Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Electronic Readers Revisited



I was ecstatic when my new Sony Electronic Reader arrived via UPS a couple of weeks ago. I just knew Sony’s Electronic Reader was the cat’s meow and would save time, paper and money. But now I have egg on my face after my enthusiastic praise in a recent post.

Downloading my PDF files to the Sony reader was remarkably easy but when the document was opened on the reader’s 5 x 7 screen the PDF file was not readable. The font could only be increased from a six to an approximate size eight which made reading impossible without a magnifying glass.

It boils down to format. My main purpose for purchasing an electronic reader was to have the ability to download all of my PDF ebooks in one location, therefore enjoying reading in comfort at the library, in the car, or at Starbucks instead of at the computer screen or printing out hundreds of unbound pages.

I talked to Sony about this and they apologized and suggested that I reformat all of my ebooks and then download to the reader. I told them that I have 64 ebooks and reformatting was out of the question. Also, I informed them that their instructions did not indicate personal documents, such as PDF files, are not in the correct format for downloading to the electronic reader and therefore not compatible unless you purchase ebooks from Sony’s Ebook Store. You can bet I will reassess my need to have an electronic reader.

This just means that there will always be some type of “bugs” to work out no matter how far advanced the technology is. This also means you can’t judge a Reader by its cover.


Write it down,

Carma