elf: Quote: She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain (Fond of Books)
elf ([personal profile] elf) wrote in [community profile] ebooks2009-04-13 11:28 pm

Obligatory Introduction Post

(No, this isn't [community profile] efw. Really.)

I've been actively reading ebooks on mobile devices for over three years now. I started on a Clié, which I loved and would still be using if all three of the ones I owned hadn't died. Sony no longer supports it--hadn't supported it for a few years when I first got one--and I collected, and killed, three of them before I gave up on the device. (One dead screen, two with unfixable battery issues.) I wanted to upgrade to a new, better PDA but couldn't wade through the sales hype to figure out which of the eleventy-frak available versions were good ebook readers. They all held the software, but not all were physically designed for easy ebook use--or more importantly, weren't designed for easy ebook use by me.

And I'd been looking more and more at that "e-Ink" stuff, and whined at my husband about my dead Cliés until he bought me a Sony PRS-505. (He said "$300 limit; get whichever one you like." I went crazy reading review sites for a couple of days, and settled on the one that seemed to work best for me.) The PRS wasn't my first choice; the Hanlin was--but I couldn't find out if that was supported in the States at all, and it seemed to be risky for that reason. And it was a very very close choice.

I knew I didn't want a Kindle, because I didn't want to be tied to Amazon for doc conversion; I don't want to email my content to someone else in order to read it. Also, I never quite clicked with the .mobi format; I was fond of ereader. Couldn't afford an iRex, so its features were irrelevant. And I picked the 505 over the 700 for battery life & screen clarity. I've had it for almost six months, and I love it. I take it everywhere, and I read on it constantly. I ignore the Sony store, use Calibre for doc conversion (when I don't use Word to make weird-sized PDFs), and maybe someday I'll figure out that hack that makes the book titles all the same point size in the menus.
wide_worlds_joy: (Blink)

PAD wanted

[personal profile] wide_worlds_joy 2009-04-16 08:06 am (UTC)(link)
Ever since I saw them in ST:TNG, I thought the PADs they had (Portable Access Devices) were the coolest. Write on them, read on them, have them wirelessly connected to the main computer.... Too COOL!

I'd like to see the Kindle 2 to see if it works, but yeah, just a portable reader would be cool.
willow: Red haired, dark skinned, lollipop girl (Default)

Re: PAD wanted

[personal profile] willow 2009-04-16 08:29 am (UTC)(link)
That's my tag on my other journal for all my ereader posts. PAD wanted :) Where the hell is it? Seriously.

I'm less inclined towards anything Kindle than I already was after #amazonfail. But I find myself wondering if touchscreen laptop prices might ever go down - plus maybe they could shrink a little too. They have them for truckers etc but nothing for the general public with a public use OS.