E-books are the new generation books that may surpass old paperback books in the future. With the prevailing influence of digital information, and the concerted effort to preserve our trees, e-books are becoming more and more important as the years go by. Therefore, e-book readers have come in handy to make reading e-books much more easier for us. E-book readers try to imitate reading a paperback book, but without the use of actual paper. E-book readers have the ability to display e-books, which means that you will download or buy e-books from countless websites on the internet, and put them in your e-book reader device. Once upon a time, we were limited to reading or viewing e-books from our desktop or laptop computers, but with the e-book reader, we can read these e-books like you would a normal book, such that you can read it anywhere.

In this article, we will discuss one such e-book reader, and that is the Astak 5″ EZ Reader.

FEATURES

The Astak 5″ EZ Reader is an e-book reader much like any other in terms of physical appearance. It has a screen, several buttons, and like most e-book readers, it also comes with a leather binding case for protection. The entire thing is made up of a rubber material that is soft and feels very nice. It also contains slots for memory extension and plugs for listening to music. But the main purpose of this device is to allow users to read e-books as if they were reading a book. That is primarilyachieved with the use of e-Ink technology on the screen.

E-ink Technology

So what is the e-Ink technology? It is a technology implemented in the e-book reader screen which allows its display to look like real paper. This means that the screen doesn’t glare, so that you can read on it even under direct sunlight or other light sources, and the screen surface will not reflect the light back to your eyes and cover your view of the text on the e-book page. The contrast between words and text is also very high, and this technology also makes the device very energy efficient, because it only uses energy when turning to another page or using the menu features.

From the outside

The 5″ in Astak e-readers name refers to the diagonal of the screen. Most e-readers’ screens are 6 inches or longer, and this one is a bit small, because it is supposed to be a pocket edition. The display is pretty nice, it has 600×800 pixels, or picture elements, and 8 levels of gray-scale which makes the display really slick. One of the best things about the display in this reader is its quick response time and screen refresh rate. It’s a bit different with the e-Ink technology, such that going to the next or previous page is not spontaneous unlike reading PDF files on a computer, for example. But the Astak 5″ EZ Reader does a pretty good job of making the refresh rate really quick and convenient, thanks to its powerful processor. Switching from one page to another is done using next or previous page buttons found at the left side of the device, and another left/right button pair can be found at the lower right part of the device, just below the screen. Other buttons include number buttons one to ten below the screen, and below that are multipurpose key buttons including the menu button.

On-screen Features

The menu button allows you to bring up a menu in the screen, overlapping the lower left portion of the page of an e-book. The menu has some features such as the xpdf feature, which is a very cool feature which can’t be found in just any e-book reader in the market today. The xpdf feature is actually a text-to-speech feature, which allows you to listen to a mechanical reader read the book for you, in cases where you can’t read the book yourself. Aside from this menu feature, another feature allows you to change the font size of the text fonts of your e-book. Depending on the e-book file format, the Astak 5″ EZ reader can allow up to 5 font size selections, namely extra-small, small, medium, large and extra-large. For some e-book formats, only 3 of these 5 font selections can actually be used. Aside from font size, you can even change the font. By default the font of this e-book reader is ttf, but you can change that to 8 other kinds of text fonts, and you can even download free fonts online that you can use in this e-book reader.

Speaking of formats, the Astak 5″ EZ Reader is unique in such a way that it allows a huge number of formats in its system. It can support formats such as PDF, EPUB, DOC, TXT, HTML, and music files such as MP3 and also picture files or image support files such as JPEG. Mp3 can be supported and it implies that while you are reading, you can plug in a headset or an external speaker so that you can listen to music while reading. You can even play audio books.

DRAWBACKS

There are several drawbacks for this device, however. First is, despite the fact that it can handle a lot of formats, not all formats can perform as well as the others. PDF files are displayed very well in this device, because this device allows text reflow and zooming in and out. Text reflow means the PDF text will automatically fit the screen even if you change orientations from portrait to landscape, which you can do as a menu option. But the TXT format is not so lucky; lines can appear choppy and hard to read.

The text-to-speech function of this device, as with any other device that has this function, is not so appealing. It’s just hard to appreciate something that reads to you mechanically; apparently, the developers still find it hard to instill a machine which can read ‘with feelings’.

Another drawback is that mp3 playing is inferior to devices which are intended to play music, such as the iPod. Well, this device is intended for reading, but the control scheme is just not user-friendly for this device. Yet another drawback, is the lack of wireless connectivity, because you have to use a USB cable and a computer containing the books you want to read in order to transfer them to your device. The Kindle, another e-book reader, is a prime example of the charms of being able to download e-books anywhere you are. It makes reading and acquiring books so much easier.

CONCLUSION

Overall, this small e-book reader performs very well. It has fantastic display, the kind of display which is at par with perhaps the best display among readers today, the Sony PRS-505, in terms of readability and viewability. The e-Ink technology looks really nice and is well implemented in this e-book reader. The 5-inch display apparently seems to be alright, despite the fact that you’d have to live with fitting only a few words or lines per page. In addition, this device is pretty cheap compared to other e-book readers. It is definitely worth the money, and book lovers will definitely rejuvenate their love for reading once they get a hold of the wonderful Astak 5″ EZ Reader.

The Barnes & Noble Nook is an ebook reader and is one of the best sellers in the market to date, just behind the Kindle series and the BeBook Neo. One of its most unique features is a colored touch screen separated from the actual e-ink screen. The following video by Kate shows all the good things about the Nook:

The following is a  review about the Nook by Mobile Tech Review, it’s advantages and disadvantages.

Astak eBook readers are among the latest line of eBook readers that are becoming more and more popular in the US market, which is currently dominated by eBook readers from Sony and its PRS series, and Amazon with its Kindle series. Like these two giants, Astak aims to introduce eBook readers to a wider domain of bookworms. According to these companies, eBook readers are the future of reading. Someday, paper books will become obsolete because of their environment-harmful byproducts.

FEATURES

eBook readers are environment-friendly because of what you’re not having to do while using these products. With eBook readers, you don’t have to deal with paper waste by throwing old books. These paper wastes can poison our water. The use of trees to produce paper will also be reduced significantly. Furthermore, with eBook readers, you can store thousands of books, recycle through your oldest archives and knowing where to find your old books.

The Astak EZ Reader uses e-ink technology like other eBook readers. No paper is used, but the page that appears on the eBook screen looks exactly like paper. It also has paper-like properties, including no backlight, anti-glare and high contrast, which allows you to read for countless of hours without straining your eyes. Because of the anti-glare, you can even read under sunlight. In fact, the text looks good under the sun. In addition, because of this e-Ink technology, the device doesn’t use up energy when you don’t turn to another page or view the menu. On average, you can do up to 8,000 page without charging your battery before it runs out.

From the outside

The entire device looks very sleek. The screen is a 6-inch diagonal screen which has 4 shades of gray. With this limited amount of colors, it is amazing how the text looks crisp. The screen is surrounded by several buttons, jacks, switches, and slots on a black matte finish which is nice to hold. The grip is slip-free, and the device feels very solid and durable. It also comes with a book leather case with a viewing window. Compared to Sony Reader and Kindle, however, the Astak device is not as sleek as the Kindle 2 and not as classy as the Sony series, but it’s not ugly either. It’s somewhere in between, a rectangular shaped electronic device with curved, but not beveled, edges. For an electronic device, it is very light. This is because you obviously want to hold it up while reading it. It is much lighter than the Kindle 2 or DX, but the COOL-ER, another eBook reader is much lighter than the EZ Reader.

Buttons

The buttons are navigation buttons and shortcut keys for menu options. At the left side of the screen, there are page turn buttons left and right, to go to the previous or next page, respectively. At the bottom of the screen, there are numbered keys 1 to 9, including 0, and the numbers 0 and 6 to 9 are shortcut keys to such features as zooming and bookmarking. 0 and 9 are also page turn keys, which means that whether you’re holding up the reader from the side or holding at the bottom, you can easily extend your thumb to turn the pages with both styles. This is also useful for both portrait or landscape, since the Astak EZ Reader allows screen rotation for both orientations. The page turn keys are also small enough to be convenient and reduce chances of accidentally pressing them to go to the next or previous page unwanted. Overall, the buttons are very easy to use and they are large enough, though it wouldn’t hurt if the page turn buttons were even larger.

Downloading ebooks

Before reading with an eBook reader, you need to acquire e-books. With Sony and Kindle, you can download books through their corresponding bookstores. Astak has a different approach. You get your own e-books from various sources, supporting a huge number of e-book formats. The large number of formats means you can enjoy a wide range of books, publications, comics, documents and others. To get these e-books, you load them with an SD card, or you can use the supplied USB cable to drag and drop e-books from your PC or Mac to your Astak EZ Reader. This device allows you to use e-books which are DRM-free. DRM means Digital Rights Management, or a way to restrict users from getting free copies of commercial e-books.

On-screen features

While reading, you will enjoy on-screen features. This includes being able to zoom the text with 3-5 levels depending on the e-book format. This allows users who have eyesight problems to adjust the font size until they are comfortable with it. In addition, you can customize your fonts by choosing from the onboard set list, or downloading new fonts. The menu is quite convenient. One part of the menu worth noting is it’s book listing options. You can sort books by title, type or date. You can also view system information.

Other features include the ability to play music. The sound is quite good as well because it is stereo sound. With this feature, you can also listen to audio books. Buying the Astak EZ Reader comes with the device and a charger, USB cable, leather book-style cover, and an earphone. Another feature is the ability to replace the Lithium Ion battery. This is an uncommon feature among e-book readers. It’s very convenient to be able to replace battery when you have no time to charge.

STAND-OUT FEATURES

The inability to download from a bookstore like you do with Kindle or Sony is a stand-out feature, in the sense that this allows you freedom from being linked to the bookstore website for your books forever. You can download e-books from all kinds of sources and with various formats, and most of the time, you don’t have to worry about compatibility with your device. Not all formats work well, though. PDF and EPUB works best, but TXT can have awkward line breaks.

According to the developers, the Astak EZ Reader is the smallest, thinnest, lightest e-book reader to date, although the COOL-ER can make a case against that. It’s important that an e-book reader be light because you want to be able to hold it up for 3 or 4 hours while reading, and put it inside your suit or jacket pocket, or purse.

Another uncommon feature is the ability to choose from 20 different languages!

GEEK ALERT

The entire device weighs only 7.8 ounces, and it’s physical dimensions are 7.2×4.7×0.4 inches. Inside the Astak EZ reader is a NOR flash ROM and a Linux Operating System. The device can store books which fit in an internal memory of 512 MB. You can extend this by inserting an SD card which can carry up to 4 GB of storage. The books will then be shown in a screen with a 600×800 resolution. The device can show e-books and other documents which have various formats, including JPG, PNG, TIF, GIF, MP3, ZIP, RAR, DJVU, PPT, FB2, PDB, PRC, LIT, CHM, WOL, TXT, HTML, RTF, DOC, EPUB, and PDF.

DRAWBACKS

There are several drawbacks to this device. For one, its not easy to buy commercial books and store them to your reader, at least in comparison to the more popular e-book readers. There is no bookstore, and you can’t download books just anywhere through wireless means. You have to go to a computer and bring your USB cable with you. Like other devices, Astak also doesn’t have instant access to updated bestsellers, blogs and periodicals. The Astak company is indeed planning to make wireless downloading their next innovation.

When you do have the books, the page turns load relatively slow compared to other e-books. In rare occasions, the device even reboots. If you are reading and want to know the meaning of a word, there is no built-in dictionary. Another drawback is that it should be supporting SDHC cards which can store more than 4 GB of memory so that the music playing capabilities of Astak can be fully used.

CONCLUSION

The Astak EZ Reader is a cheap alternative to the Sony PRS series and the Amazon Kindle series, and other popular brands. It may have some drawbacks which are not a problem with the other brands, but it also has features which level with the opposition, and some others which surpass them. In terms of its primary purpose, which is to allow bookworms to enjoy reading e-books like never before, this device certainly deserves high merits.

E-book readers are gaining steady ground in terms of popularity among avid book readers. This implies a lot of things, including the imminent possibility that these devices will be the book of the future. One of these devices is the Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-700.

Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-700 is the 3rd-generation ebook reader from Sony. Unlike the previous PRS-505, this version is touch screen, which is one of the nicest, most intuitive features that it contains. This feature alone definitely puts the PRS-700 above previous Sony ebook readers and other ebook readers in the market.

FEATURES

This ebook reader is about the same size as a regular paperback novel; a novel is a little bit taller but the PRS-700 is a little bit wider. It is 0.38 inches thick, and even with the leather binder, a 300 page novel would still be thicker than this device. The edges of a leather binder are magnetic; the cover snaps in place. The stylus, which you can use  is also magnetic, and it sticks to the device for easy keeping. The PRS-700 has a very elegant and clean design. Since it is touch screen, the need for several buttons such as an extra keyboard is eliminated. The leather binder also makes the device even more sexier. External buttons and outlets include a power outlet, an outlet for earphones, a volume switch, memory stick and sd card dual slots for extended memory, and the on and off button.

Touch-screen

The touch-screen capability allows you to highlight a favorite text from the book very easily, much easier than using Kindle. You simply use the stylus or your finger and drag it across the line and it is automatically highlighted. Another feature which is made easier with the touch screen is dictionary access. Just double tap on a word, and a definition appears. By double tapping a word or highlighted phrase, then selecting search at the bottom, you can find other occurrences of that word or phrase in the entire book.

Page navigation

Page navigation is also made very easy with touch screen. Simply tap on the screen and slide your finger to the right or left depending on whether you want to move to the next or previous page respectively. To scan across several pages quickly, simply tap on the screen, drag your finger, and hold it in place, and the pages will fly until you reach the desired page. While you scan through the pages, you can take down notes by clicking on the screen, and a touch keyboard and empty slate appears. This eliminates the need of a physical keyboard which is present at the bottom of a Kindle. If you want to bookmark a page, just double tap on the top edge of the page, and a small bookmark figure appears. If you want to remove the bookmark, simply double tap on it again.

Side lighting and other features

Aside from the touch-screen interface, another new feature is the side lighting. This allows users to read in dark places. It comes with 3 different levels of brightness, and the first level alone is sufficient enough to see the content of a book in darkness. Other features include being able to store music. You can’t listen to the music through speakers. You need earphones or an external speaker to do so. Other than that, this feature is very good for an ebook reader, and is a good way to listen to background music while reading. The PRS-700 also allows you to organize your books in collections, and it allows you to zoom in at pdf files very well.

DRAWBACKS

On the other hand, there are several downsides to this ebook reader. Unlike the Kindle or previous Sony ebook readers, this one has less contrast and is harder to read. The extra glass screen necessary to allow side-lighting and another touch screen is responsible for this reduced contrast. These extra layers on top of the e-ink technology screen also causes glare when hit by a direct source of light. To remove this glare, you simply need to tilt the device, so that’s not much of a problem.

Another small concern is its connectivity. Kindle allows users to download books anytime and anywhere, whereas Sony uses manual transfer of books or other content such as pdf files, mp3 files or other files. You can purchase the books through the ebook library software which contains 100,000 books and counting, but its only available in PC. It doesn’t support Mac.

Conclusion

In conclusion, its definitely a great ebook reader. Its touch-screen interface makes reading more intuitive. Side-light is also a cool feature, but it increases glare and reduces text contrast. This ebook reader is quite pricey, but if you are an avid reader, the Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-700 is definitely worth the price.

If you like to read books, the ebook reader may be the device for you. This device allows you to read electronic books as if you are reading paper. It also allows you to store virtually thousands of books in one small device; just imagine carrying that number of books with you everywhere you go, quite impossible! Ebook readers are very convenient! Also, you don’t have to be a tech-savvy kind of person to appreciate this wonderful device. Ebook readers are often built with user-friendly features. Also, companies attempt to make their ebook reader products more mainstream.

COOL-ER is an ebook reader from a company called COOLREADERS. One of the objectives of this device is to create an ebook reader which has a better mainstream availability than most of the high-end ebook readers in the market, including Kindle and Sony.

FEATURES

One of the most noticeable features of COOL-ER is that it is very light. According to the COOLREADERS website, it is 45% lighter than other ebook readers. It is also very sturdy. If you want, you can drop it a few times on the floor. When you pick-it up and turn it on again, you’ll see that it works perfectly. Nobody in their right mind would do that though; just to be on the safe side.

From the outside, it looks like a huge iPod. It has a huge screen with a navigation controller at the lower left that looks like a wheel. This has to be a strategy to make the COOL-ER more mainstream. It also comes in 8 different colors which adds a personal touch to the device. You can choose between black, silver, red, blue, violet, hot pink, pale pink, and green. That’s a fairly wide range of color choices.

Buttons and slots

The COOL-ER looks very simple; it has very few buttons and slots. Let’s enumerate them by location. At the top, it has an SD card slot for memory expansion and the on-off slider switch. At the bottom, there’s an ear phone jack and a USB port connection for charging and file transfer. At the right, there is a rocker button to increase or decrease the font size of the ebook texts. Finally, at the left, there are four tiny navigation buttons. First is the Multimedia button which plays the music files. Second is the Orientation button which allows the user to switch reader view from portrait to landscape. Third is the Menu button, and last is the Library setting button. At the front, there is a five-way controller which navigates screen cursor to four different directions and has a middle button for selection. All these features contribute to easy control and reading.

Adding Books and other files

Once you turn on the COOL-ER, you can start reading already. It already comes with pre-loaded books which you can enjoy. If you want to add books, you can turn on your Mac or PC, go the COOLREADERS bookstore, buy some books, attach both ends of the USB cable to the Mac/PC and your reader, and drag and drop your books to the device. Aside from books, you can also add other files. The COOL-ER can accept various texts formats, such as PDF, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC, JPEG, MP3 and  EPUB. Among reading formats, EPUB works best. PDF has line breaks that look very clumsy, and the same is true with TXT.

Onscreen

In the onscreen menu, there are several intuitive sub menus such as Start of Book, Table of Contents, Font Options, Search, Properties, and Exit to get out of the menu and back to the book. Even your grandparents can use this ebook reader, as long as they can still read the very readable huge font menus.

The e-ink technology of this device also contributes to ease of reading, because it allows the screen to look a lot like paper. Thus, it doesn’t produce glare and there is no back light which strains the eyes. Unlike paper though, the screen can only incorporate 8 levels of gray scale, i.e., no color. The same is true with other ebook readers, although some of them can incorporate more gray scale levels.

DOWNSIDES

1. The five-way controller is too embedded in the front surface, and its buttons are hard to press.
2. The background color is light gray. It should have been a bit more whiter; the more text-background contrast, the better.
3. Screen has relatively slow response time. Page loading can take long enough for you to wonder if it responded to your command.

CONCLUSION

Why should you buy a COOL-ER instead of the more popular Sony and Kindle series? For one, it is cheaper than most ebook readers today. A few ebook readers are cheaper, such as Astak. It also sits well in terms of functionality, and it looks very pretty. The COOL-ER can make you get hooked with reading the way a book captivates you.

Books are awesome. They are a great source of information as well as an excellent way to spend leisure time. You might ask, what is the future of books? What if we run out of paper, what would the future books look like? Perhaps there is already an answer to that question in the form of e-book readers. These devices may be initial templates for the book of the future, because it has a lot of futuristic features, including the ability to store thousands of books in a single, lightweight device. In this article, we will discuss the Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-600, and compare it to previous Sony readers and other e-book reader brands.

FEATURES

The Sony Reader PRS-600 also known as the Touch Edition of the Sony Reader comes next to Sony’s previous reader, the PRS-700. Compared to a typical paperback book, it is about the same height and slightly wider. Like a typical paperback book, the PRS-600 is very easy to hold. It feels very durable and solid, and it is even comfortable to hold in a landscape orientation, an orientation in which the device is held sideways.

The curved edge of the Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-600 makes it look smaller than the PRS-700, but they are of the same size. It has slick black, red and silver colors, and a really neat clean and modest style. It has a 440 MB usable built-in memory and has dual expansion slots for additional memory cards. It also has a 6 inch screen diagonal which supports very good quality resolution and 8 levels of gray scale for your book page. Furthermore, this device is a very responsive touch screen. If you want to go to the next page of a book, you can swipe your thumb to the right and it will go there. If you don’t want to swipe, you can always use the buttons for page forward or back at the bottom.

On screen

Turning on the device for the first time and reading your first book is very easy to do, thanks to the very intuitive menu. The menu options are very easy to understand! Aside from that, they are adequately big, with big fonts placed in big rectangular spaces, so its hard to miss it with your fingers. Also, the first time you read a book might surprise you. You’ll be amazed at how paper-like the book page is, thanks to e-Ink technology. This technology has many advantages; it conserves energy, it doesn’t strain your eyes, and you get hooked with reading like a book would do to you.

While reading with the PRS-600, you can annotate and write down notes on an e-book page. You can use your hand or a stylus to emulate underlining a phrase in a regular book. You can then put this on to a separate folder which contains all your notes. The stylus is also useful if you want to use the drawing program of PRS-600. It has a neat drawing program which allows you to draw scribbles on a blank page and save them for later viewing. This stylus is inserted at the top right portion of the device so you will always have a place to keep it.

Built-in dictionary

With the stylus or your finger, you can also easily look up the meaning of the word with a built-in dictionary. In Kindle e-book readers, you need to navigate the screen cursor to the word you want to look-up. But with the touch screen of Sony PRS-600, just tap on a word with your finger or with a stylus, and the meaning of the word will instantly appear at the bottom. This really allows you to read wherever you are with ease and a good sense of comprehension. In this aspect, the Sony PRS-600 is superior to the also popular Kindle DX and Kindle 2.

Text contrast and anti-glare

The PRS-600 is also superior to its predecessor, the PRS-700, in terms of text contrast and screen glare. The PRS-700 has a side-lighting which was an option for readers who want to read in the dark. But this was taken away for the PRS-600, and for good reason. The side-lighting required an extra glass which reduced the contrast between the words and the background, making it hard to read. The extra glass also increased the glare of the screen when hit by a direct source of light.

Other features

The PRS-600 may have taken away the side-lighting, but it also added some really neat features. First is its ability to support jpeg image viewing and mp3 audio playing. This means you can add more files to your e-book reader. You can add all of these files, including word or pdf files by just dragging and dropping them to your device from your computer. With all these cool features at hand, you may feel that this device is vulnerable. But you can play it safe because the PRS-600 comes with a pouch which protects it from external damage. The leather binder, which came with the PRS-700 before, is now sold separately, but many users are content with this pouch.

SOME DRAWBACKS

Despite all these innovations from the previous Sony reader and other e-book reader brands, the Sony PRS-600 is not perfect. For example, despite the absence of a side-lighting, the glare is still there, especially when there is a direct light source hitting it. Just tilt the screen until you find the right angle to remove the glare. In addition. previous versions of the Sony ebook reader such as the PRS-300 and the PRS-505 have a much better text and background contrast. The font color is blacker, and there is absolutely no glare. Book management within the PRS-600 is also a concern. To manage you need to do it in the eBook library program outside the device.

There are minor issues as well, such as button location and external surface. Button location can be awkward in landscape mode, and the finish at the front and back of this device can be a little bit smudgy, leaving thumbprints as you hold it up.

CONCLUSION

The PRS-600 is relatively expensive, and most of the money goes to the ease of use and the functionality of this device. It turns out that its worth the price. This is definitely the future of reading books, and even magazines and newspapers.

The latest ebook reader to hit the top ten best sellers (at number 3 spot behind Kindle 2 and DX) is Bebook Neo. Its outstanding features are the Wacom touchscreen and the Wi-fi support.

The following video is a review by Shiny Media. It talks about the features of this ebook reader, including the interesting and unique features and comparison with other ebook readers in the market.

At first glance, the PRS-505 looks like a small tablet the size of a normal paperback book. Like a book, it has a leather binder that covers the actual device. This binder protects the device and its delicate components, such as the screen. On the other hand, this device has a very solid build unlike most e-book readers. It really feels so sturdy and comfortable to use and hold.

When you turn on the device and look at the screen, you can easily see the resemblance it has with actual paper. The text is very crisp and you can read it outside under artificial light without glare. The PRS-505 uses e-Ink technology, like most ebook readers, to make the screen look like real paper, keeping your eyes from straining after hours of reading. Another great thing about the e-Ink technology is that it doesn’t use a lot of power, and so the battery lasts for 1-2 weeks without charging, depending on how much you read.

Buttons

Looking closely at the device, there are ten buttons that form a single column at the right side of the screen. These buttons represent lines along the screen, and when you turn on the menu and make a selection, just press the button lined up to that selection. The menu is fairly intuitive. You can access it by pressing a menu button at the bottom of the screen. Menu selections include continue reading, sort books by title, by author or by date, collections, and all bookmarks. The reader allows you to make separate bookmarks for separate books, and you can access them later for book tracking. Each e-book has a separate menu on its own, and selections include continue reading, begin, end, bookmarks, and table of contents. Overall, the buttons are very easy to use because they are very intuitively placed on the Sony Reader PRS-505.

Page Navigation

Page navigation is flip-a-book-page easy. Just press the buttons on the right side or the ones located on the lower left to go forward or backward a page. Pretty soon, you’ll get used to using these buttons even as you are accustomed to flipping pages. The PRS-505 also allows you to change the font size by pressing a button at the lower left. This is pretty useful for those who want to increase font size to read the text clearer, or to decrease font size for those who want to fit as much text as possible into the small screen.

The screen display itself is pretty decent with its 8 levels of gray scale. It allows viewing of pictures, and the pictures look very sharp with this device despite the limitations of its gray scale. It’s very easy to read with this device for hours without straining your eyes. Of all the ebook readers in the market, this one probably belongs to the top 3 highest text to background contrast, which is good for comfortable reading. While reading, you can even listen to mp3 music by inserting a head phone in a slot located at the bottom left part of the device. The same port allows you to listen to an audio book. You can also use the speaker which produces good quality sound.

DRAWBACKS

What Sony needs to do in order to improve off the Sony Reader PRS-505 is add features that one would normally expect to be there and yet the PRS-505 doesn’t have them. That includes the capability to search for words or phrases in a book and a built-in dictionary. The PRS-505 doesn’t have both of these. Other features that should be added includes the option to delete books, text highlighting, and the ability to add drawings or notes on a page.

One would also normally expect that this device goes with a separate charger, but it doesn’t. It only has a USB cable for charging which is also used for downloading books from the Sony library. You really can’t expect to carry a PC and a USB cable around with you all the time, can you? Speaking of the Sony library, some users comment that the interface of this library is not so good, and the books sold there are more expensive than the ones sold in Kindle.

CONCLUSION

Opinions about this e-book reader is varied, but many are saying that this e-book reader is well worth the price. A few others are stating that they would rather read paper back books. One thing’s for sure, though. Sony reader PRS-505 has captured the bookworm in each and everyone of it’s users. Many are falling in love with reading through it’s ease of use and impressive features and functionalities. The Sony Reader PRS-505 is a must have for all book lovers.

See the Amazon Kindle DX in action in these 7 Video Reviews from Youtube.

Kindle DX: Amazon’s 9.7″ Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=myqkadSYT2Q

Amazon Kindle DX

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4IznyS6kj8

Top Ten Kindle DX Review

www.youtube.com/watch?v=byCiPxdR8e0

Kindle DX Textbook Review

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUCLyu-3bEE

Kindle DX -- PDF Only Review

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slu9WpNnFp8

CNet Video Review

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4cPU2nKg0A

Kindle 2 VS Kindle DX Review

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeLNwNV_iig

Get the Kindle DX from Amazon now!

Reading with an ebook reader is such a wonderful experience. It’s just like reading an actual book, except that it has a lot more features and advantages. With an ebook reader, you can buy books at a cheaper price compared to regular dead tree books, keep thousands of books and bring them wherever you go, and keep the overall experience of reading an actual book with this device.

It is one of Amazon’s advocacy to make a lot of people get back to reading and make it an enjoyable and accessible leisure; thus the birth of the Kindle series of e-book readers. In this article, we are going to talk about the latest Kindle available in the market, the Kindle DX, and compare it with previous Kindle versions.

Features of the Amazon Kindle DX

The Kindle DX is very thin; only a third of an inch thick, and feels very sturdy and solid. But it is also quite heavy for an e-book reader, and users have the natural tendency to hold it with both hands. It has an on and off slider switch button on top, a head phone jack, a volume switch, stereospeakers at the bottom, and a charging port at the bottom.

E-Ink Display

One of the main issues regarding Kindle 2, Kindle DX’s predecessor, is the small size of its screen. A larger screen is very appealing for many reasons. One is that it comes much closer to occupying the same content that a normal book page would have. Kindle DX has a 9.7 inch display, which is about the whole size of Kindle 2. Because of this, reading magazines, books, blogs and newspapers, among others, is much more comfortable. There is also more room to display maps, tables and charts. This screen is not only large, its display is also very slick and beautiful. It has 16 shades of gray which displays wonderfully on the Kindle DX.

Making the display even more wonderful to behold is the built-in e-ink technology of this device. This technology makes the screen look like a printed page. Everything about it looks like paper; the font, the contrast between text and background, and the fact that it doesn’t have an eye-straining back light found in computer monitors. Also like paper, the Kindle DX screen does not produce glare when you read it outside on a sunny day or under a lamp light source.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=myqkadSYT2Q

Buying eBooks on the Kindle DX

Before you start reading, you need to buy books. For the Kindle DX, this is as easy as ABC! You don’t have to go anywhere or connect your e-book reader to a computer to start buying and downloading books. You can do it almost anywhere you are. The wireless ability to download books, and even surf the web, runs on technology much like that of a cellphone, which lets you text or call anywhere you are. You can buy a lot of books and store them in your Kindle DX. With its huge file capacity, you can have as many as 3,500 average-sized books in your device. That’s a lot of books to carry around with you.

Kindle DX PDF Support

When you start reading, you may come across a word that is unfamiliar with you. You can look up the meaning of that word using the built-in New Oxford American Dictionary. It’s as easy as navigating the screen cursor to where that word is, and the meaning will automatically appear at the bottom part of the screen. However, this is only available for the exclusive book format that the Kindle DX e-book reader supports. If you are reading a book format such as the popular PDF, this feature is not available. In fact, there is not much you can do with the pdf file except read it; the way it looks cannot be changed. It can be disorted along the sides due to the limited size width of the Kindle DX, but you can change the view from portrait to landscape by rotating the device to a 90-degree angle until it is in landscape view, and the distortion is reduced, if not totally eliminated.

Text-to-Speech on the Kindle DX

While reading, you occasionally need to rest your eyes for a few minutes. You don’t have to postpone your reading though. You can let the Kindle DX read for you. This device has a text-to-speech function like the Kindle 2. You can simply switch this function on, and you can listen to a male or female narrator do the reading for you while you’re resting or doing something else. The narration is not anywhere near the quality of an audio book and the narrator can sound mechanical sometimes, but this is not such a big deal.

While you are reading the Kindle DX, you can bring your habit of taking down notes with you with the take down notes and annotations feature. This is a great way to store your favorite quotes or passages from the book, including its location in the book, and save them for later use. Furthermore, while you are reading and taking down notes, you can also bring another habit with you if you like listening to music while reading. The Kindle DX supports mp3 music file formats and you can let them play in the background through a pretty loud and decent quality built-in speaker.

Amazon Kindle DX Drawbacks

The Kindle DX, as good as it seems, is not perfect. The following are some of its draw backs, starting with the keyboard. As previously mentioned, you can write notes with the Kindle DX and you do this by typing into the keyboard. However, you may find that the keyboard is not comfortable at all, at least for heavy typing. The keys look like little capsules, much smaller than those in Kindle 2, and because of the wider span of the Kindle DX, you tend to awkwardly extend your thumbs and type letter by letter. In addition, the other buttons are equally inefficient. Like in Kindle 2, the Home button and previous/next buttons are at the right side, and so are the menu and back buttons and the 5-way controller. What is missing is the previous/next button at the left side, which was a good idea to allow easy navigation even when the Kindle is on widescreen orientation.

One thing about the orientation is that it is too sensitive. It switches from portrait to landscape view or vice versa at a 45 degree angle, which can be annoying. This switching capability is due to the presence of an accelerometer inside the device. This orientation switching can be turned off, but that involves navigation through various menus which can be a bit too tedious for some users. Furthermore, this can affect your ability to retain landscape view for pdf files, the view preferred for most of these files, notwithstanding the fact that the Kindle DX does not support pdf file zooming.

Amazon Kindle DX Shopping Advice

Overall, it is a very good eBook reader. The screen is fantastic and it looks more like a book than the previous Kindles and most other e-book readers due to its size. Of course this increase in screen size also means this device is heavier than most e-book readers, and there are other revisions to be made, but if you are a book lover, there aren’t too many reasons why you shouldn’t buy the Kindle DX.