By
Nico Vreeland, on April 24th, 2009
Whatever happened to this screen happened while it was inside a standard soft ereader case
Ever since my first Sony Reader took a powder, I’ve been looking for a case that delivered more protection than aesthetics. I wanted something that would absorb a sharp blow, a case tough enough that I won’t worry about my ereader when I sling my bookbag around.
Unfortunately, nobody seems to want to make a case like this. My PRS-505 and BeBook both came with covers, but neither are rigid. My first Sony, the PRS-700, broke inside just such a soft cover, inside my backpack.
So I decided to repurpose some other kind of case, which turned out to be a whole lot more trouble than I thought it would be.
Here are three DIY options for hard cases that will give your ereader enough protection to survive anything short of being run over. Complete picture gallery at the bottom of this post. …
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By
Nico Vreeland, on February 20th, 2009
BeBook support might very well be the best in the business.
I
recently got a BeBook after my Sony PRS-700 took a powder. After messing with the Mobipocket Reader software for a long, long time, I still couldn’t make the thing read a library book. This terrified me briefly, because I have a severe allergic reaction to paying for books with digital restriction measures, so the ability to borrow and read library books is essential to me.
Eventually, I found this thread on the BeBook support forum. It details the problem (the BeBook has no internal clock, and so the time-stamped DRM on library books thinks they aren’t active), and one user gives a link to a hack that you can load on an SD card that will give the BeBook a clock, or at least the ability to think it has a clock.
Here’s the interesting thing: the poster with the original problem was a bit reluctant to use a third-party hack, and wanted to wait for an official response from BeBook. The official response came, and BeBook support reported that they’d tried the hack out, and it worked, and they gave their (unofficial) OK.
I’ve never heard of anything like this. This kind of response shows a clear priority structure: BeBook’s customers come first. I can’t say the same thing about Amazon or Sony.
[here's the specific post that contains instructions on how to read library books on BeBook]
By
Nico Vreeland, on February 3rd, 2009
The unsuspecting PRS-700, before the anti-glare protector. Are you blind?
Long title, yes, and probably not worth it.
The loudest critique I’ve heard of the Sony Reader is that its screen is prone to glare. Very prone to glare, some say. It made me nervous enough that I went into a Sonystyle brick-and-mortar to get a look at this screen before I took the plunge.
I found the glare noticeable but not really so bad. Tilting the screen a bit has been enough for me to find a comfortable reading angle in all but the harshest fluorescents at Borders, where I like to read ebooks ironically.
Still, I figured I’d get an anti-glare screen protector, because what the hell, it couldn’t hurt.
Evidently, it also couldn’t help. At least not much.
…
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