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The e-reader is dead, long live the e-reader
I bought my first e-reader a few months ago, a Cool-ER from a company called Interead which went bust the week after I bought my toy *sigh*. It was basically a clone of a Netronix-type of reader, so similar to the Cybook. It died this week; the screen is "cracked" internally and although you can see it's still trying to work, about three quarters is covered by a black blob that makes reading impossible, and it isn't refreshing properly. I feel a bit of a fool; I was carrying it in a soft cover to protect the screen from scratches, but in hindsight I should have used a rigid cover to protect it from physical damage. With the vendors out of business I very much doubt I'll be able to do anything about this.
So I went and replaced it with a Sony PRS-505 from trusty old eBay. It was being sold by an Owd Goff who had covered with skulls and roses. Since I have tendencies that way myself, this made it more appealing to me, but less appealing to the general public, so I managed to get it for £65 (just over $100). I have named it "Wanton Rose", since all my computers are named after G&S references and that seems to fit very well.
Both readers can handle a wide variety of formats including epub. This was my main priority in choosing those brands over any of the rivals, and in particular I rejected the Kindle from the first.
The Cool-ER was appreciably lighter. It's very slimline, pared down, and blatantly aiming for an iPod like aesthetic. It weighed less than a typical paperback, and I didn't notice it in my handbag. The PRS-505, with its cover, is much heavier, weighing about as much as a small hardback and making me slightly hesitate to put it in my handbag if I'm not certain I'm going to need reading material. This is actually a major downside, because the whole point of having an e-reader for me is that I want to be able to carry it with me all the time and never again be in that horrible situation of having to wait somewhere without a book to read!
The navigation on the PRS-505 is much nicer; the page turn buttons take exactly the right amount of effort to click, whereas the button on the Cool-ER was really stiff. There's a choice of buttons on the right-hand edge, or on the left at the base; right-handed or left-handed, you can reach to turn the page without in any way needing to change your hold on the device. That's a great improvement for me.
The page-turning is just a little slow on the PRS-505. The Cool-ER was faster (though not lightning-fast), but this advantage was outweighed by the annoyance of often having to make several attempts to press the damn button!
I am not so keen on the way the PRS-505 organizes files; it alphabetizes books by authors' first name, which sets my teeth on edge. It also doesn't show up as a removable drive when I plug it in to my computer. Or rather, it shows up as 3 or 4 different removable drives, and I have to guess which one is functional, and even then I can't see all the files which represent books easily in Windows. I think I shall get round this problem by organizing stuff in Calibre, and using the "collections" feature to sort them in a more sensible way. The Cool-ER was pretty much just a USB drive, its onboard organizing software was really minimal. I liked it that way, because I am happier organizing things my way, but I can imagine this would make it less appealing to a non-geek market, people who want an e-reader to be as easy to use as a traditional codex book. The PRS-505 is more intuitive to navigate while actually in use, I will definitely say that, but it's accomplishing this end by adding a lot of gubbins to the file manager.
Both devices have similar screen size and resolution. The PRS-505 has fewer settings for text size, and also does an odd thing where it doesn't quite reflow text at larger sizes; if a page takes up more than a single screen, it leaves a big gap between pages. In spite of that annoyance I find the text clearer to read, and its handling of pdfs is better than the simpler e-reader.
For $100, though, I'm very satisfied with my new toy :-)
So I went and replaced it with a Sony PRS-505 from trusty old eBay. It was being sold by an Owd Goff who had covered with skulls and roses. Since I have tendencies that way myself, this made it more appealing to me, but less appealing to the general public, so I managed to get it for £65 (just over $100). I have named it "Wanton Rose", since all my computers are named after G&S references and that seems to fit very well.
Both readers can handle a wide variety of formats including epub. This was my main priority in choosing those brands over any of the rivals, and in particular I rejected the Kindle from the first.
The Cool-ER was appreciably lighter. It's very slimline, pared down, and blatantly aiming for an iPod like aesthetic. It weighed less than a typical paperback, and I didn't notice it in my handbag. The PRS-505, with its cover, is much heavier, weighing about as much as a small hardback and making me slightly hesitate to put it in my handbag if I'm not certain I'm going to need reading material. This is actually a major downside, because the whole point of having an e-reader for me is that I want to be able to carry it with me all the time and never again be in that horrible situation of having to wait somewhere without a book to read!
The navigation on the PRS-505 is much nicer; the page turn buttons take exactly the right amount of effort to click, whereas the button on the Cool-ER was really stiff. There's a choice of buttons on the right-hand edge, or on the left at the base; right-handed or left-handed, you can reach to turn the page without in any way needing to change your hold on the device. That's a great improvement for me.
The page-turning is just a little slow on the PRS-505. The Cool-ER was faster (though not lightning-fast), but this advantage was outweighed by the annoyance of often having to make several attempts to press the damn button!
I am not so keen on the way the PRS-505 organizes files; it alphabetizes books by authors' first name, which sets my teeth on edge. It also doesn't show up as a removable drive when I plug it in to my computer. Or rather, it shows up as 3 or 4 different removable drives, and I have to guess which one is functional, and even then I can't see all the files which represent books easily in Windows. I think I shall get round this problem by organizing stuff in Calibre, and using the "collections" feature to sort them in a more sensible way. The Cool-ER was pretty much just a USB drive, its onboard organizing software was really minimal. I liked it that way, because I am happier organizing things my way, but I can imagine this would make it less appealing to a non-geek market, people who want an e-reader to be as easy to use as a traditional codex book. The PRS-505 is more intuitive to navigate while actually in use, I will definitely say that, but it's accomplishing this end by adding a lot of gubbins to the file manager.
Both devices have similar screen size and resolution. The PRS-505 has fewer settings for text size, and also does an odd thing where it doesn't quite reflow text at larger sizes; if a page takes up more than a single screen, it leaves a big gap between pages. In spite of that annoyance I find the text clearer to read, and its handling of pdfs is better than the simpler e-reader.
For $100, though, I'm very satisfied with my new toy :-)
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