Comments on: Exchanging my Kindle for another Sony Reader http://innocuous.org/articles/2008/06/16/exchanging-my-kindle-for-another-sony-reader/ Richard Tibbetts on Various Topics Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:35:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Stephen http://innocuous.org/articles/2008/06/16/exchanging-my-kindle-for-another-sony-reader/comment-page-1/#comment-8 Stephen Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:46:41 +0000 http://new.innocuous.org/index.php/2008/06/16/exchanging-my-kindle-for-another-sony-reader/#comment-8 Until fairly recently, i read books on a Handspring Visor platinum, a Palm pilot. The screen is black & white, 160x160 LCD. Twin AAA rechargeable batteries last a week with heavy use per charge and a month of mild use. If they run out and i'm on the road, i could always stop in 7/11 and get some disposables. Or, i could carry spares. I used rechargeables, and the device life was not tied to expensive or non-replaceable batteries. The screen is small, but good readers exist which flip to the next screen quickly. Fonts are limited, but two met my needs - standard and large-bold, depending on ambient lighting. There is a back light, which is really lame, but that means that it works really well for reading in the very dark - for example, in bed. The Palm form factor is shirt pocket. I don't want a big delay in getting to the next screen. Black & White LCDs are better, IMO. They also provide good battery life. The smaller form factor is better. Standard batteries means i can carry spares if i want. Unfortunately, the digitizer is now unreliable, so i'm using it as an alarm clock. No one sells an equivalent. I guess they figure that no one wants black and white, so all Palms are color, despite battery life issues. Feh. One day we might get functional products that meat real needs, rather than the next wizbang glitzy thingy that kinda sorta works. You've used the Sony, and that's a plus. But i still remember Sony's "DRM CDs" - you know, the one with the Windows root kit. If Sony is capable of that kind of big brother BS on music CDs(static content), i'm reluctant to buy a toaster from them. I'm certainly not going to buy active electronics from them. For me, it's not going to go away soon. Sony needs to incorporate "we're not evil" into their operating policies. We as consumers need to act like it matters, else will continue to get more of the same, and worse. I'll be replacing my 11 year old camcorder soon. It won't be Sony. What i really would like is a shirt pocket device with a low power LCD screen - slightly higher resolution, that spans the device edge to edge, maybe 4 AAA batteries for that much longer endurance, and some sort of built in protection so that it can fall out of my shirt pocket repeatedly without serious injury. It should last longer than 3 or 4 years of abuse. And when it does die, it should still be available. It shouldn't matter in the slightest that next year a new one could be twice as fast. Oh, and it should be cheap. My current portable book reader is not ideal. It's a Nokia n800. The screen is color, 800x480 - 200 dpi. It reads PDF, HTML, palm docs, plain text, and so on. There is a VERY good book reader for it. However, the battery lasts about 5 hours on a charge. I have two, but one must do a full shutdown to replace the battery. It's shirt pocket sized. I put most of my content on it over WiFi, but one can also use USB. I consider it fragile, and have put together a padded metal case for it. But i really bought it as a shirt pocket multi-user Linux box. I've got a blue tooth folding keyboard that lets me write stuff like this in a more portable way than a laptop, if i want. Very powerful, but still a bit rough around the edges. For example, it can play movies, but i don't use it for that.n Until fairly recently, i read books on a Handspring Visor platinum, a Palm pilot. The screen is black & white, 160×160 LCD. Twin AAA rechargeable batteries last a week with heavy use per charge and a month of mild use. If they run out and i’m on the road, i could always stop in 7/11 and get some disposables. Or, i could carry spares. I used rechargeables, and the device life was not tied to expensive or non-replaceable batteries. The screen is small, but good readers exist which flip to the next screen quickly. Fonts are limited, but two met my needs – standard and large-bold, depending on ambient lighting. There is a back light, which is really lame, but that means that it works really well for reading in the very dark – for example, in bed. The Palm form factor is shirt pocket.

I don’t want a big delay in getting to the next screen. Black & White LCDs are better, IMO. They also provide good battery life. The smaller form factor is better. Standard batteries means i can carry spares if i want.

Unfortunately, the digitizer is now unreliable, so i’m using it as an alarm clock. No one sells an equivalent. I guess they figure that no one wants black and white, so all Palms are color, despite battery life issues. Feh. One day we might get functional products that meat real needs, rather than the next wizbang glitzy thingy that kinda sorta works.

You’ve used the Sony, and that’s a plus. But i still remember Sony’s “DRM CDs” – you know, the one with the Windows root kit. If Sony is capable of that kind of big brother BS on music CDs(static content), i’m reluctant to buy a toaster from them. I’m certainly not going to buy active electronics from them. For me, it’s not going to go away soon. Sony needs to incorporate “we’re not evil” into their operating policies. We as consumers need to act like it matters, else will continue to get more of the same, and worse. I’ll be replacing my 11 year old camcorder soon. It won’t be Sony.

What i really would like is a shirt pocket device with a low power LCD screen – slightly higher resolution, that spans the device edge to edge, maybe 4 AAA batteries for that much longer endurance, and some sort of built in protection so that it can fall out of my shirt pocket repeatedly without serious injury. It should last longer than 3 or 4 years of abuse. And when it does die, it should still be available. It shouldn’t matter in the slightest that next year a new one could be twice as fast. Oh, and it should be cheap.

My current portable book reader is not ideal. It’s a Nokia n800. The screen is color, 800×480 – 200 dpi. It reads PDF, HTML, palm docs, plain text, and so on. There is a VERY good book reader for it. However, the battery lasts about 5 hours on a charge. I have two, but one must do a full shutdown to replace the battery. It’s shirt pocket sized. I put most of my content on it over WiFi, but one can also use USB. I consider it fragile, and have put together a padded metal case for it. But i really bought it as a shirt pocket multi-user Linux box. I’ve got a blue tooth folding keyboard that lets me write stuff like this in a more portable way than a laptop, if i want. Very powerful, but still a bit rough around the edges. For example, it can play movies, but i don’t use it for that.n

]]>