TanisHalfElven
Diamond Member
oops sorry. i just meant if you need 2 its clearly for a family member.let them get the card in their name then. wasn't advocating fraud.
-
We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.
Sony Reader $50 with card application
Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
oops sorry. i just meant if you need 2 its clearly for a family member.let them get the card in their name then. wasn't advocating fraud.
just ordered the reader
if you want to get a 2nd one at a discounted price; order the first and then put an item onto your wishlist (will give you 50 pts)
you get 50 points; when you add the 2nd reader, it is discounted to 5999
you get two readers for $59.49 -- perfect for my mom and dad
the new sony connect offer is 100 classics free
if you want to get a 2nd one at a discounted price; order the first and then put an item onto your wishlist (will give you 50 pts)
you get 50 points; when you add the 2nd reader, it is discounted to 5999
you get two readers for $59.49 -- perfect for my mom and dad
the new sony connect offer is 100 classics free
ICantAffordIt
Senior member
Hey, that really works... I'd try it but I don't want both of my orders to be cancelled. Maybe it'll still work after the 1st one ships. I think you should edit your post so that the secret doesn't get out until after mine ships 🙂
Hey Redbeard... did you get a shipping notice when it shipped or did it just show up?
Hey Redbeard... did you get a shipping notice when it shipped or did it just show up?
ICantAffordIt
Senior member
Yup, when the card showed up... then about a week later, I got an email saying I should be receiving my card soon.
Depends. IF the format of the book it TXT, RTF ect.. then you can control the font size. It will do small/medium/large. You can also switch to landsape view which is waht I prefer.
There is a dedicated button to adjust the size.
Protip: if you hold that button down for 5 seconds, it will switch between landscape/portrait view.
After using the PRS500 for a week, I have found it to be almost useless for PDF's. It doesn't handle A4 very well. You are better off converting PDF->RTF.
just register it and install the software and you get credit automatically. i got $50 for anything and $100 for classics. only the $1.99 classics are the ones you can get with the $100 for classics. they price them that way because they can and it takes a little effort to convert them to the best format for the reader. if you like you can always just download them as text files and read them that way, text files look pretty good on the reader.
TanisHalfElven
Diamond Member
how long doe4s it take if your rejected. i shouldn't be rejected since my credit is good and i keep getting preapproved offers from chase and other banks...... well anyway it been almost 2 weeks. damn i hate the wait.
Evadman
Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
I am pretty sure they are required to notify you in 30 days in writing if you are rejected.
/me has already put about $500 on the card. Kinda nice I am finally getting something for my $ instead of just using a debit card. Each point you earn is worth a penny in the sony store, and you get a point per buck spent. Not exactly the sweetest, but seems to be worth it for the reader.
/me waits for his reader to get here. The 2 GB memory I ordered ffrom newegg at the same time is already here. The base I ordered ($39) is not here yet, but it shipped yesterday. I want my toy darn it!
/slashies
ICantAffordIt
Senior member
Redbeard called it... mine shipped today, exactly two weeks after I placed the order.
TanisHalfElven
Diamond Member
i was just wondering. some of the people here said they checked their status by calling chase. i did that but they say they can't check the status before 30 days. their automated phone service however confirmend that they recieved the card application.
man i just hope its not lost in the mail. i'd hate myself if someone else got their grubby little hands on it and ruined my credit.
hope they have an activation system in place.
man i just hope its not lost in the mail. i'd hate myself if someone else got their grubby little hands on it and ruined my credit.
hope they have an activation system in place.
All CCs require you to activate the card from the home phone number you listed during your sign up. If you call from a different number you'll need more information so you should be safe unless the mail thief also has your important info.
Thanks, OP. I got my card in the mail today (~1 week after) and ordered a reader. I wanted to try the two reader trick but didn't read the instructions carefully enough 🙁 This is my 3rd Sony card so it doesn't matter if you already got in on the $150 deal.
Evadman
Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
I have always wanted one of these readers, but I didn't bother to do any research, because the price was so high. I was at fry's yesterday and they had one on display.
My 5 minute review:
Good - it is extremely thin and light. I had no problem reading it in the store, and it really did look like paper. The screen changes that everyone seems to complain about were annoying to begin with, but by about the 10th page, I had blocked them out entirely and stopped "seeing" them. The device will take SD cards up to 2 GB, and memory sticks > 2 GB, to at least 4 GB. Software is available to create PDF's from images so you can read such things as manga, or other lit books you have purchased from elsewhere. You are not limited to buying fromt he Connect store.
Could be better - It was a little too yellow for my tastes (kind of like 92 brightness paper that was left out in the sun). The device will only read up to 2 GB SD cards, but you can easily fit a few hundred books on a card. The books I have come out to 500k to 1 MB per book when converted to the reader format.
Glad I am only paying $50 - The ghosting was REALLY bad. I had absolutely no problem "reading" the last page though the new page's text. It really looked like crap because of this. According to my research, the longer the screen is set to a page, the worse the ghosting is. However I could read a page in 20 seconds or less, so my research does not jive with my experience. I seriously hope that this issue is caused by being a display and being dropped one too many times. I will see when I get mine from Sony.
Also, from what I understand, Sony is releasing a new version that eliminates the ghosting with a new type of e-paper sometime in Q4. Right now that is unsubstantiated, but I saw it in quite a few different places. There are also rumors of 2 different sizes and a color option. Based on what I know about the technology, color would be a PITA to implement, and be insanely expensive(thousands of dollars per unit). So I don't really believe the color rumor. But I do believe the 2 sizes and new e-ink screens, especially because E-ink has already licensed the screen to some other manufacturers and I have seen video of the new units, but not of a Sony branded one.
My 5 minute review:
Good - it is extremely thin and light. I had no problem reading it in the store, and it really did look like paper. The screen changes that everyone seems to complain about were annoying to begin with, but by about the 10th page, I had blocked them out entirely and stopped "seeing" them. The device will take SD cards up to 2 GB, and memory sticks > 2 GB, to at least 4 GB. Software is available to create PDF's from images so you can read such things as manga, or other lit books you have purchased from elsewhere. You are not limited to buying fromt he Connect store.
Could be better - It was a little too yellow for my tastes (kind of like 92 brightness paper that was left out in the sun). The device will only read up to 2 GB SD cards, but you can easily fit a few hundred books on a card. The books I have come out to 500k to 1 MB per book when converted to the reader format.
Glad I am only paying $50 - The ghosting was REALLY bad. I had absolutely no problem "reading" the last page though the new page's text. It really looked like crap because of this. According to my research, the longer the screen is set to a page, the worse the ghosting is. However I could read a page in 20 seconds or less, so my research does not jive with my experience. I seriously hope that this issue is caused by being a display and being dropped one too many times. I will see when I get mine from Sony.
Also, from what I understand, Sony is releasing a new version that eliminates the ghosting with a new type of e-paper sometime in Q4. Right now that is unsubstantiated, but I saw it in quite a few different places. There are also rumors of 2 different sizes and a color option. Based on what I know about the technology, color would be a PITA to implement, and be insanely expensive(thousands of dollars per unit). So I don't really believe the color rumor. But I do believe the 2 sizes and new e-ink screens, especially because E-ink has already licensed the screen to some other manufacturers and I have seen video of the new units, but not of a Sony branded one.
Received mine yesterday. Though it's a nice toy, man would be crazy to pay close to $300 for it at retail.
Pros:
- light weight
- long battery life (if you are only reading)
- somewhat better contrast then LCD (though do not kid yourself thinking this is book quality)
Cons:
- slow. This may be a technology limitation but in 21st century I can be a little more demanding to the responsiveness of the gadgets.
- ghosting is really bad; it reduces already low contrast to begin with - it's like reading a book printed on cheap toilet paper that is so thin, the other page always shows through
- no backlight combined with low contrast results in rather demanding lighting conditions. I had no problem reading text in a day light, but by evening with less then favorable artificial lighting the limitations started to show
- really really small screen size - results in page flipping every few seconds - this becomes annoying if you are a fast reader
- small resolution
- does not support non-Latin fonts. This may be no big deal for Engligh-only readers, but for anyone with dual-language preferences this is a real limitation. Now, you can embed fonts in PDF files and prepare your eBooks that way, but this requires Adobe license, increases file size and takes lots of time reformatting the file, so it is actually readable. And forget about displaying book titles in native language on the menu screen.
- no search functionality. For what is essentially a small computer, this is unforgivable.
- very limited file type support. No HTML support, for example, means you have to jump through the hoops trying to prepare Web site for offline reading
- limited ability to scale fonts
- no ability to group by authors or by book categories. If you have a large library, finding specific book is not trivial
- no thumbnail support and no touch-screen support
- very limited book selection from Sony Connect site combined with what I feel are very high prices for the electronic content that you can not essentially resell or move between different devices
I am a Russian speaker and there are big (and I mean huge) Internet libraries that allow you to read books that are either public domain or have author consent for Web publishing. Would Sony allow to load HTML files with non-western encoding, it would be a breeze for me to load any book I like from one of these libraries onto a Reader. Instead I had to spend two hours on Internet first just trying to understand how the hack can I force reader to display pages in Russian and then another couple of hours trying to convert existing files and reformat them to the napkin screen size. Not very convenient.
Pros:
- light weight
- long battery life (if you are only reading)
- somewhat better contrast then LCD (though do not kid yourself thinking this is book quality)
Cons:
- slow. This may be a technology limitation but in 21st century I can be a little more demanding to the responsiveness of the gadgets.
- ghosting is really bad; it reduces already low contrast to begin with - it's like reading a book printed on cheap toilet paper that is so thin, the other page always shows through
- no backlight combined with low contrast results in rather demanding lighting conditions. I had no problem reading text in a day light, but by evening with less then favorable artificial lighting the limitations started to show
- really really small screen size - results in page flipping every few seconds - this becomes annoying if you are a fast reader
- small resolution
- does not support non-Latin fonts. This may be no big deal for Engligh-only readers, but for anyone with dual-language preferences this is a real limitation. Now, you can embed fonts in PDF files and prepare your eBooks that way, but this requires Adobe license, increases file size and takes lots of time reformatting the file, so it is actually readable. And forget about displaying book titles in native language on the menu screen.
- no search functionality. For what is essentially a small computer, this is unforgivable.
- very limited file type support. No HTML support, for example, means you have to jump through the hoops trying to prepare Web site for offline reading
- limited ability to scale fonts
- no ability to group by authors or by book categories. If you have a large library, finding specific book is not trivial
- no thumbnail support and no touch-screen support
- very limited book selection from Sony Connect site combined with what I feel are very high prices for the electronic content that you can not essentially resell or move between different devices
I am a Russian speaker and there are big (and I mean huge) Internet libraries that allow you to read books that are either public domain or have author consent for Web publishing. Would Sony allow to load HTML files with non-western encoding, it would be a breeze for me to load any book I like from one of these libraries onto a Reader. Instead I had to spend two hours on Internet first just trying to understand how the hack can I force reader to display pages in Russian and then another couple of hours trying to convert existing files and reformat them to the napkin screen size. Not very convenient.
ICantAffordIt
Senior member
I got mine yesterday as well and I agree... it's a neat gadget for $60, no way for $300. I like it though... the ghosting for me is minimal, and I can read it in just about any light... contrast seems good to me. I'd say it is equivalent to a cheaper paperback book.
As far as html support, there is a program called html2lrf that should be able to do the conversion for you. I haven't used it, but I did use pdf2lrf and it did a good job of converting a pdf to the sony format, so text sizes are adjustable and margins are acceptable.
I have found this site has good resources for the reader:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/
And you can do groups with the internal memory, but not with sd cards. Just use the Connect Reader to make whatever groups you want.
As far as html support, there is a program called html2lrf that should be able to do the conversion for you. I haven't used it, but I did use pdf2lrf and it did a good job of converting a pdf to the sony format, so text sizes are adjustable and margins are acceptable.
I have found this site has good resources for the reader:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/
And you can do groups with the internal memory, but not with sd cards. Just use the Connect Reader to make whatever groups you want.
TanisHalfElven
Diamond Member
your probably like me. you didn't get auto approved.
you get a call soon and they ask some question and then decide. i was apprived.
woohoo. only gotta wait now.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 24K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 24K
-
-
