Sony's PRS Ebook Reader and Connect Bookstore

Chris,

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

> I take exception to this mischaracterization of PDA reading.

I fully stand by my statement regarding the quality of reading on
PDAs. I looked at the gallery you referenced at <http://www.plkr.org/
gal>, and nothing there to my eyes have convinced me otherwise. I
don't think you could place any of those screen shots side-by-side
with the screenshot of the PRS (much less a real book), and claim
that they represent a comparable reading experience.

And I did not make the original statement lightly. I have been
trying to read eBooks on various PDAs starting with the Newton 110,
to most recently (and briefly) the Palm LifeDrive, and probably half
a dozen in between. Each time, I have been disappointed, and driven
back to print even when there were free electronic versions available
from Gutenberg.

> The Plucker ebooks I read every day are formatted with decent anti-
> aliased fonts, with boldface and italics, blockquote indentation,
> underlining, etc.

But what about the lack of serif fonts (a concession to the small
screen, though in fairness perhaps there are third-party fonts for
this), no headers, no footers (and therefore, no footnotes), no
justification (or justification with visually jarring big gaps in
some lines as a result of few words per line), no proper title page,
no proper TOC, no proper chapter lead pages, etc. etc. etc. To some,
these things do matter.

While some of the above can be rectified with better software (and I
agree that the Plucker screens look nice as far as PDAs go), there is
the inherent physical limitations of a 2.5 inch screen no matter how
high the resolution. The reader is forced to trade off between eye-
straining itsy-bitsy type, or a more readable type that manages to
fit 5-7 words to a line requiring a page turn every 2-3 sentences,
rather than the usual 2-3 paragraphs. Every time there is a page
turn, as your eyes move from the bottom of the screen to the top,
there is an interruption in the flow of the reading, and an annoying
brief break in concentration. There's a reason why only novelty
books get printed on 2x2 paper.

IMHO, unfortunately PDAs simply do not provide the aesthetic
experience nor the satisfaction of reading off the printed page. And
for the first time the PRS comes close.

> There's a gallery at <http://www.plkr.org/gal>, but it looks
> better with third-party fonts. At 320x320 with thousands of colors,
> image quality is the same as an iPod video, or slightly better
> (iPod is 320x240).

Image quality isn't the issue. The readability of the prose is. And
saying that the quality is the same or better than an iPod isn't
saying much---I would never read anything substantial on my iPod.

And note that I said "prose". "Text" is perfectly readable on a PDA
screen. In fact, I use a Nokia E62 (with a 320x240 screen) to read
RSS using the JVM NewsGator client everyday (an excellent client,
BTW). And I find the text on the Nokia perfectly readable. When the
objective is to quickly skim and digest relatively short snippets of
news, and "enjoyment" or "engagement" isn't the issue, it works
perfectly well.

But when I read for pleasure, or when I want to really concentrate on
a longer text, the limitations of PDA based reading are too
distracting. Until now, that meant that I was going back to print on
paper. I haven't had the PRS long enough to say definitively that it
will be successful in displacing print for me personally, but so far
it has been much more satisfying than any PDA I've had thus far.

> For audio/video, TCPMP on the Treo is a very good media player,
> but the Treo doesn't have enough MPEG decoding grunt to handle H.
> 264 video, so the iPod video shows smaller video files at higher
> quality. Since I still have a non-video iPod photo, I still use
> TCPMP frequently.

Not sure what the relevance of this is to the PRS, since the media
features of the PRS are rudimentary and almost besides the point.

> And it cost $0, since I already had the Treo as a PIM/phone, and
> both Plucker & TCPMP are free.

I agree with you that cost is a major issue. The PRS at $350 is
overpriced. But bottom line, the PRS represents an order of
magnitude improvement in the quality of the reading experience over
any PDA solution. Is it worth $350? Probably for a lot of people
the answer is going to be no.

Best,

Tomoharu

I appreciated reading Tomoharu Nishino's article on the PRS Ebook in the latest TidBITS. I like keeping up with technology, and keep wondering if we'll ever be reading books in another form -- but not just yet from the sound of it.

But how does the battery life rate? Is it chargeable?

On Dec 22, 2006, at 7:09 PM, barefootguru wrote:

> But how does the battery life rate? Is it chargeable?

The battery life is excellent. I think Sony's claim of 7500 page
turns is a bit of a stretch. But certainly a few thousand page turns
(6-7 longish books) seems about right in my limited time with this
thing. (In my 6 weeks with this device, I've recharged it twice, and
that is while putting it through a lot for the purposes of the review.)

It charges either via the included AC adapter or via USB port.

Tomoharu

At 4:09 PM -0800 2006/12/22, Tomoharu Nishino wrote:

>And I did not make the original statement lightly. I have been
>trying to read eBooks on various PDAs starting with the Newton 110,
>to most recently (and briefly) the Palm LifeDrive, and probably half
>a dozen in between. Each time, I have been disappointed, and driven
>back to print even when there were free electronic versions available
>from Gutenberg.

        Note that Gutenprint (was Gutenberg) also does Plucker
versions, which are superior to the unformatted versions.

>I agree with you that cost is a major issue. The PRS at $350 is
>overpriced. But bottom line, the PRS represents an order of
>magnitude improvement in the quality of the reading experience over
>any PDA solution. Is it worth $350? Probably for a lot of people
>the answer is going to be no.

Tomoharu,

        I think you just rebutted a statement I didn't make. I never
claimed PDAs were equivalent to books, but you exaggerated their
failings. Specifically, your review's first sentence below is wrong,
and the second implies supports that by implying that PDAs can't
retain any "presentation", which isn't true:

>Reading raw unformatted text files on a PDA (which was the closest
>alternative until now) is just plain ugly and unsatisfying. The
>ability to retain some of the aspects of presenting text on a
>visually appealing page makes the reading experience much more
>satisfying.

        My point was not that PDAs are as good as books or the PRS,
but rather to point out that they're far from "unformatted text
files". Specifically, Plucker supports high quality anti-aliased
fonts with bold and slanted pseudo-italics, different sizes and
super/sub-scripting, hyperlinks, and headers/footers.

        You complained about serif fonts, so I mentioned that Plucker
supports serif fonts. I have posted screenshots I just took (note
that I find sans serif more readable at small sizes, but there are
options):

http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/Plucker/plucker-groklaw-serif.png
http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/Plucker/plucker-groklaw-sans.png

        As you alluded in your RSS reference, Plucker works extremely
well for web-based articles, and acceptably (for me) for long prose.
I read GrokLaw (with dozens of pages, formatting, indented
blockquotes, and footnotes) in Plucker, although I don't read the
PDFs (possible, but not through Plucker), and GrokLaw has got to
constitute some sort of acid test.

http://groklaw.net/

        I mentioned multimedia because it's something the PRS claims
to handle, and something you touched on in your review -- which the
Palm handles decently. Of course a Palm is inferior to any iPod
except a shuffle for audio. For video, the Palm with TCPMP is
inferior to an "iPod video", but superior to any other iPod.

        Personally, I am waiting for a higher-resolution iPod to
replace my iPod photo, and will then stop watching movies on the Treo
650, but will probably keep reading websites and other articles on it
during my subway ride until I upgrade to a newer Treo...


                                                Regards,


                                                Chris

On the ereader box it says it is not compatible with Apple Macs or the Connect website.This was confirmed by Sony techical support. So how are tidbits readers managing to use it?

On 28/12/06 21:21, "Chris Pepper" <pepperreppep.com> wrote:

> My point was not that PDAs are as good as books or the PRS,
> but rather to point out that they're far from "unformatted text
> files". Specifically, Plucker supports high quality anti-aliased
> fonts with bold and slanted pseudo-italics, different sizes and
> super/sub-scripting, hyperlinks, and headers/footers.

And let's not forget the obvious: PDF files. Adobe Reader for Palm OS (a
Windows Mobile version exists too) does a good job displaying not too
complex files on my Tungsten E, though for best results the PDF files should
incorporate accessibility tags, which they usually dont. It's possible to
add them with Acrobat Pro, though.

Also, iSilo handles raw text and HTML files nicely and exists for a wide
variety of platforms. Actually, I usually read the HTML version of TidBITS
in iSilo while commuting, complete with bold text and the occasional images.
<http://isilo.com/>
iSiloX must be used to convert files in iSilo format, and there's a Mac OS X
version: <http://isilox.com/>.

-Thomas

On 12/22/06 at 4:09 PM, tomoharunishino.us (Tomoharu Nishino) wrote:

> Chris,
>
> I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
>
> > I take exception to this mischaracterization of PDA reading.
>
> I fully stand by my statement regarding the quality of reading on
> PDAs. I looked at the gallery you referenced at <http://www.plkr.org/
> gal>, and nothing there to my eyes have convinced me otherwise. I
> don't think you could place any of those screen shots side-by-side
> with the screenshot of the PRS (much less a real book), and claim
> that they represent a comparable reading experience.

I'd have to disagree with this on two points.

First, I admittedly find reading on a good PDA screen with a good reader
program (I typically use iSilo rather than Plucker, but they have
comparable display quality) quite acceptable, if not ideal: the default
font at 'standard' Palm display size is very readable to me, with easily
distinguishable letterforms; the screen displays an acceptable amount of
text, and despite your critique the words-per-line are about the same as
a typical newspaper column; and a Palm is a perfect form factor for
holding in my hand, as it is sized to fit comfortably and the controls
fall readily to the thumb of either hand. (There's also another
not-quite-PDA option I'll mention later.)

Second, I disagree that the PRS is a good e-reader, after spending a few
minutes with it at a Fry's when travelling. My time with it was limited
and a Fry's is not exactly the ideal viewing environment, so take my
opinions with whatever grain of salt you will. That said:

* I found the much hyped e-ink display to be a serious disappointment.
Under the Fry's lighting, the contrast was no more than mediocre; I was
reminded of nothing so much as the Handspring Visor I reviewed in
TidBITS almost seven years ago, and I would have hoped for something
better after this much time. The resolution was also not what I would
have expected; I could see clear pixellation at several points.

* My take on the resolution may have been colored by my dislike for the
standard font, which I found spidery and hard to read. Sony did much the
same thing with the hi-res default fonts on its Clie PDAs; in both
cases, the font designers used higher resolutions to do thinner, more
complex letterforms. This emphasizes pixellation to me. Palm, OTOH, kept
the same basic letterforms as their low-res fonts, and used the extra
resolution to smooth the font outlines. I find the Palm solution more
readable. In the past, I've compared the Clie vs. Palm fonts to OS 9 vs.
OS X font smoothing; OS 9 smoothing produced lighter, often
unevenly-weighted letterforms, while OS X produces heavier but usually
smoother and more consistent letterforms. (I'll also note that I still
use Monaco 9 heavily as a reading/working font in many OS X programs,
like BBEdit; the Palm default font reminds me somewhat of Monaco 9,
which may be another reason why I'm comfortable with it.)

* The device itself is relatively lightweight and thin, but feels
oversize and significantly bulkier than the PDAs I like to use. It was
too large to fit comfortably in my hand, the shape did not make it easy
to grip, and the controls were not in a comfortable position to
manipulate one-handed.

* I agree they went too far in trying to mimic the layout of a printed
page, and would in fact go further than you did. Footnotes are the one
element of a printed page I really want to reproduce in an electronic
reader; otherwise, I actually prefer the freedom of a more-or-less
endless scroll, which lets you view exactly the segment of text you want
without having to deal with artificial page boundaries. I also found the
leading too wide and the justification too obvious; this is also true of
the default display settings of the e-reading programs I use, but can at
least be changed because you're not locking yourself into a fixed page
layout.

This is just describing the basic features as a reader, without going
into more detailed issues with the operating software, readable formats,
and Sony's bookstore. I'm not sure I'd pay $100 for the PRS, let alone
$350, and I don't agree that it's even a significant improvement over a
PDA - let alone a major improvement.

My taste may also be somewhat colored by the handheld reading platform I
use most often these days, a Nokia 770. At 800x480 (the official specs
don't list a ppi resolution), it has perhaps the best handheld screen
I've used; the brightness is not as uniform as I'd like, but it is still
very bright and has much better contrast than the PRS. I find it very
hard to notice any pixellation, even on tricky letters like W. (See
<http://www.tfs.net/~tbutler/Nokia770Reader.jpg> for some hastily-done
screenshots.) While it doesn't come with standard reader software, there
is a free reader program called FBReader that supports text, HTML, RTF,
Plucker, Palm/Aportis DOC, and Mobipocket e-book files (in addition to
some other formats I'm not familiar with); there is also a built-in PDF
reader, though I find any serious reading using it to be fairly tedious.
(The 770 application page lists at least one other PDF reader that I
haven't tried yet.) The standard fonts offer true italics and boldface
(though I prefer the standard sans-serif to the serif font I used in the
screenshots), leading and margins are both adjustable in FBReader, as
are paragraph indents and inter-paragraph leading.

<http://www.nokiausa.com/770/1,7841,feat:1,00.html>
<http://only.mawhrin.net/fbreader/>
<http://maemo.org/maemowiki/ApplicationCatalog2006>

> But what about the lack of serif fonts (a concession to the small
> screen, though in fairness perhaps there are third-party fonts for
> this), no headers, no footers (and therefore, no footnotes), no
> justification (or justification with visually jarring big gaps in
> some lines as a result of few words per line), no proper title page,
> no proper TOC, no proper chapter lead pages, etc. etc. etc. To some,
> these things do matter.

I'm not sure what you define as a proper title page or TOC; I would say
that a TOC, at least, is far more dependent on the format of a
particular book file than on the reader or the software. Plucker used on
an appropriate website or HTML file, with proper linking, certainly
produces what I'd call a nice table of contents; for an example, try the
Plucker archive I made of the Annotated Pratchett File,
<http://www.tfs.net/~tbutler/AnnotatedPratchettFile.pdb>. I think that
chapter lead pages and title pages are to some extent trying too hard to
reproduce a paper book verbatim. Some kind of segment with standard
title page information, and clear delineation of chapters, is of course
a good thing; but I don't demand that they try to exactly mimic the look
of a paper book, and such things can be done very well in a Plucker-ized
HTML archive (again, see the Annotated Pratchett File for an example).
As I said above, I would like to see a true footnote capability linked
to the on-screen appearance of footnoted text, but that's the only real
'paper' formatting I feel is lacking. I prefer left-justified text, but
I think the text shown in the screenshot does a workable job of full
justification. As for serif fonts, I think the 770's standard one is
perfectly presentable, with true italics - and is even fairly-well
kerned.

> While some of the above can be rectified with better software (and I
> agree that the Plucker screens look nice as far as PDAs go), there is
> the inherent physical limitations of a 2.5 inch screen no matter how
> high the resolution. The reader is forced to trade off between eye-
> straining itsy-bitsy type, or a more readable type that manages to
> fit 5-7 words to a line requiring a page turn every 2-3 sentences,
> rather than the usual 2-3 paragraphs. Every time there is a page
> turn, as your eyes move from the bottom of the screen to the top,
> there is an interruption in the flow of the reading, and an annoying
> brief break in concentration. There's a reason why only novelty
> books get printed on 2x2 paper.

I'd say the 770 is about the best compromise I've seen yet between
screen size and device size. While the PRS has a nice large screen, I
think it's too large to hold comfortably; perhaps I've been spoiled by
smaller PDAs, but neither the width nor height of the PRS is narrow
enough to bridge with my hand while still being able to reach the
controls with my thumb. A Palm is small enough to fit easily in one
hand, but as you say the screen size is less than ideal. The 770 is too
wide to bridge when used in landscape mode, but short enough to rest on
the heel of my hand while curling my fingers around the top and back -
and the width provides room for a screen large enough to do well in
either landscape or portrait orientation. It also fits in most of my
shirt pockets (if very tightly in a few cases!), where the PRS wouldn't
have a prayer. This is a *huge* advantage. :)

Also, as I note above, 5-7 words is a common width for newspaper
columns; it's been 15+ years since my newspaper layout/design course,
but I do have fuzzy memories of a couple of sessions discussing column
widths through readibility studies that showed this was a very good line
length.

Finally, as I said, I actually like the continuous-scroll nature of
reading with a typical e-reader, and in most cases actually prefer it to
a rigid page-by-page delineation; it's easy to scroll back a few lines
without having to move your eyes, if you want to re-check a sentence,
and you can retain the context within a few lines no matter where you
are - as opposed to rigid pages, which force you to lose the context if
you have to cross a page boundary.

> > And it cost $0, since I already had the Treo as a PIM/phone, and
> > both Plucker & TCPMP are free.
>
> I agree with you that cost is a major issue. The PRS at $350 is
> overpriced. But bottom line, the PRS represents an order of
> magnitude improvement in the quality of the reading experience over
> any PDA solution. Is it worth $350? Probably for a lot of people
> the answer is going to be no.

I would match the 770 against the PRS any day, and choose it in a
heartbeat. It also runs $350 retail (though the Nokia page is listing it
at $359 now, oddly enough, it's still selling for $350 at CompUSA), and
the price gets you far more than the PRS offers. In addition to being
(IMHO) a much better book reader than the PRS, the 770 has built-in WiFi
for web browsing and other net-enabled applications, and can be used as
a general-purpose computing platform.

Its main disadvantage is that Nokia only provides and supports a few
built-in applications, and third-party application support is spotty and
often quirky. The 770 runs on a Linux distribution with a customized
Nokia GUI running on top of it. Nokia's own software does a very good
job of not forcing the user to deal with Linux-isms, but in most
third-party apps you fall through holes in the experience, such as
having to stumble your way through paths - for example, from
/home/user/MyDocs/.documents to /media/mmc1/ to get from the Nokia-GUI's
Documents folder to an inserted memory card's folder. Third-party apps
themselves vary widely in quality and polish, with a few approaching the
solidity of the built-in apps but almost all having at least a few
quirks. Even FBReader, which I like very much, has occasional stability
issues and some rough edges. In general, Palm software provides a more
stable and much more consistent user experience, even with the hobbyist
software.


Travis Butler
tbutlermac.com

At 12:12 AM -0800 12/27/06, Tomoharu Nishino wrote:

        It looks like Philips has a competitor on the way:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/02/07/tim_readies_3g_ebook/


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
                             <http://www.extrapepperoni.com/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>