Kindle Owners - Did you own a Sony Reader?

[astra]

Originally Posted by rflashman

My Sony reader never lasted a month. I charged it daily, but when I didn't it lasted about 5-6 days.

I have a strong feeling that your Sony Reader is faulty. Even after 11 months of use reader's battery still holds up to 2.5 weeks, in the worst case scenario when I switch a lot between font sizes/toc/bookmarks and menu it holds for 12 days.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

I have a strong feeling that your Sony Reader is faulty. Even after 11 months of use It still holds up to 2.5 weeks, in the worst case scenario when I switch a ,ot between font sizes and menu it holds for 12 days.

Agreed - most people find that the Reader needs recharging about every 2-3 weeks, depending on usage.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

I have a strong feeling that your Sony Reader is faulty. Even after 11 months of use reader's battery still holds up to 2.5 weeks, in the worst case scenario when I switch a lot between font sizes/toc/bookmarks and menu it holds for 12 days.

That's been my experience. I never have to charge my Sony more often than every two weeks.

Originally Posted by rflashman

I don't think EVDO matters. But I do think that eventually high-speed wireless web access anywhere is a killer app, but the exact perfect device has not appeared yet.

Anywhere Web access is great, it just doesn't belong in an e-book reader until it can be done without sacrificing the form factor, battery life, screen quality, and reading dynamics that go into a good e-book reader.

[astra]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

Anywhere Web access is great, it just doesn't belong in an e-book reader until it can be done without sacrificing the form factor, battery life, screen quality, and reading dynamics that go into a good e-book reader.

I could not say it better

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

I have a strong feeling that your Sony Reader is faulty. Even after 11 months of use reader's battery still holds up to 2.5 weeks, in the worst case scenario when I switch a lot between font sizes/toc/bookmarks and menu it holds for 12 days.

I'd think it depends a lot on usage. I read 600-1000 pages a day on my 505 & get 4-6 days on a charge. I don't know if that's considered bad battery life, but it seems pretty good to me.

[astra]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I'd think it depends a lot on usage. I read 600-1000 pages a day on my 505 & get 4-6 days on a charge. I don't know if that's considered bad battery life, but it seems pretty good to me.

Uh...1000 pages/day
OK. I am taking my assumption back if that's the case with rflashman. I have never exceeded 100

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I'd think it depends a lot on usage. I read 600-1000 pages a day on my 505 & get 4-6 days on a charge. I don't know if that's considered bad battery life, but it seems pretty good to me.

600~1,000 pages a day, while astonishing (), is about right for a week per charge -- at that rate you'd be running into the 7,500 page limit by then.

I'm still getting a bit over 3 weeks on a charge (after more than a year), but I don't read nearly that much!

[sfernald]

1) Well, of course I prefer not charging to having to charge. I have to charge my Sony 505 every 3-4 weeks. The kindle I plug in daily. The way I use it I don't think I could get by for longer than 3 days before it died. Now if I used it without all the functionality that makes the Kindle unique, then I'm sure it would last for a week or more, but what is the point of that. The thing that makes the Kindle great is the push subscriptions to newspapers, blogs and magazines, the web, wikipedia, the searches and free EVDO. The thing is, the Kindle model is accessible to more people. For instance, I got my mom a reader for last Christmas and she has never plugged the reader into her computer. She just doesn't have the technical expertise to do it. So I have to copy all her books to her computer for her (she likes the classics). If she had access to the kindle store, which by the way, compares well to the amazon.com store for ease of use, she would probably be purchasing books all the time on it. I think this opens the market to many more users. However, it's interesting to note that the requiring a connection to a computer didn't hurt the proliferation of the ipod - I'm guessing this might be bacause ipod users are younger and more tech-savvy, or perhaps because the itunes store is so user-friendly. In any case, I love the independence from the computer.

2) I have purchased three books so far. I found a book that was recommended to me by the kindle store, downloaded the free chapter, read it and loved it, and then instantly purchased the whole book all while waiting in the car as my wife was shopping the outlets. That is what makes the store so cool. I've purchased several subscriptions as well. I think that is the great advantage of the Kindle, having the morning paper, monthly periodicals and blogs delivered to your kindle throughout the day. I just hope the content keeps expanding. I expect someday that every word that amazon sells should be offered in kindle format. I'm a big sci-fi fan, so I also purchased some sci-fi periodicals like ASIMOV's and ANALOG from ficitonwise in mobi format. I emailed these to my kindle address and they converted and showed up to my kindle almost instantly. It works very well, but I would prefer to get everything from the amazon store because it is so simple.

3) It is too early for me to say if EVDO is a killer app. I should say I have an iphone and still use that all the time and love it. But the EVDO on the kindle is much faster than the EDGE on the iphone. I love that. If it stays free, I think this will be the killer app for the kindle. I do love the functionality that EVDO provides including the kindle store, push subscriptions, wikipedia, searching, and the web browser. I find that all the time while reading I end up on the web or wikipedia researching some tidbit. It is handy and useful. Out of everything EVDO, the push subscriptions are probably the big ticket item for me. I'm the kind of reader that needs to change what he's reading quite often. A reader with just novels and short stories just doesn't do it for me. But with the kindle, I can read a novel for a while, then read the paper, then read a few long articles for a magazine like TheAtlantic, then read the novel some more, then check the blogs for more techy info such as slashdot or engadget (this replaces the need to surf the web somewhat). With all the different types of content the kindle offers, I feel this replaces my need to have an always-connected laptop for surfing the web. The kindle gets me reading faster and I read in much larger quantities than through just normal web surfing.

4) I would prefer to purchase all my content through the kindle store, but until that day when it has everything I want, I will fill in the holes through stores such as fictionwise. I prefer the convenience of the kindle store and I really like the prices. I don't care that much about the drm really. In five years, when the ereader is as big a hit as the ipod or laptop is today, we can fight that battle for drm-free content.

Originally Posted by RSaunders

When I look at the Kindle, I'm taken by the choices made by Amazon. I've had a Sony Reader for a year, and none of the choices strike me as important. The PR, even Newsweek, and the business advantages all go to Kindle. Nobody who has used Sony CONNECT hasn't wished it was integrated with Amazon.com. My question is about the technical features, and I guess you really need to know the Sony Reader to answer them.

1) Do you like daily charging better than computer docking? The Kindle has a radio that allows it to be updated by Amazon, but it gives you daily charging instead of the monthly charging of the Sony Reader. I charge my Sony by plugging it into my computer's USB port. So, if it has to be plugged in every day, why spend $$ on a radio?

2) How often do you buy books? I buy 3-4 books at a time, a behavior I have had in pbook stores, on Amazon, and now with my Reader. It takes me hours to read a book, that's why they are a good entertainment value. I'm about 100 books behind, so I don't mind 2 day pbook delay from Amazon.com. Do you buy books every day?

3) Is the EVDO Internet the killer app? My kid has an iPhone, so he has Internet at the same speed. He has full web features, and color, and it was really cool for a couple of weeks. Now, he never uses it. Sure, wikipedia is a cool thing to have. But I have a laptop with WiFi right on my desk, when I'm reading I can go for ages without using it.

4) Are you going to buy a lot of Amazon books, now that you know that there are lots of places to get DRM-free books? I buy books from Sony, well, almost never, because I can get books in other formats with much more diversity. I'll spend 5 minutes on my computer to convert a book to Sony format, sometimes to save $5, other times to get a book Sony isn't listing. I read hundreds of pages every week (mostly SF) and I never seem to need Sony titles.

I really want Kindle to succeed. I'd like to see Amazon take over and sell books to all the eBook readers. Surely, beating Sony's store could be done with one hand behind their back. I just can't seem to breakout of the notion that Amazon sees this as a hardware play, being in the gadget business. If they were trying to be in the book business, priceless.

[tsgreer]

Originally Posted by sfernald

1) ...I'm a big sci-fi fan, so I also purchased some sci-fi periodicals like ASIMOV's and ANALOG from ficitonwise in mobi format. I emailed these to my kindle address and they converted and showed up to my kindle almost instantly...

And remember, you don't HAVE to email the fictionwise stuff that's in mobi format to your kindle address. You can just drag-n-drop via USB and they work just fine...

[runciter]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If the wholesale price of a book is $10, what would you consider a reasonable retail price to be, given the fact that it costs money to run the web site and distribution system, plus the fact that they have to make a reasonable profit in order to stay in business?

Frankly, I don't believe that ($10) to be the true wholesale cost of the product. This isn't the twentieth century... I would imagine very few writers don't utilise a computer to type their work and that work is sent to their editor, then publisher, etc. Of course the book industry is backwards and still fear the digital world so they turn it into paper at various stages of the document, but ignoring that and their foibles... the product exists in digital form.
I think a more reasonable price would be at or under $5. There are no trees to harvest, tons of product to be shipped around the world, and the server backend, distribution, and bandwidth are not the suppliers problem, so why would that be included in the wholesale cost of the product.

Look at the ebook price of "paperbacks". Typically $7 or so from a couple titles I looked at. There is no difference between a paperback and a hardback (assuming the title has both versions) but the publishers have the old world mentality. I would be interested to know how much out of $20 book actually goes to the author(s) versus how much is spent killing/printing/moving dead trees around.

We are near a point where the author can avoid the publisher and go direct to Amazon and sell their product direct. I think this could be great, much like independent musicians can get their music out to more people than ever before. Granted, at this point, only the large authors would get the eyeshare, but it has potential.

Anyhow, I digress. Back to the OT, as is I think typically of Reader fans, I loved the Reader (PRS-505) hardware, but hated the software and the store. I think the Kindle kicks it up a notch, end to end. Having said that, I have friends that don't "get" ebooks and they didn't get the Reader or the Kindle... or rather, they didn't think they were worth the $350/399. *shrug*

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by runciter

Frankly, I don't believe that ($10) to be the true wholesale cost of the product.

I think you mean you don't believe it's the true wholesale value. That's a big difference.

If Fictionwise wants to sell the Mobipocket-DRM version of book "X", and Mobipocket has set the wholesale price at $10, then that's the true wholesale cost to Fictionwise. Period.

If Amazon contracts with S&S to sell book "Z", and S&S sets the retail price at $20, while giving Amazon a 50% dealer discount, Amazon's true wholesale cost is $10. No amount of discussion about what tools the author used originally will change that. By that time, the average author is completely out of the loop.

[sbosak]

"It takes about 2 minutes to change a DRMed LIT to a non DRM PRC that I can read on the Kindle.."

Nate: what are you using to do this? I have about a dozen books trapped on the Sony that I want to put on the new Kindle. Any hints would be appreciated.

[Ofoghlu]

The PRS500 currently gives me flexibility in relation to non DRM ebooks. Okay, I have to convert to the BBeb/LRF format but that only takes a few minutes. I read mainly Scfi which I buy from BAEN or download from their Free Library. They have the right idea about selling EBooks hook you with a free copy and then you have to buy the series.

df

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by sbosak

"It takes about 2 minutes to change a DRMed LIT to a non DRM PRC that I can read on the Kindle.."

Nate: what are you using to do this? I have about a dozen books trapped on the Sony that I want to put on the new Kindle. Any hints would be appreciated.

If you bought the ebooks from the Connect Store (and it sounds like you did), then there is nothing I can do. Sony DRM has not yet been broken.

If you bought them in LIT format, then you will need ConvertLIT and Mobipocket Creator. Expand the LIT into its constituent parts. Then double click on the OPF file (it was created when you expanded the original LIT). Mobipocket Creator should open automatically and it will be ready to create the PRC file.

[gregr209]

Originally Posted by tsgreer

And remember, you don't HAVE to email the fictionwise stuff that's in mobi format to your kindle address. You can just drag-n-drop via USB and they work just fine...

Whoa!!!!! Wait a minute...you mean the stuff I have purchased off of Fictionwise will work on my Kindle? Even with the DRM?

Anyone have anymore information on this? This could be big for me...I have purchased several books from Fictionwise!

Greg