Geek Essential

This post is to write in brief about my initial encounter with the Sony PRS 600. First of all, it’s silver and all of its specification and details can be found in google, wikipedia or from Sony’s site directly so I won’t go into that.

My first reaction to this device was, it was slimmer and smaller than I had thought. The weight, after few hours does get to you if you have hold it that long.

The touch screen as reviewed by many is very slot to respond. Like etch-a-sketch but not real time. You scribble something on it and sometimes after a second or two delay the image jumps onto the screen. Definitely not a note taking tool. But for occasional scratches of check marks and ideas, it seemed fine. I wasn’t going to write a full book report on this anyways.

Here’s a scenario where it may work. Let say that you have a sample test or a questions as part of the pdf book that you have loaded. Then you might just want to answer them right on the ebook reader rather than trying to remember what your selection was. A good study tool in that sense.

One of the other main reason for buying this device, though I have denied time and time again with my wife, was that I will be reading Manga (Asian Comics) with it. From many reviews that I’ve searched online, this was a perfect tool for the job. Basic premise is that you will need to convert whatever files that you have of the Manga into epub format. As such I had to get acquainted with few new tools, “comiclrf” is a command line tool that can run in command prompt of windows which did the job pretty good. If you prefer GUI interface, there is a tool called “comictoepub” which does pretty much the same thing. Both down-loadable online and both free. But for both tools, files need to be converted into comic book format of “cbz” or “cbr” which can be easily achieved by zipping files and renaming the extension to cbz. There is another tool however, called calibre which is do it all of ebook conversion tool which I have yet to try. Perhaps later.

Having Korean backgound and being bilingual, I enjoy books in both languages. As such, another important factor for me for purchasing this device was being able to read Korean text. But problem was this too need some tinkering in order for it to work. As many of my files were in text format, I had to use a software called “txtconv.exe” clean out the formatting. Then I just used good old word to print it out in PDF. So far this seemed to work fine. Next is to try out the software called “koTxt2EPub” software and try to create epub book instead.

So far, my impression of the device is good and despite all that ipad hype, I think this is more or less what I need for various reasons. After long periods of continuous reading, it really did not strain my eye. It as if I was reading a normal book as e-ink technology should be. So far, I’ve been reading few books to just to test it out. I have no qualms over the glare or the response of the touch screen. It was never built for speed (at least not yet) and I try not to read where it is too bright so no worries there. Basically, I did the research and understood what I was getting. It was a eBook reader for library of books that I had in my possession and this is what I needed.

Next time, more on other trick and tips.