/ 6 July 2007

Easy reader

It all started with my wife complaining that there was no space left at home for me to keep buying books. My collection had encroached on every room in the house.

I already owned a PDA and had been buying e-books to read on it, so you’d think the issue could have been resolved that way. But the screen size was too small and, being a fast reader, I would be pressing the scroll-down-a-page button non-stop. Also, the screen brightness hurt my eyes after a while and I couldn’t see the screen in average daylight sun.

The only solution was to find an e-reader. Internet research revealed the most promising of them all, the Sony PRS 500. I started phoning around, wanting to buy one straight away. Sony South Africa were confused by my call and said they had never heard of the Sony e-reader. Eventually I found an importer, ordered it and waited for delivery.

Let me start off by saying Wow! After spending two months playing with the PRS 500, I am convinced that the future of reading novels will definitely change from paper to paper-like-quality computer screens. Sounds like a work of fiction — a future with no more paper.

All the website hype about the product was true. It did look like paper, you could see the screen in full sunlight, it didn’t hurt your eyes, it was not heavy (even though you can store up to 80 books on it before a memory card is needed).

I have already read 20 novels, including Johnathan Kellerman’s Obsession, Barry Eisler’s John Rain series, Vince Flyn’s Mitch Rapp collections and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. Prices have varied from $5 to $15 per e-book downloaded.

The device has travelled with me to Zambia and Mozambique. It sits in my briefcase when I go to the office. I have sat on planes and in airport lounges reading books off it. You can read many different novels simultaneously if you want, without having to cart extra luggage with you. It has changed the way I read.

Recently, I tried reading a novel that had been sitting next to my bed for quite some time. I realised that I couldn’t automatically (that is, with the press of a button) turn the page, the book felt heavy, I couldn’t zoom up the text, so I put the book down and pulled out the e-reader and continued with James Patterson’s The Fifth Horseman in my newly acquired, but much preferred, format. Although I know that for some the “I want to feel the paper and smell the ink” argument will still hold true.

Publishers and retailers are not going to be happy if e-readers turn out to be a massive success because that could threaten ordinary book buying. However some, such as Random House and Penguin Books, have got on board already and are publishing e-books. Maybe retailers should look at this option also and start buying the rights to e-books so that readers can go into bookshops and download what they have bought on to memory sticks or e-readers.

Now I sit with just a couple of issues. Because the local arm of the manufacturer was not helpful, even after I had brought the device into the country, I don’t have a backup plan if anything should go wrong. (But then my wife asked me only to make a plan; not a backup plan.) Also, more frustrating was trying to buy books online to discover that the PRS 500 works only with books bought directly from Sony United States. To buy these titles you must have an American-issued credit card or, as in my case, know someone who has one and who doesn’t mind letting you use her credit card.

I have put in more research on the internet, and found that a new product, similar to the PRS 500, is available. This e-reader doesn’t come with the problem of how to access books since its makers have gone into a partnership with one of the e-reader software companies. Nor do you need to be an American or have American credit. It also promises to do more — it is a writing tablet as well. On the down side, it costs almost three times as much as the Sony.