A friend of mine used to hole up at the Indiana Dunes for a
couple weeks every year with a suitcase full of books. He would read night and
day, ran or shone, for the duration of his vacation. It was his idea of heaven.
Sony’s Portable Reader System, the PRS-500, would seem to
hold promise for voracious readers like him--who want to travel light. The
half-inch thick, 8.8-ounce, is supposed to hold up to 160 e-books.
I gave it a spin on a transatlantic flight. I went the
Connect bookstore, sort of like a literary iTunes store, where a huge variety
of books were available for reasonable prices. I got an e-copy of “Kite Runner”
I also went to a free e-book store and picked up Dracula by Bram Stoker. After
all, I was heading to Dublin,
where Bram wrote the book.
I also put back-up copies of my passport and hotels in the
device.
On the darkened plane, on an overnight flight, I really was
looking forward to reading about the Prince of Darkness. Instead, I got the Print of Darkness.
Sony claims the pages display on the six-inch LCD screen
look like ink on paper. On its Web site, Sony says: “Viewing text on the Reader
Digital Book's screen is just like reading text on paper. Unlike the display of
a laptop screen which is backlit and can strain your eyes, viewing pages on the
Reader Digital Book is as comfortable as on a real book. But unlike a real
book, the Reader Digital Book's text is scalable, conveniently allowing you to
adjust the size of text.”
Maybe. But I found the display extremely disappointing.
Years ago, I tried out some e-books. One of them had added illumination that
brightened the page.
If the $300 did such a great job of displaying pages, why
would Sony be selling a $15 book light as an accessory?
I noticed that Accenture had an early e-book on display in its Chicago lab as an example of a faulty technology.
Sony needs to do better with its Reader or else it’s destined
for a spot on that wall of shame.
Meanwhile, readers, my advice is to leave the e-book at
home. Just take an old-fashioned analog-type book…if you still support that
technology.
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