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By David Rothman

Sony reader with lightI married Carly in no small part because of her b.s. detector, which, yes, works just great with e-book hardware. Carly does not care a whit about news releases and reviews—she just wants to know how well a machine can display her Austen.

So here’s the deal for Sony and Bennett Kleinberg at the Goodman Media PR agency. FedEx me a Sony Reader ASAP for a day’s use, that’s all, and Carly can give us the definitive word. If the screen’s as good as some keep insisting, she’ll tell us and I’ll post an audio from her. Does Sony have the guts to do a Carly Test? As an incurable e-book booster, I hope the Reader passes.

Meanwhile I myself would love to see how the Sony Reader compares with the Librie, which I used to own, and which lacked sufficient screen contrast for me, at least. Now I’d like to use the Sony Reader in the same surroundings, the Rothman E-Book Ranch. My views on the Sony’s format limitations—no DRMed books except in the BBeB format—are no secret. I pledge to be objective about the rest; I actually do have high hopes about other ergonomic aspects. and maybe even the screen will surprise me. So, Sony, lend Carly and me a Reader. And while you’re at it, you can share the official screen-contrast specs for both the Reader and the Libries.

The word from Librieguy, a member of a Librie list, is that the screen background on the Sony Reader is a “bit” lighter. But is that enough? While I’m at it, I’ll reproduce, with his permission, his entire post comparing the two machines:

Got to play with the new Reader today.

Overall look and feel: The unit is somewhat heavier than a LIBRIe, mostly due to its sturdier design. The case is aluminum (?), the detachable black cover is thick and resembles a silk-covered, leather-timmer hardbook cover.

Supported formats:
Books: BBeB (lrf, lrx), PDF, RTF, plain text. The enclosed Connect software can convert Word (DOC) files to RTF, if you have MS Word installed. (But, after all, you can do this yourself in Word already.)
Images: JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG
Audio: MP3, AAC (mp4, m4a, mov, qt)

Memory cards: Memory Stick * (up to 4 GB?), Secure Digital (up to 2 GB?). A single slot is used for both types. Only one card can be used at a time.

Screen: Seems to be pretty much the same. The refresh time is a bit faster, almost no ghosting. The background is a bit lighter.

New features: Picture slideshow, audio playback (even in the background, while reading); support for landscape mode – the whole unit can be switched to that mode, including the interface. The number of settings is small, some of them can only be controlled from the managing software (time, book deletion, etc.) The menu is a lot simpler than that of a LIBRIe. A small joystick is used for menu navigation. The bottom bar shows the current page number as well as the total number of pages, which dynamically changes when you switch
between zoom levels.

Power: I think, the AC adapter is the same (5.2v) The built-in battery is LI-Ion Mn, and the manual mentions that you’re not supposed to replace it by yourself.

PDF is supported, as promised, with 2 levels of zoom: fit width or fit visible. Operating Manual is preloaded in PDF format, and formatted for a small page size (5.24 x 6.69 in), in order to be
readable on the 600×800 matrix. In the landscape mode you can read half a page at a time, but it may still not be sufficient for regular 8.5×11 inch PDF files. You can use PDF bookmarks, as well as the hyperlinks within the document itself.

To my great surprise, the content of my LIBRIe memory stick popped up in the Reader with no problems; it seems that the file/directory structure is similar, if not the same. The books are displayed just fine, yet in somewhat reduced fashion (judging by the embedded pictures). I am not sure about the interactive contents yet (like pop-ups), whether they would work, or not.

The Reader is supposed to have a new accessory: a cradle or a dock, but I don’t know what it looks like. Maybe, it will have speakers, similar to iPod docks?

 
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