My New Sony Reader

I'm not one for saving the earth, countering the greenhouse effect, eating organic, or reducing my carbon-footprint. If anything, I'm all about increasing my physical footprint by consuming the dirtiest cow-meat that I can find, dripping in A1 and genetically modified vegetables that have no reason to exist at this time of year. Alas, the one thing that I can't compromise in the goal towards the betterment of society is my food.

So, it was with a great sense of hypocrisy that I purchased a Sony eBook Reader this weekend under the guise of saving paper and potentially preventing the inevitable felling of the rainforests. I can safely say, that it was worth it. I love this thing.

Here is why I believe you should get one (assuming that you find your personality or thinking to be inline with mine). Also, don't mind the intertwined arguments between Sony vs. Amazon and just physical books vs. eBooks.

1. Easy File Management: Kindle has wifi/3g. I don't care, I plug my Sony in to charge via USB anyway, so the wifi doesn't help me. Also, I wouldn't use Sony or Amazon's file management, regardless. Download Calibre, the open source book reader utility, and save yourself a feces-load of trouble.


2. Less To Move: Everytime I move to a new home, the part which chews the most rotten cud, would be moving my books. I have about 3 big boxes worth of books that I absolutely cannot bare to part with. I pull a back muscle EVERYTIME that I try moving them. Enough of that. When I relocate next, it'll be with my Guitars, Amps, Quiver of Arrows, Sac of Potions, Laptop, and my Sony Reader 505!!


3. Big Screen: For the most part, this thing is comparable to a paperback novel in text size. I happily read books on my iPhone with Kindle for the iPhone™ and Stanza, so this is an upgrade for me. I won't expound upon the virtues of E-Ink here, as its been touted widely elsewhere. Suffice it to say, that it rocks, looks great, and doesn't hurt your eyes after extended reading periods.


4. Looks: Sony's Reader looks awesome. The Kindle looks like my retarded cousin drew it (you know which cousin you are... yes you). It looks like something I'd have designed in pre-school. It is Manatee-white. The keyboard is a mar upon the face of an already dismal interface. Sony's has that matte Metal finish with Chrome accents.  It is so damn hip, that I feel uglier when using it.


5. Expandability: I, like most geeks, despise Sony Memory Cards. The world absolutely did NOT need an yet-another-flash-based-storage device. We already had a cluster-fornication of choices with MMC, SDHC, and Smart Media/Cards.  (A quick aside... Does anyone HATE those computers with a giant portion of the front-panel devoted to various memory-card formats? Seriously, appealing to the lowest common denominator seems ok, but is any one person going to be using all of those slots?). Expandability format aside, the Sony is expandable. The Kindle is not. That makes the Sony a winner in my book. ~200MB is paltry. Paltry, I say. Roger Paltry.


6. Wrist Pain Alleviance: Maybe most people know how to read books. I hold books with a very odd looking claw shaped hand formation. I do not believe there is anything ergonomic about a pile of cellulose sheets glued together. The Reader feels as if its a natural extension of myself that I have been holding for my entire life. Dudes, you know what I'm sayin'.

There are two cons AFAIK...

1. Scent: You don't get that 'book smell'. That delicious fibrous scent that persists from the first opening crack of a book to the final triumphant climactic phrase that typically makes you cry or smile. All you get with these readers (Kindle or the SR), is the cold metallic touch of a machine that serves your book from a silent array of bits. The very machine that probably plots the overthrow of all that you love and hold dear. The Sony Reader definitely looks like something that would join its SkyNet brethren in the conflict to remove the ability to read from all humans by terminating them.


2. Necronomicon: The beauty of the Necronominican reading experience is the fact that it is written in blood and bound in human flesh. You don't get those sort of experiences when reading ancient tomes on a book reader. The same argument applies to pop-up books for the kiddies, and bibles that are meant to contain Tommy Guns and Jail-Cell keys.

All of the comparisons on the web were laced with stats and numbers. I hate stats and numbers (a marked change from the stats-whore that I used to be). Just remember a few things.

1. Having an eBook reader is better than not having an eBook reader.


2. Having the Sony Reader is arguably better than having the current incarnation of the Kindle.


3. Having an eBook reader and possessing/reading physical books are not mutually exclusive operations.


4. I have a retarded cousin who can design Kindle-like hardware for you.

My reader came with Pride and Prejudice pre-installed. Which reminds me, the Kindle is not available outside of the US. The Sony Reader included a British book, almost in blatant scoff-age (scoff-itude?) at those Bozos (Bezos?).  For those of you that don't read regularly, GO GET ONE!