It seems the must-have device of Christmas 2009 was the ebook reader. I’m seeing an explosion of information and happy post-Christmas reviews.

I myself was excited to find a Sony PRS-600 Touch Edition with my name on it underneath the tree, thanks to my wonderful partner Dave. To be honest, I hadn’t shut up about them for months and the size and shape of the package was about right, so I was pretty sure that’s what it was. Consequently I’d been planning my book purchases already.

I used to read a lot of fiction – ten years ago I used to absolutely devour books, often multiples at a time. But the internet did something to my ability to read books. I was reading so much online every single day, for both my job and for pleasure, that when I did switch off the machine the last thing I felt like doing was picking up a book. A neck injury also meant that reading physical books – say, in bed, where I used to read a lot – became more of a hassle. And reading on screen just got more and more comfortable and normal. I started reading ebooks a little, first on my Pocket PC and then later on my tablet. But the “user experience” of reading on a dedicated device that’s easy on the eyes is far superior to those.

So why the Sony Reader, and not the cheaper and more popular Kindle? Excellent question. Firstly, while there’s no doubt that Amazon have the biggest ebook store on the planet, I don’t like the idea of being limited to just one source for my books. The Sony supports EPUB, the open ebook format, as well as PDF and a whole ton of other formats, and you can load it up with books from any source. In fact, the only major ebook format it doesn’t support is Microsoft’s LIT format – a shame because I already have a (small) number of books in LIT format that I was reading on my tablet.

Secondly, there’s the issue of actually getting books onto the reader. Rather than requiring it’s own wireless provider, the Sony Reader connects up to your PC via USB and you can copy stuff onto it. No matter what they say about wireless providers and the international Kindle (check out the wireless coverage map of Australia here), I can’t get a reliable 3G connection on my own phone in my own living room, so I’m much happier with the syncing option. For a geek i think that’s the ideal situation, although it might not be as good for the less-computer savvy.

Also, there’s the touch screen. I haven’t used the stylus or note taking features much yet, but flicking your finger to flip pages is very cool and a very natural movement, much more so than using the buttons at the bottom.

Another pretty cool feature on the Sony Reader is expandable memory. It supports Memory Stick – no surprise there, it’s a Sony product – but also SD card, which is great because I have a ton of them lying around for my camera and camp MP3 player. So I could put together “libraries” – a tech library, a “current reading” fiction library, a classics library, whatever – on SD cards and have a ton of stuff on close standby when I travel.

Before I get too gushy, there’s also the serious side of privacy and DRM. The EFA have released a comparison of several of the major ebook players on various privacy issues which makes for interesting reading. Basically, if you use a reader that’s closely tied to one of the stores, they’re going to be able to track your purchases. They also include the Google Books service which is not an actual hardware device (at least not yet), but the privacy implications of that are more than a little scary.

As for DRM… I’m going to save that rant for another day. I purchased a title that uses Adobe Digital Editions and the process was a painful albeit interesting one. I’ve also ditched the Sony software (as much as I’m able, anyway) in favour of Calibre, a great open source bookshelf management package.

For the moment though, I’m absolutely loving the screen, the ease on the eyes, the convenience of reading on the device… the overall experience has been fantastic. Highly recommended!

Posted from kay lives here

Adventures in ebooks

A bit of background: I’m a big fan of the Tablet PC. I had a beautiful Acer C110 machine way that I got back in about 2003 which I used for a very long time. I loved that little thing – it’s still mostly working although the screen isn’t pressure sensitive in slate mode anymore and it’s painfully painfully slow.

I then got a lease on an “upgrade” – a Fujitsu P1610. This was even smaller – it has a 9.8” screen – and so very cute. I thought it was going to be all love and happiness again until I twigged that something wasn’t quite right about the screen. Although it was pen sensitive and, once I upgraded to Vista, actually responded to your finger as well, it was not pressure sensitive so handwriting notes etc was really out of the question. I hadn’t realised what an important factor that was on my previous Tablet. I started to use the Fujitsu in a different way – always with the keyboard out, but jabbing at it with the pen or my finger in addition for a kind of hybrid tablet experience.

I got kinda used to that but as soon as I saw someone using a pressure sensitive Tablet PC – I think it was Donna Maurer’s Toshiba – I realised that I really missed being able to scrawl and scribble when I was taking notes or whatever. Also, the tiny screen was really screwing with my ability to read web sites – I was constantly holding the stupid thing up to my nose. However, with the lease not up on the Fujitsu until February 2010 I figured I’d have to just suck it up. I picked up a hell-cheapo 15” Compaq notebook to use around the house when not at my desktop as a compromise for the screen size problem.

But then… on Friday Dave sent me a link, as he often does… to the Toshiba R400 product page – a 12” convertible Tablet PC. Looking at the $4500 AUD price tag, I was just shooting back to him “why are you torturing me?” when he said that because it was an end of life model, a dealer in the Eastern States had them on sale for $1500.

OMG.

To cut a long story short, one is winging it’s way to me next week (end of financial year tax bonuses, I love you). There’s a review of them here http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_toshiba_r400.html and it sounds like it could be another love affair (double and triple checked and yes it DOES have a Wacom-produced pressure sensitive screen). I may post a full review when it arrives and I have finished drooling on it.

Posted from kay lives here

My return to Tablet PC happy land