Rob's Rants

I finally took the plunge and joined the latest technogeek craze and purchased a new e-book, or e-reader since it displays more than books.

There are a few choices on the market today, but the category is dominated by either Amazon’s Kindle family (now the Kindle 2 and larger Kindle DX) or Sony’s e-reader family (now the PRS-505 & PRS-700). If you aren’t already familiar with the idea of an e-reader, it’s an electronic device dedicated to displaying text using e-paper technology. E-paper differs from a standard LCD display (think laptop) primarily because it isn’t back-lit. This has plusses and minuses; the biggest benefits are that no backlight means dramatically lower energy consumption (current e-readers can go weeks without recharging) and less eye-strain. Downsides are that, like regular paper, you can’t read in the dark.

Anyway, I spent the better part of several weeks researching these two device families. The differences are subtle in many ways. Because there are only two e-paper manufacturers in the world right now, and one is developing its own reader, both the Amazon and Sony devices use the same screens. So all of the differentiation resides in the design and execution of the other, non-core functions.

Cutting to the chase, I bought a Sony PRS-700, for which I will write a detailed review after I’ve spent a couple of months with it. For now though, I can outline the comaprison process I used to decide.

My Characteristics

Most reviews I read dive right to the devices and then describes which the author likes better. But rarely do the reviewers give us pertinent information about themselves up front. And this is critical t weighing any opinion. For example — one of the common knocks on the Sony PRS-700 is the slight reduction in resolution caused by the additional screen necessary to make the built-in light work. I’ve compared the Sony side-by-side to a friend’s Kindle and the difference doesn’t bother me. But I have perfect 20-20 vision and above average night-vision. If I wore Coke-bottle thick glasses, this might be a bigger problem! So here are some critical things I think you should know.

• I have perfect vision and great night vision. I’m the kid whose mother yelled at him constantly to turn on more lights or I’d ruin my eyes. She was wrong. I read in near-dark all the time. So display clarity is not super-critical for me.
• I commute to work by train, approx. 1-1/2 hours each way. This is where I do most of my reading. I rarely read in bed.
• I don’t read many books. Maybe 3 or 4 a year. 90% of my reading is periodicals, including The Economist (which I will continue to receive in print), and then selections from The Atlantic, The Nation, Newsweek, and National Review.
• My job requires me to stay aware of both industry trends found in blogs (like ePatients, Running a Hospital, Adam Bosworth’s blog, etc.) and in medical research, which are articles typically published in PDF format.
• I am a gadget and techno-geek. I don’t mind hacking my devices, using 3rd party or open-source software, and generally making things work for me. So convenience isn’t my #1 criteria.
• I don’t annotate my books or articles. I just don’t. All my life I’ve been fortunate to have an incredible memory for written material. Even in college I didn’t highlight or underline a single textbook.
• I live with my laptop. I take it everywhere and use the same laptop for home and work. It goes on vacation with me. So having a device with independent connectivity isn’t really important.

Now, on to the device comparison.

Physical Characteristics

First, a side-by-side photo (borrowed from the Computerworld review located at http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9130624)

Kindle to the left - Sony to the right

The design of the Sony appealed to me from the first time I held it. It’s more compact than the Kindle 2 and it’s made of metal. It feels more dense and substantial. Since I carry this back and forth to work each day, the durability advantage of the Sony (even if it’s only perception) appealed to me.

I also really liked the way that the Sony fely in my hand. Compared to the Kindle, it feels … well … like a book. And isn’t that the point?

Also, the Sony has a touch screen. For some reason that was important to me, and honestly I don’t know why — I would normally tell someone else expressing this that they were acting rediculous. The main benefit of the touchscreen is that you can turn pages on the Sony with a finger-swipe. On the Kindle you must use the buttons on the sides. I really love the finger-swipe. I admit it’s petty, but I rated it as an important feature.

Connectivity

The main differentiating feature of the Kindle is the built-in 3G wireless connection. Touted as a game-changing feature, the connection is clearly designed to facilitate purchases from the Amazon store. I will admit that I wasn’t impressed by this for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t read that many books and other than books, the Amazon store doesn’t sell much. Second, I dislike being tied to the cellular carrier which Amazon has chosen. Call it my net-neutrality streak, but any relationship between industry behemoths (Amazon & Sprint in this case) can ONLY server to screw the consumer. And the fact that the wireless costs are hidden only reinforces that for me. For what it’s worth, this is the reason I don’t have an iPhone either – the satanic bargain struck between Apple and AT&T is a horrible deal for consumers and should be declared illegal, in my humble opinion. So, unless I’m buying books from Amazon, which I’m rarely doing, both devices need to be tethered to a computer to work. And at least I can choose any carrier’s 3G card for my computer.

Content

The Kindle is pretty well tied to Amazon.com. It’s clearly designed for people who read and buy a lot of books and its features are all tuned towards making these purchases an easy and efficient process. But my research indicated that the Kindle falls down when other content is involved.

First, people other than Amazon sell e-books and these come in a variety of more “open” formats such as EPub or Mobi. And in the ultimate irony, Mobipocket was purchased by Amazon in 2005 and the Kindle doesn’t even support the format! So I am leftwith one of two choices: either Amazon is too disorganized or too rushed to incorporate support for their own technology into their new hardware, or, more probably, Amazon is trying to quietly squash more open formats which might compete with their book sales. Either way I am not impressed.

Because non-Amazon content needs to be converted there are only two choices – tether the device and get 3rd-party software (like Calibre) to manage the files or use Amazon’s service via wireless and e-mail which charges per download (there’s the satanic link again). Even after this, I read that the support on the Kindle isn’t spectacular:

Bonus 16th Update: Having copied over .DOC, .TXT, .RTF, .PDF, .GIF, .JPEG, and .PDB files directly to the Kindle via USB, only the .TXT file showed up for viewing.

The .DOC file I sent over the air to the Kindle arrived as a .AZW, the Kindle format, which implies to me that the only two file formats this thing can read natively are .AZW and .TXT. That’s a huge bummer.

- from http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/15-things-i-just-lea.html

And regarding the lack of support for open standards, I am inclined to agree with Tim O’Reilly who wrote this in a recent Forbes editorial:

Yet I have a bold prediction: Unless Amazon embraces open e-book standards like epub, which allow readers to read books on a variety of devices, the Kindle will be gone within two or three years. . .

. . . In developing the business plan for the Kindle, Amazon was no doubt influenced by the great success of Apple ( AAPL – news – people ) with the iPod: Proprietary hardware and proprietary file formats made Apple into the kingpin of the digital music industry. But what Amazon seems to have missed is the important role that “free” played in the success of the iPod. People didn’t populate their iPods solely with music purchased from Apple. It was easy for them to “rip” their own CDs into the standard mp3 file format and load their entire music collection onto the device.

While users can load some of their own documents onto the Kindle, there is no easy way to “rip” a book. But with epub-based readers, there are millions of free titles available, and books are available from many vendors, each able to experiment with new business models. . .

Because I read so few books and so many other formats, this was a no-brainer for me. The more open nature of the Sony system was appealing.

Conclusion

So, this all lead me to the Sony PRS-700, which I picked up a couple of nights ago at a local Borders. In the coming weeks I’ll let you know what life is like using this daily.

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Related posts:

1. Kindle DRM Hacked
2. Amazon to Kindle Owners: “We Own You, Bitch!”
3. Sony PRS-700 Update II
4. Sony PRS-700 Update