Bill Janssen, a researcher interested in e-books, as well as one of the stalwarts of the eBook Community List, came up with an interesting look at the Librie in action:
I’ve finally got my hands on a Librie, which is sitting here on my desk here. It’s slim, perhaps a half-inch thick, and light, about the weight of a paperback edition of The Name of the Rose. The device itself is larger than a paperback book (by about 2 inches vertically and 1 inch horizontally). There’s a gray leatherette cover, which flips open–it’s attached on the right side of the reader–and has a magnetic (!) catch to hold it to the reader when closed. When you open it, it has a *lot* of buttons, including a full keyboard. There’s also a cute little rollerwheel in the bottom button row, in the middle, which you can use to scroll up and down in content lists. The screen is almost as big as a paperback page, perhaps half-an-inch less both horizontally and vertically.
Generally, I agree with the review at http://www.dottocomu.com/b/archives/002571.html.
The screen is sharp black on light silver. Apparently the silver (very light gray) background is deliberate, since white (really, brighter silver) appears now and then in some patterns. The text edges are very sharp, particularly with Kanji characters. I’d estimate the resolution to be at least 250-300 dpi.
The screen seems to have some latency. When you turn a page, you see a black flash, followed by a combination of the previous page (in white-on-black) and the new page, which then quickly settles into the new page. All of this takes about a second or two, I’d say.
The text I’m reading, a Japanese text on Office English, has audio content as well, to teach the reader how to pronounce the English words. The audio is quiet but clear. There’s a headphone jack at the bottom to listen in private.
Listening in private is apparently important. A great deal of the population commutes by train to and from work every day. I’m told (ethnographers down the hall from my office happen to be studying Japanese life) that on the subway, one is supposed to turn off one’s cellphone, and refrain from using it in “audio” mode–text messaging is the order of the day on the subway. The Librie makes a great reading accessory for those commutes.
In addition, it comes with a Japanese-English dictionary on it. Electronic dictionaries are extremely common in Japan for those who speak other languages, and run about $100 to $300. This ameliorates the $400 price of the Librie a bit. Content is apparently only available in Japanese (and requires a Japanese credit card to purchase?).
It runs Linux internally, and the source code is downloadable from http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/Download/EBR-1000EP.html.
Bill in the past has been rather skeptical about many other devices, so his liking the Librie is a positive sign. I hope Sony does an American version of the Librie–just so it comes without Gemstar-style DRM that won’t even let readers add their own content.
