I’m not impressed by either. The Kindle is already a “pocket” edition if you compare it to the Kindle DX, and 440MB of memory? Really? The Kindle has 2GB! There’s no external memory slot either and of course no wireless downloading. The touch screen version does support Memory Stick Pro Duo and SD cards, but it also has no wireless.

Neither of them is anything exciting nor do they offer much of anything the Kindle doesn’t, so this Kindle owner is not impressed. My personal opinion aside, will these be Kindle killers?

I don’t think so. Granted, the low price on the “Pocket Edition” will no doubt appeal to those who like the idea of an e-reader but think the Kindle is too expensive, but avid readers (and that’s who e-readers really appeal to) will find the 440MB of memory far too small to be useful.

As far as the “Touch Edition” goes, yes there are some who think the only thing the Kindle lacks is a touch screen, but really, how necessary is it? Touch screens are more fragile than their non touch counterparts and let’s face it, they make a device look filthy in no time. The Touch Edition’s handwriting recognition feature does sound interesting but as anyone who’s signed a touch pad at a store register can tell you, they often leave a lot to be desired. Let’s see how accurate it truly is. Being able to take notes in your own handwriting won’t be very useful if you can’t read them!

I think these two new Sony E-readers will appeal to some specific audiences but the Kindle will still be king, at least for now.

Two New Sony Readers: Kindle Killers? is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

“I loved this cover,” wrote J. Nichols of Oakland, California. “It’s high quality and attached to the Kindle securely. And then I noticed that the bottom hook was made in such a way as to crack the Kindle. Now my Kindle has a hairline crack in it which as you can imagine ticks me off.”

After initially ignoring the issue and insisting that it would cost $200 to replace a damaged Kindle. Amazon has changed its mind and is now saying it will replace any cracked Kindles for free. Although they have admitted no fault in the matter, it’s thought the about face is the result of the growing media coverage and the bad PR it could bring. It’s not the first time they’ve found themselves in hot water. Remember the last Amazon scandal back in April when all gay and lesbian themed books vanished from the sales rankings? It was blamed on a glitch of course.

I own a Kindle and while Amazon knows how to make an outstanding e-reader, when it comes to making covers for it they are clueless. The cover for the original Kindle was absolutely useless. A flimsy plastic tab on the back of it was supposed to slide into the Kindle and lock in place to secure it. Most Kindle owners found that either it refused to slide into the Kindle, or more commonly, didn’t actually lock in place, resulting in Kindles falling out and sometimes being damaged (or in the case of those that enjoy reading in on their backs in bed, damaging them as it hit them in the face!). The hinge system was supposed to be a huge improvement and while I’ve seen many rave about it in other covers, it seems once again Amazon has dropped the ball. Hey Amazon? If you can’t get it together and make a decent cover, stop trying!

Amazon sued over cracked Kindles is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

Reading is a total pleasure. I can now carry around not only a library of books but also work-related PDFs and so on. I am never short of a book to read – and to me, a rabid bookworm, this is the absolute best. I have been known to go on a two day trip with about six books ‘just in case’ as I have this total fear of running out of things to read. No longer; and I can carry around a sufficiently random selection so if I do (heaven forbid) get fed up of reading Douglas Adams then I can switch to something like ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ by Dickens without a problem.

Search, mmm.., another little hiccup. You can search by Title or Author but, and I guess this is where a keyboard or touch screen would be handy, it would be the sauce for the chips to have a better search facility. Still, with the amount of books you can store on the device and external memory I sometimes forget what I have got and so can often find a buried treasure.

Extras include the ability to play audio & display pictures (but only grey scale) which is pretty pointless as I have a Sony mp3 player and a Blackberry Storm. There’s also an option to organise your books into collections (science fiction, fantasy, children, technology and so on).

My main gripe is that you can only chargeable via USB unless you fork out £20 for a mains charger (pass over the highwayman mask there will you).

Overall I totally, absolutely love this must-have gadget. And believe me it is a must-have; one friend saw it and persuaded her hubby to get her one within the month and another friend is considering getting one for her teenage daughter. Everyone is amazed by how clear the screen is and how light it feels in their hands – though not for long as I get withdrawals. It resides permanently in my handbag encased in a pink leather Tuff Luv case. The brown one provided just wasn’t me

Living With An eReader, Part Two is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology

Looks : As with most Sony products the visual design is outstanding. It is silver and sleek and tactile with buttons in all the right places. It feels well-balanced and so right in your hand or hands. The finish is a brushed metal-grey with shiny, polished highlights that make you want to stroke it as it lays on your coffee table. Weight is negligible and comparable with a regular paperback book yet it is as slim as a wafer-thin mint and you know you just have to have one.

When it’s turned off it looks pretty unimpressive; a milky grey ice pool. But slide the on button and the words float to the surface in an eye-pleasing clarity that begs you to pick it up and caress your eyes over its sentences. I read five Jane Austen novels in the two weeks after Christmas and never once did my eyes feel any strain – but ask me to read more than a page or so on a computer screen and I’m reaching for the paracetamol and the print button. Battery life is dictated by page turns and page turns are a little difficult to get used to but think about what your eye actually sees when you turn a regular paper book then it’s not so bad, and you get used to it.

It comes with a CD of books all formatted perfectly for the eReader. Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and so on – you get the idea. And they are so easy to read. If you are visually challenged then you can increase the text size to suit. The software to transfer and organise your library is kind of a hiccup in the overall droolingness of the gadget. It is a little unwieldy and I have tried Calibre which is an open-source eBook organiser and library. Neither is perfect but the eBooks get transferred and that is all that matters to me.

Watch out for Part Two of Living With An eReader, coming soon…

Living With An eReader, Part One is a post from: eggnchips.com - cracking good technology