My mother has always been hard to shop for. Usually, when she wants something, she just goes out and buys it. So, when it came time for her birthday to roll around, my father and I were at a bit of a loss for ideas. Then my father and I saw a demo for Sony's newly designed Reader Digital Book at our local Borders. My mother has always been an avid reader, so we thought that we would have a look and see if it would be worth getting it for her. I've seen different eReaders out there before, especially Amazon's Kindle, but I was always a bit skeptical about them. We weren't sure that my mother would actually like it since it is an electronic device and she's not too big on tech stuff. But it was so easy to use, that we decided to give it to her for her birthday. She loves it . . . and so do I.Okay, I know, it's her birthday gift, but I couldn't help but give it a test run after she had a chance to look at it. It's very easy to use, you charge it through the USB cable provided (though you can buy an AC Adaptor for it), download the Sony eBook Library software, and then go to store via the eBook Library. Since we bought it during a promotion, we ended up getting 100 classic books free, about a $199.00 value. Unfortunately, unlike the Kindle, it cannot connect to the internet without a computer. But one thing that made me lean towards the Sony Reader (other than it's a Sony product) was the fact that you can share the books you buy. Up to 5 other Readers and/or computers can be added onto your account, allowing multiple devices to read the books you have already purchased. So, I can read all of her books on both my desktop and laptop, which is a great feature. And, since I'm thinking of picking up one myself, I won't have to re-buy any of the books she already has.
As for more on the specs. It has a great battery life! We've been using it pretty consistently since my mother's birthday (February 6) and we've only had to charge it once so far. It has 20MB of internal memory but it also supports both Duo and SD Memory Cards. It's pretty light and is decently sized. Has a built in light that sort of works, lol. The screen is really nice and doesn't give off that monitor glow like a lot of screens do. My only complaint about the screen is that it has the tendency to cause a bit of glare. It hosts a wide range of supported formats including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word (through a conversion tool), MP3, and JPEG to name a few. It also supports most other common eBook, music, and photo formats. Overall, I'm very pleased by the Sony Reader and find it a great portable reading device.
Another thing I find great about the Sony Reader is that it has reignited my interest in reading. I have never been much of a reader since I usually get bored or decide to go and write my own stuff. So, most of the time, books don't ever hold my interest long enough for me to finish them. But with the "100 free classic books" deal that came with the Reader, I was able to pick up a lot of the works from some of my favorite authors. Including Edgar Allan Poe and George MacDonald. If you have ever read anything from these two authors, then you know that they are almost perfect inverses of each other. Poe of course having a very Macabre style and MacDonald writing many fantasy and children's books (Just a note, but MacDonald is credited to have inspired J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis). If you haven't read much by either of these authors, let me recommend two of my favorites - The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Poe and At Back of the North Wind by MacDonald. They are both really great reads and not horribly long either, which is nice since I have been pressed for time as of late.
I'm really glad my father and I decided to pick up the Sony Reader for my mother because it has turned out to be such a great device that everyone in the family can enjoy.
So for now, I'm going to go back and read another book. Until next time! またね (matane - later)!
