eReaders Guest Post

The Kindle is a big and exciting topic now that the second incarnation is out there. It’s loaded with cool features and is backed by the Amazon.com conglomerate. I, of course, don’t have one.

What I got for Christmas is a Sony eReader and I’m lovin’ it. There were several reasons I chose the eReader. It can read pdfs and word files, so I could put my own novels in ‘em and bring ‘em. The wireless feature in Kindle didn’t interest me and I liked the Sony’s all-metal case. It looked, apparently, slightly better than the original Kindle (according to reviews) and the size was excellent (I saw one in Borders). And it was cheaper.

But why get an ereader anyway? Well, first of all, I love gadgets and I’m an avid reader. When I travel, I’m used to bringing six or more books with me so the thought of replacing them with one book-sized contraption is appealing. I’m absent minded and am constantly misplacing books so it’s nice to be able to find my favorites. My favorite books I read over and over and over again. Also, at least with the Sony, one can have as many as 8 eReaders using the same library, so I can let everyone in the family have access to my library if I get them a similar unit.

So, how is it? It’s great. It’s much easier to read than a computer, the screen is clear. You can read several days in a row, all day, on the same battery charge. It comes with a nice magnetized leather case (don’t bother buying one) and it feels very solid. The buttons are easy to use. The eReader, at least when I got it, came with 100 classics downloads, the $2 classic books (i.e. public domain) novels out there. That’s quite a hefty number and so I could stock up my Shakespeare and Poe and Dumas and Jane Austen and…

The menu is not desperately intuitive and the Sony eBook store wasn’t as easy to navigate as I would have liked. One can’t read it while charging and the software to transfer books wasn’t perfect.

Still, I have learned to love it and have already begun buying ecopies of my favorite rereadable books so that I never have to do without them again.

Steph: the rocket scientist