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Is Sony’s eBook Library suite a turkey? Brad Vertrees thinks so
October 4, 2009 | 9:31 am
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By David Rothman
The e-book reader within the Sony eBook Library suite is vastly underrated.
But now I’m curious about a not-so-delightful experience that Brad Vertrees has suffered with a different app within the suite.
He loves his Sony Reader PRS-300, aka, the Pocket Edition. But he wonders if the eBook Library software is bad enough to imperil Sony’s competitiveness with the Kindle. What are your own impressions of the suite?
I connected my Pocket Edition and within a few moments the software recognized it and I saw the device pop up on the menu. I tried to move my newly purchased short story to my device. Nothing. The status thingy kept going around and around, saying it was transferring, but the story stayed in some kind of digital limbo.
After waiting it out for several minutes with no progress, I noticed the fan on my Mac starting to get louder and louder. It appeared the Sony software was really getting my computer heated up. The fan usually comes on when I’m watching videos for an extended period of time.
Anyway, I closed the program down and disconnected my Reader. I restarted the program and repeated the same steps. This time Sony’s software froze up and I had to perform a ‘forced quit.’ This happened every subsequent time I tried to get my Reader connected to the software. It would recognize the device, but was unresponsive when I tried to open any of the folders.
Thank goodness for Calibre
Frustrated, I opened the ebook management software Calibre and once again plugged in my Reader. Much to my surprise Calibre didn’t even recognize the Pocket Edition – something I’ve never experienced in the past. I went to the website and downloaded the newest version. Success!.
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Comments:
Yeah, I must say Sony’s software stinks big time.
It is buggy and really needs some attention. For one, I have a 600 & a 300. The 300 will accept books from my Collection but will not accept the Collection. Freeze ups, etc. are the way. Come on Sony do something about this it’s quite annoying indeed. As well, I’d really like to edit incorrect data in titles and author statements. That’s annoying too.
As I myself noted in one of my PRS-700 review columns, Calibre is considerably more useful than the Library software. If I were to get a Sony myself someday, it would be Calibre all the way.
I *still* haven’t gotten the Sony software to work on Vista. Thank goodness I had an XP machine lying around !!!
I don’t go to Sony’s site, not because I particularly dislike it but because I find quite enough to read without it. Between classics and works available through feedbooks and subscriptions from fictionwise I have plenty to read.
I also run Linux and have found Calibre, while useful, to be overrated. I’m quite happy without using it or accessing Sony’s site.
Amazon Kindle lover just reads the above smugly!! Never a problem with the Kindle/Amazon.
as for Sony software and VISTA: start it in xp compatibility mode, should work (same for Windows 7)
you can also just drag and drop your stuff onto the Sony, worked for me.
You should see the sony bookstore in Switzerland, non-existent (same for Kindle
). all you get is links to online bookstores which open in an external browser! How sad is that 
That’s because Amazon didn’t bother to package any software with the Kindle in the first place. While the software is buggy at times, the ability to use collections and to export notes to RTF format (the latter functionality being something that calibre does not currently provide) is quite useful and something that the Kindle could use. I have a Kindle and while it is a decent piece of tech, I do wish it had the Collections I find so useful on my Sonys. Once the PRS900 comes out, users will be able to download directly over the airwaves like the Kindle, so I think this will become even less of an issue. As it is, the Sony Readers are perfectly functional without the software.