Posts Tagged ‘Sony PRS-300’

A month with the Reader

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

It’s been over a month with the Sony Reader. Here are my impressions of the device:

  • E-Ink rocks !! The experience of reading off an e-ink screen has been better than my wildest expectations.
  • The Reader’s small font setting is big enough for general reading
  • The back-flash and slight delay during page turns are barely noticeable.
  • Battery life is awesome. Though I haven’t counted the number of pages, the Reader certainly lasts a long time. I’ve read an average of 4-5 books on it before I needed to recharge the batteries.
  • Lastly, Sony’s software sucks big time. The software crashed once on Vista, and after that it refuses to start up. Even re-installs haven’t helped. I guess I will have to move to Calibre or some other third party software to manage my books on the Reader.

In summary, very happy with the device. It’s probably the best investment I made this year :)

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Buyer’s Remorse ? Nah :)

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Barnes & Noble’s new Nook e-reader, which released yesterday, filled me with jaw dropping awe. It looked extremely sleek, with page turn buttons just where I wanted them and a cool LCD touchscreen panel. It also featured Android as the operating system and allowed you to lend books, play MP3’s, buy books using Wi-Fi and 3G :) . And it cost just $259.

I almost suffered a giant case of buyer’s remorse over my recently purchased Sony PRS-300. Then after a little while, reality set in and the rose tinted glasses dropped from my eyes. Looking at the features a bit objectively, I noticed the following:

  • 3G doesn’t work internationally. Wi-Fi only works in B&N stores, none of which are in India.
  • The lending feature sounds cool, but in order to use it you need friends with the same device. Something that I feel isn’t going to happen soon for me.
  • The device’s second LCD is going to drain some battery power. But that is a minor concern I guess, as it is, even 10 days on a single charge is a lot.
  • Biggest drawback, only supports ePub, eReader and PDF (or so the website says). What? No RTF, TXT, DOC ? A big fail in my opinion. Looks like B&N is only interested in having users of its device read DRM’d content on it. On a side note, I feel that the very model of E-book retail needs to change, but I’ll save that for another post.
  • And since I don’t listen to audio books and would rather prefer a dedicated MP3 device instead of in-built MP3, MP3 support isn’t that big a deal.
  • Ditto for the 2 GB storage and card expansion. Doubt I’ll ever use up 512 MB let alone the 2 GB storage.
  • RSS support is apparently limited to what B&N wants you to read. No web support as of now. However, with Android as the OS, I’m sure this will change in the near future.

So all in all, I’m still all for my humble Sony PRS-300. As they say the best camera is the one you have with you when the action happens, similarly the best reader is the one you have currently. For me, I’m better off reading on the Sony Reader now than waiting till next year to get my hands on the Nook.

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Sony PRS-300 Review

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Many years ago, I read an article about this new experimental technology called “e-ink” which could potentially change how we read E-Books. Then in 2004, Sony announced the LIBRIe, the first E-Ink based E-book reader. And, yes I wanted one. But alas, Sony only made it available in Japan and that too at the hefty price tag of about $350-$400. Years passed by and I kept waiting for an E-book reader that I could hold in the palm of my hand. Then sometime in 2007 I learnt of Sony’s Reader (the famous PRS series). Its price tag was as large, but by then after years of painful reading on the computer screen, the price really didn’t matter. So, I was curious; would Sony consider selling this in India?

With great expectations, I wrote to Sony, hoping that the Japanese corporation might deem it fit to sell me one. But no, Sony India was in no hurry do me any favors. And so the wait continued, and in the meantime I read books on Microsoft Reader, painfully sitting on a chair, chained to my computer, and wondering whether there was a better way of doing this.

Then one fine day Amazon announced their cute little Kindle (of course, its anything but little), and suddenly reading e-books turned fashionable. The always on wireless made getting E-books as simple as dialing for Pizza. Along with the Kindle, there was an explosion of E-book readers, from new offerings from Sony and iRex to newcomers like Foxit, InterRead etc. Suddenly, Readers were the new “IT” gadget of the season and the E-Book had arrived.

But, for some strange inexplicable reason, no company sold these in India. You could find one of these devices in the US, Canada, Europe, South-East Asia, Japan, China, even Australia. But when it came to India, the land of Nobel Laureates, Booker prize winners, and a few hundred million readers, not one company even tried to hawk their wares in India. So, for a short period I gave up the very idea of ever buying one of these.

Then Sony announced its new line for 2009.Readers starting at $199? Sounded too good to be true. So, I tried to find a way to get one for myself. I hit a vein of good luck, when I learnt that one of my friends would be coming to India in October. He graciously agreed to pick up one for me, and after a long wait finally it arrived – my very own Sony Reader Pocket Edition or Sony PRS-300. (more…)

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Yipeee !! Got myself an e-book reader

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Just picked up my e-book reader from Primus yesterday. After much thought, I finally went for the Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-300) over the Astak EzReader PocketPro, mainly because the PocketPro wasn’t widely available. The entire package, Sony Reader and charger (yes the device does not ship with a charger, default option is USB charging), cost me about Rs. 12000 (inclusive of taxes).

So far haven’t played around with it much, but will start soon. My first impressions:

  • The 5″ screen is actually larger than I expected it to be. Though, 6″ would have been ideal, but Sony stopped making a non-touch 6″ model and discontinued ones were a bit difficult to find.
  • The build quality is fabulous. The reader actually feels very solid and is fairly light.
  • The page “turns”, that 1 second back-flash when turning pages, isn’t as irritating as I thought it would be. In fact, it’s barely noticeable.
  • Lastly, the e-ink screen is excellent. It’s everything that I expected to be. The standard font though isn’t all that great, but I guess I can live with it.

I will post a detailed review a couple of days later, as well as post pictures of it. So keep watching this blog.

PS: Primus, thanks a lot for this buddy !! :)

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