Sony or iRiver?

[Mike_73]

Hey Mac, great post and good opinions/findings. I like the underdog thingy. Instead of an Ipod, I bought a Zune BTW, I'm still happy with that. It's a great mp3 player IMO.

You're certainly right when it comes down to costs for reading. It really is the most expensive way to read books. So I think one has to be some kind of geek. But who cares.

I doubt that tablets will be "the devices" for all. I don't need flash and email on my reader. Instead, I love that my reader is not capable to do that. I mean it still resembles a book.

There may be the day where all gadgets will be combined as one little "do-it-all" toy, but I guess there are still enough people out there loving dedicated devices, just doing one thing right.

I think you guys just want an ereader. You could also use a netbook. Well, I could have used my laptop. Meanwhile I own my 2nd ereader, and comes time, I will be back in the market for a new toy which doesn't have flash. If I want to read, I want to read. Just not with the musty smell and a little more geekish

From what I read I still think the Iriver makes a great book. I loved the looks, too, but could only get it online (which is partly why I bought the Sony).

I would say, If you want an ebook, go out and get one. It's great. Really expensive, but great....

[Traye]

I now have an iriver story, and I bit the bullet and just bought a Sony 505 from ebay. I've used the iriver and I like it.
It's my first reader though so I'll be able to compare when the Sony arrives.

[Mike_73]

Let me know how the two compare. I'm really interested.
I'll be back in the market once there are 8" or above readers or color readers out there. Whatever comes first.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Mike_73

You're certainly right when it comes down to costs for reading. It really is the most expensive way to read books. So I think one has to be some kind of geek. But who cares.

I have to agree. The most expensive way to watch free TV shows is to pay for cable or satellite service... but people do it.

Buying an eBook reader is NOT about saving money on reading. Anyone that has that on their list of reasons should scratch it off. If you still want to buy a reader with that off your list... go for it.

BOb

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

I personally like the support the Story gives to reflowable formats like DOC and ePub, because I've read it doesn't reflow PDFs -- so you're stuck with either reading them at the size and shape they were formatted for, or else zooming and manually panning all over the page, which is pretty clumsy. And I've read the Story does some inscrutable things with displaying TXT files -- breaking lines of text mid-screen for no apparent reason

My Story does reflow PDFs OK.

I can't speak for early versions, but the reflowing works fine on my PDFs - provided they were formatted in a suitable way in the first place.

The trouble with reading anecdotal reports on the internet is that it's not always possible to tell whether the poster knew what they were looking at. If I turn reflow on (it's in the Options section) then it reflows text based PDFs just fine and gives a range of zoom options to change the text size. However, if the text in the PDF has been scanned in page by page as a picture then of course the words won't reflow. Similarly, if the document has a mixture of text and embedded pictures then it will struggle to give you a perfect outcome. As far as I know, that's likely to be a problem with most readers that try to cope with documents that were formatted to be read at a bigger size.

Many of the free books also seem to be formatted with a line break (carriage return) at the end of every line. Zooming on these will also cause the lines to fragment above a certain zoom level. Again, this isn't the fault of the reader, and it will do the same in Word for instance.

That's the way I see it. But, hey, I might be wrong too.....

Cheers,

Chris

[MacEachaidh]

Mike_73,
Thanks for the comments, and yeah, I am a geek, and happy to embrace my geek-ness. I want to buy an e.Reader. Apart from anything else at all, I love the feel of holding a book in my hand and physically reading from it, something that a laptop or tablet PC will never be able to replicate. (Sorry, Steve Jobs.) The e.readers I've seen approximate that in dimension and weight (well, a first-release larger-format paperback, maybe), which for me adds to their appeal.

In response to what you and pilotbob said (thanks for your comments, pb), yeah, it is an expensive way to go, and I agree there's no point in doing it *and* whingeing about the cost -- I know we've got to do it and shut up, or find another option (and another forum!). And I realise that over time it will actually work out cheaper than buying physical printed books, which in my country at least (I'm not sure where everyone on this forum is physically located, so pardon me if I make incorrect assumptions) have reached dizzying heights in price. As far as I can see, even trade paperbacks here in Australia cost two or on-towards three times what they do in the US, which is a bit shocking. (None of them are physically printed here any more -- they're all done offshore and imported, even Australian titles, which bumps the prices up.) But even so, the outlay for a machine is a big slug up-front -- most of them in Australia are up towards $500, which is a lot of money. I'm guessing those screens must be really expensive -- wouldn't that be the most costly component in the unit? -- so I'd hate to break one.

ChrisC333, I take your points, absolutely, but I assure you I wasn't reading only "anecdotal" reports -- I was basing what little I understood of these units on reviews in professional PC/electronics magazines and their websites. Doesn't mean they get everything right, but it's more than some cattlehand out in Walgett writing on the internet in his spare time. And it seems that the firmware upgrade that came out late last year has improved the PDF handling on the Story, so maybe that makes the review comments obsolete. In any case, I appreciate your (ahem!) setting the Story straight!! ;-)

Mike_73, I haven't seen a Zune, so I know very little about them. Part of the problem I'm having (and I imagine it's the same for afa) is that very few of these machines are available at all in Australia (the Booknook, the Bookem, the Zune aren't sold here at all), and those that do have distribution here are rarely in-stock at B&M shops, so you can't just walk in off the street and give them a test-run. Most of them are sold on-line and on order only, so we've only really got word-of-mouth and pictures on websites to go by.

A couple more questions if I may:

1) I've noticed the iriver Story only has 8 levels of grey in its display, while the Sony devices have 16. Is anyone here with experience of these different levels of display, and can tell us whether you feel it makes a lot of difference to using the device? For myself, I won't be reading comics or loading photo-albums; though I don't know about the future, for now it'll just be text. Any thoughts on this, please?

2) I'm considering a third option, what's called an Ecoreader (www.ecoreader.com.au). It's got only 4 levels of grey in its display, and a smaller memory, and only USB 1.1, but it supports even more formats and is small and easy to handle. At least $100 more expensive than the Story, though. And apparently it's sold under a different brand name overseas, though i don't know what it is. Anyone seen this units, and can offer any observation through experience?

Thanks, folks.

[Mike_73]

Mac, reading over time won't get cheaper If you stay with your reader, it probably will. But as geeky as some of us are, chances are that you buy a new reader before the old one breaks or before it paid off.

Ok, the grey levels. Both of my Sonys seem to have 8 grey levels. I have lots of pictures and charts in my pdfs and I never had the feeling I was missing something. But that's just me. I concentrate more on the text and have the charts just for quick looks. Others may handle this differently.

B&M stores. Hmmm. The ones we have in Germany are not that great. I had the chance and lived in the US for 3 years and I preferred the stores there over the German ones. My Zune is a (1st. Gen. Microsoft) MP3-Player only. But compared to the Ipod, it was the underdog.

The Eco-reader is sold as the BeBook here in Germany. But I haven't actually seen one yet.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

In response to what you and pilotbob said (thanks for your comments, pb), yeah, it is an expensive way to go, and I agree there's no point in doing it *and* whingeing about the cost -- I know we've got to do it and shut up, or find another option (and another forum!).

Originally Posted by Mike_73

Mac, reading over time won't get cheaper If you stay with your reader, it probably will.

I'm going to back pedal a bit on what I said. If once you get an ebook reader device you don't pay for ebooks... ie you read public domain or darknet (please don't) ebooks then the reader will pay for itself quickly and will cost you less in the long run than paying $8+ for each book.

But, being pragmatic I think most readers want to read contemporary content so will be buying ebooks.

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

1) I've noticed the iriver Story only has 8 levels of grey in its display, while the Sony devices have 16.

This makes 0 difference if you are only reading text. You will only see a difference when viewing graphics. the text will be rendered at the darkest gray level the machine can produce.

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

2) I'm considering a third option, what's called an Ecoreader (www.ecoreader.com.au).

I can't speak about this specific device. But, I can say that many readers that support 6,8,10 formats don't usually support all of them very well. You are much better off getting a reader that works VERY well with 1 format because converting from one format to another is pretty simple thanks to calibre.

BOb

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Mike_73

You're certainly right when it comes down to costs for reading. It really is the most expensive way to read books. So I think one has to be some kind of geek. But who cares.

Not necessarily true.

Eg, I'm a big fan of 19th century novels, which are virtually all long out of print. Reading such books as eBooks (and PG, for example, has thousands available) is enormously less expensive than trying to locate them and buy them in antiquarian bookshops.

[Mike_73]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

... ie you read public domain or darknet (please don't) ebooks then the reader will pay for itself quickly and will cost you less in the long run than paying $8+ for each book.

But, being pragmatic I think most readers want to read contemporary content so will be buying ebooks.

Let's assume you pay $8 per ebook. Let's also assume the same pbook as paperback is about $11 (just making up numbers). Then the difference is $3 saved per book. To get into the price range of an average ereader, again, let's assume a price of $300 (neither the cheapest nor the most expensive device), I would have to read 100 books to break even.
Another assumption/experience: I'm not the fastest reader (well, I read fast enough, but don't get to read often enough or for prolonged periods). I read a book within 1-3 months. I guess I'm somewhere around 3-5 books a year. Even if I mix public domain with contemporary content it'll take a very long time to break even. So I certainly will buy a new reader before my reader paid off.

So at least for me, reading on ereaders is the most expensive "reading experience" I can have. But I still love it.

Just take the looks from people looking at you.... "is this an Ipad?" "no, it isn't"...."is it a small PC?" ...."What, this thing is a book???"

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Mike_73

So I certainly will buy a new reader before my reader paid off.

I totally agree which is why I said... for the most part scratch off "saving money" from the pro column of why to buy an ebook reader.

BOb

[Mike_73]

I still cannot wait for something larger than 8" or color. But still, it needs to be priced reasonably.

First I thought that money could be saved, but then it's the same with all the other gadgets. If there's something new and interesting....

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

2) I'm considering a third option, what's called an Ecoreader (www.ecoreader.com.au). It's got only 4 levels of grey in its display, and a smaller memory, and only USB 1.1, but it supports even more formats and is small and easy to handle. At least $100 more expensive than the Story, though. And apparently it's sold under a different brand name overseas, though i don't know what it is. Anyone seen this units, and can offer any observation through experience?

Thanks, folks.

Try searching for BeBook and Hanlin V3( I think???). Apparently they're all pretty much the same device and various people have added their own twists to the basic machinery. I don't know offhand what the differences are.

BeBooks are sold at Coop bookshops at various Unis around Oz.

Some of the BeBook options

There's a heap of other info around on BeBooks, including plenty at this site. Good hunting.

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

Mike_73,
Thanks for the comments, and yeah, I am a geek, and happy to embrace my geek-ness. I want to buy an e.Reader. Apart from anything else at all, I love the feel of holding a book in my hand and physically reading from it, something that a laptop or tablet PC will never be able to replicate. (Sorry, Steve Jobs.) The e.readers I've seen approximate that in dimension and weight (well, a first-release larger-format paperback, maybe), which for me adds to their appeal.

Most people initially say they want something that's just like a book. That's what I thought too, especially as I've been reading and collecting them for over 50 years. But the reality of e-readers doesn't really match the sales blurb all that accurately. In my experience, the resemblance is fairly superficial. Fortunately it doesn't matter, and both e-ink readers and tablet can hit the spot for different people.

If you can be bothered reading it, there's a longer explanation here:

Do you know what you REALLY need in an e-reader