer books in formats supported by the 505 and 700 as well. Hope this helps and I hope you really enjoy your reader. I love mine.
Richard