A bunch of useless crap
Published on January 31, 2010 By MasonM In Gadgets & Electronics

As an avid reader my truck is crowded with books of all sorts. As you can imagine storage space is at a premium in a truck. To solve the problem of carrying so many books in the truck I picked up a Sony Pocket Edition Reader digital book.

I have to say that this thing is great. I had looked at a Kindle recently and really didn't care much for the display. I just couldn't see spending a lot of time reading that display without eye strain. The Sony device is far better in that regard.

Sony's display looks very much like ink on paper as they employ what they call an E Ink Vizplex screen. It's very, very much like reading a printed book.

The battery charge is also quite impressive. I talked with a guy who owns one of these devices and he confirmed their claim of two weeks of use between charges. Very nice.

I've downloaded a few dozen ebooks from the web, all free ones, and stored them on the Sony. The thing is capable of storing something over 300 books and so I haven't even begun to strain it's capacity at this point. It's very nice to be able to carry around that many books without taking up a lot of space.

I'll be visited a used books store soon to sell most of the books riding around in my truck. There are a couple of them that I will keep, but most are just taking up space now that I have read them.

Between the free ebooks available for downloading and visiting public libraries for ebooks, I imagine that I shouldn't have to buy another book for quite some time.


Comments
on Feb 01, 2010

I will have to look into one.  Like you, I have been less than impressed with the Kindle.  But my "reading" limitations are less confining than yours, so I have not looked hard.  Still, just lugging 3 books out to California and back is not something that is desirable.

Thanks for the recommendation.

on Feb 01, 2010

I checked it out and it looks pretty good, not too big, reads all kinds of formats and the price looks good for what it does. I have seen plenty of books one can find online (some not exactly free) that would be pretty good for someone who loves reading. I am not much of a reader so this gadget for me would be like a blind person getting a TV.

However, my wife likes reading and hopefully my kids will too so there is still hope and just like you said would be nice to not have to carry so many books around and even better to have them all easily accessible.

on Feb 12, 2010

Dr Guy
I will have to look into one.  Like you, I have been less than impressed with the Kindle.  But my "reading" limitations are less confining than yours, so I have not looked hard.  Still, just lugging 3 books out to California and back is not something that is desirable.

Thanks for the recommendation.

I've been really enjoying it. Now I kind of wish I had bought the Touchpad model as one can also write notes directly into it using the stylus, which would come in very handy for me. I may upgrade to that one when money permits.

on Feb 12, 2010

ChuckCS
I checked it out and it looks pretty good, not too big, reads all kinds of formats and the price looks good for what it does. I have seen plenty of books one can find online (some not exactly free) that would be pretty good for someone who loves reading. I am not much of a reader so this gadget for me would be like a blind person getting a TV.

However, my wife likes reading and hopefully my kids will too so there is still hope and just like you said would be nice to not have to carry so many books around and even better to have them all easily accessible.

The fact that it reads many file formats instead of going with a single one like the Kindle was what motivated me to choose the Sony.