More bells and whistles for Sony readers

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by harrynewman

I just don't get it. These things are supposed to represent a book as closely as possible.

No these are electronic reading devices and as such should not be limited to what a book looks like. I won't pay this much for an ereader if I wasn't able to adjust the book to be easily viewed the way I want to see it.

What I don't get is how people can be so limited in their vision that they fail to comprehend the goal is not to make the ereader as rigid as a book. Books we already have in abundance. An ereader offers so much more and as an ereader should maximize the flexibility of viewing, not restrict the viewing experience.

Originally Posted by harrynewman

When was the last time you picked up a paperback that wasn't fully justified?

And that is relevant how? I am not reading a book.

My device is a typical 6 inch reader. I'm 51 and I use large fonts to avoid wearing reading glasses, I hate reading in bed with glasses. Each screen has 12 lines of text with 4-6 words per line. When these screens are seen in full justification the gaps between the words hinder the flow of reading.

Originally Posted by harrynewman

Your Sony is broken, and should have been fixed.

My 505 out of the box was a device used primarily to read LRF files. The default was full justification without an easy option to change to left justification. A simple hack eventually came out that allowed us to change the LRF reader to left justification. When the firmware was upgraded to allow epub viewing the default was Left justification with no way (easy or otherwise) to change the output to full justification.

Neither of these viewers are broken, they are what they are. I think every device should have an option in settings that forces full or left justification as the user sees fit to use. Even my very basic Jetbook Lite has that basic setting for selecting left or full justification.

If you have a reader that is stuck with full justification, your device isn't broken but it is limited in a way that an ereader should not be limited. Any future ereader that restricts its user to one or the other will lose sales because of this limited thinking.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

No these are electronic reading devices and as such should not be limited to what a book looks like.

...

My device is a typical 6 inch reader. I'm 51 and I use large fonts to avoid wearing reading glasses, I hate reading in bed with glasses. Each screen has 12 lines of text with 4-6 words per line. When these screens are seen in full justification the gaps between the words hinder the flow of reading.

One of the things I love about the reader is the ability to not be limited to what the book is like. If I want a larger font (I'm quickly approaching my 50th birthday), I can have one. If I'm in a well-lit area and my eyes aren't tired, I can switch back to the smaller font (so I'm not stuck reading large-print books that remind me of the old "Run, Jane, run" books from my childhood!)

I love that if I prefer a san-serif font (which I do), I can switch it (with a little work - it's easier on the Cybook I used to have). I wish Sony would allow for user defined fonts without hacking.

And like dwanthny, I find the large gaps in fully justified ebooks (which are not generally obvious in print books which are fine-tuned to make the words fit better without obvious gaps) more distracting that left-justified text.

So to me, the ability to choose justification would be the best option. For those who prefer - or just insist that ebooks "look like real books" - they can choose full justification. For those who prefer differently, we can choose left justification.