iPhone/Web 2.0

Yesterday I rediscovered the cross-platform open source app Calibre, an incredible ebook management tool. I like to say it’s like iTunes, but for ebooks. First of all, for those of you who don’t know, Sony Reader’s official software only works for Windows and from what I’ve read it’s quite unintuitive to use. Calibre has all the features you would want to manage your ebooks.

Remember that it will manage your library, so don’t tell it to use the directory that you currently use for ebooks as its default as this will drive you mad. Make an empty directory and then drag your ebooks into it. This will also effectively create a backup on your hard drive in case you accidentally delete books using Calibre. Once you have your books in your library, insert your Sony Reader (or other favorite eReader device) and Calibre will automatically recognize it and now you can simply highlight which books you want and click Send to Device. It will also show you the reader’s internal memory as well as any memory cards you have in your device and how much free space they have. By clicking on the arrow next to Send to Device, you can Set it to send to the device or card by default.

One issue that plagues everyone with eReaders is the plethora of ebook formats out there. Fortunately, Calibre deals with this nicely. You set your default output option, and I have chosen the standard ePub format and when you highlight a non-ePub book, you can just click Convert E-books and it will convert them to ePub format for you! Note that this does not work with DRM files.

However, the killer feature I found yesterday is Fetch News. Calibre comes with 100+ news sources in 10+ languages. As well as “ordinary news sources”, you can also use this to fetch your Instapaper or Google Reader by entering your username and password of that service. If Calibre doesn’t have the news source you want, you can add it yourself by creating a simple recipe. If you need something advanced, there is even a place where you can write a Python script to make it as customized as necessary! They encourage you to send them your recipes, so they can add them to future versions of Calibre, which is updated frequently indeed!

So, you can schedule Calibre to autofetch news feeds for you at a certain time of the day or every certain number of days. Then, when you connect your eReader device, it will automatically copy the latest news to your device in your preferred format. I have yet to see if it will also delete the old news files.

For those who are true open source purists, you might want to wait for the Txtr Reader which should also have integrated WiFi, 3G and bookstore… and it runs on Linux. In any case, whatever your device, Calibre should greatly improve your ebook management experience.

Today the Sony Reader PRS-505 launches in Germany for 299€ (US$377, £269). Due to the fall of the pound, we already bought ours at the Sony Center in the London Heathrow Airport for only £194 (216€, US$273), so that would make it a 28% discount for us. At that price, we couldn’t resist. We would certainly have preferred a Kindle, but they’re only sold in the USA, and despite being in California last week, all Kindle’s advantages are due to their Sprint whispernet coverage (cell phone data network, through a proprietary North American protocol) which won’t work in Europe.

Sony Reader displaying PDF file with magnified text

(Full-sized image taken on my iPhone 3G using the Clarifi close-up lens)

Look and feel

As for this device itself, it looks great! Above you can see it viewing Tournament Poker: 101 Winning Moves, an ebook in PDF format with magnified text. You can also view files in landscape mode (by holding down the magnifying button for 5 seconds), which helps to be able to view most PDF files, although some will still have very small print using this method. Page turning is easy with two places to turn pages and you’ll never accidentally flip pages like I hear happened on the Kindle 1.

The advantage of an eBook reader over a laptop is that it uses electronic ink, thus making the experience almost that of looking at regular paper. This means no eye-strain, but also that you will need an extra reading light if you want to read in the dark.

Getting your files on the Sony Reader

As a Mac user, you’ll have to connect your device using USB and then copy your books into the /database/media/books folder. For Windows users, you install their software as use that which from what I understand works similar to iTunes. I’ve found that native LRF files (proprietary Sony Reader format) and ePub files (open ebook standard) work best on the device.

Downloading/Buying ebooks

Note that the Sony Reader PRS-505 comes with 192 MB of internal memory with two slots for Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo and SanDisk cards (up to 16 GB). Most LRF and ePub files are relatively small (The 3423 page War and Peace is 4.7 MB in LRF format). It came with a 100 Classics CD when I bought it in London, but it looks like that doesn’t come with it in Germany.

Unfortunately from what I’ve seen, everything at the official eBook Store from Sony is North America-only Windows-only DRM. Talk about restrictions! UK customers can buy from Waterstones, but with Adobe Digital Editions DRM (Mac and Windows) from what I can tell. I’d be curious to hear if anyone has had success buying ebooks and loading them on their Sony Reader with a Mac.

Update: I am very happy with how Fictionwise is very open about DRM, geographical restrictions and in what formats they have books. When I’m ready to buy ebooks, I think I’ll start with them.

Specifically in Germany, I’ve found that Thalia and Libri sell ebooks in Germany, but their prices are the same as regular print books, which I guess comes from the old-fashioned German law where all new books have to be sold at their retail price everywhere.

So, that leaves books in ePub format. For an excellent selection of ePub books, I’d highly recommend epubbooks.com. The most impressive source for free ebooks has been feedbooks which has every book in their 3000+ collection available in ePub format which will display nicely on a Sony Reader PRS-505. You can also use their service to convert RSS feeds to ePub. They also have software to sync your feeds to your ebook reader, except it’s Windows-only. grrr

PDF files work ok, but not great. No article on ebooks would be complete without mentioning Project Gutenberg. This is a collection of 27,000 free books in various electronic formats.

Charging

Due to its use of electronic ink, an ebook reader generally only consumes power when it changes a page unlike a typical monitor. Thus, these devices typically show power consumption in terms of page flips. The Sony Reader’s battery is good for 7500 page turns (read War and Peace twice on a single charge). It takes 4 hours to go from an empty battery to a complete charge via USB.

Conclusion

As a Mac user, I’m quite happy with the Sony Reader as long as I stick to ePub files and classics. I’d like to buy ebooks, but the way things look now, it looks like I’m left to what I can get for free, since I refuse to buy DRM-content. Well, except for iPhone apps, but that’s because they will only work on an iPhone anyway. If I buy a book or music, I’d also like to be able to use that on my computer as well as an external device. Also, I’ve only had this for 5 days, so if you see any errors in this blog post, please feel free to comment so I can correct them. Happy reading!