“You can tell that the new PRS-505 is from Sony because 1) it’s a gorgeous piece of kit in a tiny package, 2) it has a Memory Stick Pro Duo expansion slot, and 3) it uses proprietary DRM. But the last two points, so unfortunately characteristic of Sony in the last decade, suggest that the company is changing-slowly. Not only does the new Reader sport an SD card slot alongside the Pro Duo slot, but it plays AAC and MP3 files; ATRAC doesn’t even make an appearance on the spec sheet. Oh, and did I mention that the Reader is Penguin-powered?”
Very nice, very fair review, warts and all, but appreciative. Be interesting to know how other people react. It seems like a maybe. I like the ability to turn the screen. The slowness must be a real issue though, if you are someone who likes to page through books or screens of text, and then return to read carefully. It does seem like maybe this could be the device where ebooks come of age. The price is not totally unreasonable. Maybe!
You can imagine, one of those sleepless jet lagged nights in some anonymous hotel, and you pick this thing up – and there it is, you have the commplete works of Dickens, Shakespeare, all of English, French, Dutch poetry, all the classic novels you’d ever want. All of Proust, for instance, that would send you to sleep. A few classic histories. You’d take with you a lot of stuff to just have available, which you would never think of before a flight. Maybe this is finally the moment to read Couperus?
Its a nice idea.
Yea, it looks nice. I’ll have to see one up close. It’s not the kind of thing that I’d drop cash money on unseen. I think the page delay can be a real problem for me, so I’d have to experience that up front.
But I’m a total fan of ebooks. I’ve been using just a crummy old Palm for my reader, and it works well enough.
I’m to the point that I’d rather have my “pleasure” books (rather than technical books) on the palm pilot than a normal book. It’s a combination of ergonomics and reality.
Truth is I read lying on the couch, and when I’m on the couch the cat has determined that my sole purpose for being in that position is for a comfortable sleeping place for her, and she ends up monopolizing one arm.
So, I pretty much need to read with only one hand, and that’s difficult to do with a normal book. But with an e-reader, it’s practical and not uncomfortable.
But, also, it’s far easier to carry these things than books when traveling and what not.
Too bad it will die like that.
I have yet to see a decent reader. These companies all seem to go out of their way to botch the job in various ways. And when they do manage to make a decent device, they just have to use it to push some futuristic technology like E-Ink and totally blow away the price.
Personally, I’ve given up on them and got myself a used NEC MobilePro 900c, a CF card and MobiPocket Reader. The wide screen makes for a nice reading, I have a full keyboard to annotate with, and MobiPocket has all kinds of nice features. Such as support for bloody HTML, unlike Sony’s gizmo.
In order for an ebook reader to “make it” it needs this:
* Must be inexpensive. 50$ tops.
* Two buttons (page up/down), a LCD screen and a stylus. Plus two sliders or wheels on the side for contrast and brightness. That’s IT.
* A card slot for an already accepted format: CF, SD.
* A reader application with support for all kinds of formats, including text, HTML and RTF. At the very least, must allow for bookmarks and remember where I’ve left off automatically. Also allow people to adjust background/text colors to their liking. Offer 2-4 fonts to pick from and allow to choose from a few different sizes.
* Just enough RAM to accomodate the reader and some text. You don’t have to load the whole file into RAM at the same time, do you?
* If it used standard AA batteries it would be super.
That’s it. How hard can it be, for God’s sake? I don’t need it to play music, organize my schedule or sync with my phone, just to let me page through some bloody text.
* Must be inexpensive. 50$ tops.
Did you really mean $50.00 or was that a typo? I cannot see a device like this, even subbing an LCD screen for the eInk screen, being less than $150.00-$200.00 USD.
Unless, of course, the electronic book publishers are heavily subsidizing the purchase price in the same way that cell phone carriers subsidize cellphones when you sign up for a two year service agreement.
Why not, you can buy computers these days around the 200$ price range. These don’t need high power cpus, not even much memory. I’d definitely like to see some in the below-hundred price range and I don’t think it’s unrealistic. But, as long as it’s treated as a “new” toy, the price won’t go down.
Sure, why not $50? As the other reply points out, if you can get a full computer for $100-$200, why not a handheld for $50? After all, it would be a very simple device aimed at one task, not a general purpose PDA.
> NEC MobilePro 900c
It’s big (over 3cm thick) and unacceptably heavy (over 800g). That’s a deal breaker at least for me.
I’ve read heavier books.
But anyway, you can go for a Jornada 7xx or a Palm Z22 or another handheld. The point is that we’re forced to resort to general-purpose handhelds because there isn’t a decent ebook reader available. The Franklin reader looked just about right, but they messed it up in various ways (no expansion card, not shipped outside North America, too expensive and so on).
Yes nice idea. As for “all of Proustn that would send you to sleep”, I think you do not need all of it… 😉
When I first read “Down with Paper”, I thought about someone claiming the paperless office. We all know that it is an Utopia for more than 50 years now. In the year 2007, more paper has been used in computer (aided) business than in any year before.
The article showed a very promising approach to at least give a very special kind of customer some new toys. But I think the Sony Reader has the potential to be more than a toy, but it needs to be more inexpensive. At least if it’s cheaper than a book, it will be more than just a manager’s toy. 🙂
The reader’s “boot time” of 50 seconds could be seen as very slow – in comparison to today’s PC stuff, but as it has been mentioned in the article, it’s a bit complicated to shut the device down so nobody will notice.
The offer of 20,000 titles for this device is not much. But if the reader’s popularity grows, more titles will be added surely. It’s a nice offer in the manner of “free batteries included” that Sony offers 100 free titles to chosse from – nice, the device itself is $300. Other titles are $10.
When I was young, I thought “reading is cool”. Now I need to say: “this kind of reading is expensive and only for people who own too much money”. Even in the years of the almighty Internet, I prefer to read real books if reading is for entertaining purposes.
Just as an idea: Such a device could be cool for troubleshooters working in IT so they have their manuals, handbooks and procedures at hand whereever they go. Because customers throw away any piece of documentation, they could say: “Don’t mind, I’ve got the RS/9000 API reference right here.” This functionality would be great if a searching function (to search text patterns in the book) is available.
This device really has potential. If it just would be a bit cheaper and more universal in options of use…
A final sidenote: A similar device could be seen in Lynch’s “Dune” from 1984.
I had a chance to play with one of these a few months back at borders store #1. It’s hard to get across the quality of the hardware itself. It really feels like a solid piece of tech. the software has some major caveats as the article mentions, but the refresh rate didn’t bother me too much personally.
.. this could be it. But i think wireless internet should be included. The price tag is not a problem. I have a lot of very cool PDFs that would justify the price.
Good. Buy my ebook when its out later this year.
</shameless plug>
PDF on a PDA or any handheld with a small screen sucks 90% of the time. Most of it is due to the fact that PDF’s don’t reflow to adjust to the screen.
They do with a smart reader. E.g. Press ctrl-4 in acroread.
I recently retired my Palm T5 as a PDF/TXT/DOC reader and upgraded to a N800 specifically because the limitations of PDF on the T5s small screen finally became too much. (seems there’s a new trend towards big margins and tiny text with the “print” link on most news articles these days)
The screen quality and refresh on the N800 is fantastic though. If you want Wifi, as much spaces as you get afford in two SD cards and a great screen then it may be worth looking at. Heck, if I’d known I’d have waited a few extra months for the N810.
I like the idea of the reader and have been tracking it’s development distantly through Pop Sci articles but for me, it’s like the iPod.. why would I downgrade to something which only plays music/video or only displays eBooks when that is but one of many functions in my already used PDA/Tablet.
(That’s not to nock the idea by any means though. Some people want just a music/video player or just a text viewer.)
And you can install *debs as the OS underneath is debian based. In addition the news that Garnet provides access to the thousands of Palm applications still out there.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/14/palm_os_on_nokia/
I want color. even just 256 colors would be great, so that you could actually look at illustrations in books, or even comics if that’s your thing.
I’m not sure Sony should have waited a bit longer until they could put out a product that was a LOT better than their last e-reader. There still just aren’t enough features for me to sink the cash to buy one of these.
“2) it has a Memory Stick Pro Duo expansion slot, and 3) it uses proprietary DRM.”
I always find it somewhat Ironic that these are being made in preference to Sony. I can pick two popular consumer devices today. Xbox360 by Microsoft that only allows *streaming* of their own propriety video formats, and requires a specialist hard drive, and the iPod that requires a specialist adapter and comes with its own proprietary format etc etc.
Oddly the article is different from that of say the playstation 3, which will be able to play DivX and has a standard hard drive.(by the why check out BDA for those who would claim this is a Sony format).
I know Thom using it as an anti-sony thing which is a shame, because the sad fact is, Market leaders tend to lock things away in a very anti-consumer manner, where the further down the tree you get the more pro-consumer a device is.
The sad fact is this could have been a point about, open-formats, open-hardware…or even better open firmware; go GPL3 and curse you Linus, but its not.
Thom was just quoting from the article, the DRM jab is not his.
“Thom was just quoting from the article, the DRM jab is not his.”
I’m very aware of how Thom quotes. In this instance. My response was *not* at Thom in the slightest. In reality Thom’s quote is part of a strange perception that people have, with regards Sony, they had a well deserved kicking over the rootkit stuff, but its not on the level of the intrusiveness of Vista Spyware, or anywhere near the lock-in potential. The Xbox 360 is a great example of this with its ability to only play wmv formats streamed from WMC. I only know after seriously looking at buying one, but seriously thats garbage.
Pointing out the Memory Card Duo is a misnomer when you consider it comes with a SD slot. Its a nonsense really. In fact it works without DRM as well. Which is more than the choice offered by Microsoft. I say that this kind of abuse is only done by the *leading vendor* in any field; Its not a *Sony characteristic*. Now if Thom did that on purpose which I wouldn’t say is below him. I just don’t think is the case.
The only other thing I mention is upgradeable firmware, a device like this is only of value that it uses Linux if it has free software characteristics.
What is clear about the quote is this is *about* replacing books etc or even a new way of accessing information from books. Thats what this device lives and dies….and I would say dies on, yet the whole point on this is lost in an anti-sony quote that is mose to do with its *music* playing ability!? Which has nothing to do with the device fulfilling its purpose.
This is a more sensible quote
“The reading experience is so much like reading a paper novel that any report on it will read like a remedial lesson in using a book. (Note: if you have in fact forgotten how to use a book, it’s time to step away from the keyboard.) Nevertheless, there are a few observations to make.”
The section that Thom quoted was the initial paragraph, which is exactly the same way a lot of news aggregator sites quote from their various feeds.
You complain about Thom’s dislike for Sony and then proceed to rant about Microsoft. Grow up.
Listen retard, read my damn paragraph. I don’t care if Thom goes around and sets fire to Sony’s dustbins. Thats not the point I’m making. If Thom chose to quote from the initial paragraph as a standard that would be reasonable, or even as you suggest using an aggregator site but its neither. Thom cherry picks his quotes. I think its just a dumb quote. If I wanted to call Thom anything I would not shy away from it check my posts. I do call bias when I see it…I do not think this is bias its a “vibe” for want of a better word.
This is not a rant at Microsoft retard and I’m pointing out using proprietary garbage in any form is used only by Market Leaders producing monopolistic products, but mainly by cartels, I could have used a 3D CAD packages as an example or even something completely unrelated to computing…how about the BBC, but the three Main supplies of hardware/software consumer devices are literally those companies I mentioned.
Why I looked at this article and my comments were about despair…and at large companies having *locked devices*, and its not a just a Microsoft thing its a Linus thing, that was my point. This has sod all to do with Vista other than my example uses it as a tie in to Microsofts abuse of its Monopolistic position. I know about it because I *wanted* to use the xbox as a media player becuase in the UK there isn’t a PVR+streaming+Open Firmware Device, and XBox falls short of *this* task by a *long* way, but clearly you have not read my post where I do rant about Microsoft.
I go on about GPL3 for this very reason. I am *very* interested in open-firmware and am constantly surprised that things like OpenMoko; Free60, Rockbox, OpenWrt don’t really make it onto this site…but I understand why. If you cannot change the firmware *WHY WOULD I CARE WHAT OS* it runs. Would I be interested in an attractive slimline device with greyscale screen; that uses standard memory cards…absolutely, but it has to have open firmware, but thats my personal preferance. Its not political or pro/anti any consumer its good value for how *I* would use such a product, but if you don’t understand how I would want a router to be used as a web server or £30, or have an attractive music player play Ogg and flac, or a games console running a mythbackend. Then what chance have you of understanding I would want a device like this sync with thunderbird, and read off-line web pages, on the tube on a device IMO thats built for it, but I fully understand I am the Minority.
If you do not understand *why* have made my points in your desire to defend an mega-corporation, on the back of of someone who abuses their *position of responsibility*, don’t post to me here, pick another thread, becuase I *do* make those points and often.
Edited 2007-11-14 08:22
Calling people ‘retards’ will rarely either convince them or impress others. It is usually more productive to be calm, very, very clear, and if driven to complete fury, to permit oneself a very small amount of irony.
wow that is pretty sick.
What the hell is the point of DRM on this? any pdf drm isnt going to function properly (pdf drm doesnt function properly anyways), i wonder when the concept of DRM is just going to go away as a complete waste of effort.
This device does look pretty sweet though, i would buy one in a second for a pricepoint of 200.
I didn’t think I’d say this about an Ars review, but that was somewhat rude.
As I know – as I understand it’s no different in this case – you can’t simply scroll up/down a page or between pages with an e-ink reader, only flip whole pages, which is still kind of “eww”. But, I have the hope that we don’t have a lifetime to wait until rightly done readers will come along (we still have to go a bit technology-wise for that, and then some to be able to have sane prices), and I don’t think I’ll buy one of these just to have something until then.
Although the device has a nice design i doubt it’s relevance. The targeted audience myself included most likely are the owners of a smartphone or PDA which makes the reader a redundant gadget.
So the hardware is available. How long until someone frees the hardware from it’s software limitations with there own Linux kernel and user land?
The clock starts nnnnnnNow! Click
Don’t you mean, root kit?
*ducks*
Did you compare the sony reader to the readers from Hanlin?
http://www.jinke.com.cn/Compagesql/English/embedpro/index.asp
In a view month Hanlin will bring out some new Readers with a bigger screen, a bigger resolution, active screen,….