Re: [tlug] Netbooks (sony reader)

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2010-02-02 11:38 +0900 (Tue), Darren Cook wrote:

> > The Sony Reader is somewhat cheaper than the Kindle, with a PRS-300
> > currently going for about $199 US, ...
> 
> If I found a second-hand model, say a year or two old, would that still
> be good?

Yes. You don't want a PRS-500, but the PRS-505 is about the same thing
as the newer PRS-300. One difference is that the 505 is slightly larger
in length and width, though not thickness, due to the larger screen.
The resolution is the same though, so whether this is an advantage
or disadvantage depends on your eyes. The 505 also has a slower CPU,
which means that it feels a bit more sluggish, especially when you
have hundreds of books on it. On the other hand, it does have external
storage (SDHC and memory stick card slots) as well as internal; the
PRS-300 has only internal.

I contemplated upgrading my 505 to the newer generation, but it works
well enough that I felt I could wait for subsequent generations without
any undue discomfort.

> > That said, 600x800 screen has too low a resolution to be able to read
> > most A4 PDFs as they are....
> 
> Interesting. Perhaps I'll load a magazine PDF on a memory stick and try
> it out in Bic. 

Remember to try out both vertical and horizontal orientations, and the
various font sizes.

> When trying to read a PDF on the iphone (320x480) I felt
> if it was twice as big (i.e. 480x640, but also physically bigger too) it
> would have been okay.

It really depends on what the PDF is. What doesn't work well for me
(though I can live with it in larger-text mode with painful line-breaks)
are things like:

    http://www.starling-software.com/misc/icfp-2009-cjs.pdf

For that, the minimum resolution I need to be able to read without
strain is 1024 pixels across or so. Since the formatting is simple,
pushing the font-size button and dealing with the bad line breaks works ok.

On very fancy layouts, such as articles from ACM Queue magazine
(http://queue.acm.org/), it's hopeless. Even without graphics, the
layout is so non-linear that the "render just the text" mode can't get
the text in the right order.

All that said, it's still great for reading fiction and simple
non-fiction, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. I'll just have to
wait for something else to let me read my A4 PDFs comfortably.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson         <cjs@example.com>         +81 90 7737 2974
             http://www.starling-software.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism
by those who have not got it.    --George Bernard Shaw