E-Book Readers: Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle and iRex iLiad.  (British Local History / Phillimore Ltd Review)

This review is published with grateful thanks to Editorial Staff at Phillimore Ltd.

As the availability and range of e-books for purchase and free download is increasing, with websites such as waterstones.com (partnered with the Sony Reader), amazon.com (Kindle), whsmith.co.uk and penguin.co.uk among the leading names (new sites are appearing all the time), the race to become the ‘iPod’ of the e-book community is on. 

Three of the front-runners in the race are battling it out to dominate a medium which is heavily limited by digital rights management (DRM) - meaning that, on the whole, books cannot be transferred from one reader to another. Lending your favourite book to a friend is no longer an easy task. The three main readers, Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle and iRex iLiad all use different DRM systems - Sony, the EPUB format; iRex, (generally unprotected) Mobipocket files; and Amazon, its own .AZW Kindle format. So, as Apple have won the online music battle, with their iTunes DRM system accounting for around an impressive eighty per cent of music downloads which cannot be transferred to other MP3 players, the e-book readers are each hoping to achieve similar market dominance.

The iRex iLiad, the bulkiest of the three readers, has the biggest display, with the highest resolution and largest text area, but is the slowest to use. The menus take a long time to respond and the page refresh rate is sluggish. Not only is it the slowest, the iLiad comes with the most prohibitive price tag (iLiad 2nd Edition: £549, and the newest iLiad Book Edition: £499). The Sony Reader, however, is available for £224 and the new version Amazon Kindle 2 for $359 (£252).

While the iLiad provides a comfortable reading experience that’s easy on the eye, this doesn’t extend to aesthetics or ergonomics. It is big and heavy; it can’t be held in one hand as you might a conventional paperback and is only marginally more portable than the smallest laptops. One of its main features is its ‘Flipbar’ - a rocker switch used to turn pages. Once you get over the fact that the pages turn the ‘wrong way’ (this can be changed within the settings menu), you notice that it’s not entirely comfortable to stretch your thumb to reach the ‘Flipbar’.

The iLiad offers a wide variety of text sizes to suit each individual reader, whereas the Sony Reader offers only three and the Kindle, six. The iLiad is also the only reader to come equipped with a stylus  to navigate menus and make handwritten notes. The stylus is slow to respond, as the reader’s buttons are, and the menu items are not clear or intuitive. The small size of the menu items at the bottom of the screen would be difficult to target with the stylus on the move. The iLiad has four navigational buttons which allow you to select ‘News’, ‘Books’, ‘Docs’ or ‘Notes’. It lacks, however, one main menu and is not immediately easy to navigate.

Unlike the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle, the iLiad comes with built-in Wi-Fi - allowing wireless connection with a PC - although it comes with limited instructions on use and no help files. It offers a USB connection - strangely, only for use with an external storage device and not for transferring data from a PC. A separate USB cable must be used and attached to the charger in order to transfer data from your PC.

Coming with only 128mb of useable storage memory (Sony Reader comes with 256mb and Kindle, 180mb useable), the iLiad can hold the fewest e-books - though with both CF (CompactFlash) and an MMC (MultiMediaCard) memory card expansion slots and USB external device connection, the memory could easily be increased. The Sony Reader comes with both the more common SD and PRODuo expansion slots, and the Kindle comes with just SD.

The Kindle, supported by online giant, Amazon, and currently only available in the US, marks a stark contrast to the clunky and slow iLiad. The Kindle is packed with ambitious, albeit sometimes complicated and underdeveloped, functions and sports a distinctly ‘iPod’-esque white, plastic casing.

The Kindle features a scroll-bar cursor instead of a stylus or buttons, used to select menu items or lines of text by clicking the ‘select wheel’. In theory the scroll-bar is a good idea, but in practice the metallic cursor on the scroll-bar is difficult to see, hard to control quickly, and upon clicking the wheel tends to move to an item you didn’t want. The cursor allows you to select lines of text and look up words in a dictionary, highlight, follow hyperlinks or add a note to the text, using the miniature qwerty keyboard - a feature unique to the Kindle. Notes are held in a section called ‘My Clippings’ on the main menu, where they appear jumbled - all notes and highlights are held, confusingly, in the same place and are not labelled clearly.

When it comes to design, it seems like the Kindle is more focused on accommodating its technological features (the scroll-bar and the keyboard to allow use of all its features) and not on simplicity or functionality (an issue only partially addressed with the forthcoming Kindle 2). It is impossible to hold or pick up the Kindle without accidentally hitting one of the page turning buttons (which run the entire length of the screen down each side of the reader), or the back button. Whilst holding the Kindle out of its protective jacket there is nowhere to comfortably rest your thumbs whilst reading. The miniature qwerty keyboard is small, difficult to use with both you thumbs and also slow to respond.

Another unique technology incorporated within the Kindle is its wireless ‘Whispernet’ network, which is only available in the US, however. It is a dedicated wireless network used solely by Kindle to download content directly to their readers, without the need to connect to a PC. This is especially appealing to subscribers of online daily newspapers; the latest editions are downloaded to the reader automatically overnight. Only music and larger audio books need to be transferred by cable. You must be registered with Amazon.com and use ‘1click’ ordering in order to purchase books and newspaper subscriptions from the Kindle store, accessed wirelessly by the device. There are reports of difficulties in signing up wireless operators in the UK in order to provide a similar functionality to the US.

The Kindle features the same size screen as the Sony Reader, as well as the same, marginally lower, display resolution than the iLiad. There is a dedicated text-size button on the keypad, and text is equally easy to read as the Sony Reader. The Kindle also employs a dedicated ‘search’ button, so texts are fully searchable - something the present version of the Sony Reader does not offer. The Kindle uses bookmark section numbers instead of conventional page numbers - this accounts for the size of text and, therefore, pages changing - but people may find this confusing. The page refresh rate is quicker than the iLiad, and also marginally quicker than the Sony Reader.

The Kindle also offers an ‘Experimental’ section - allowing customers to try out new, beta versions of functions and applications which Kindle are considering using. This section currently includes ‘Basic Web’ - a text-based web browser. Though, again, this is only operational within the US, as ‘Whispernet’ is unavailable in the UK.

The Sony Reader, despite the fact that it’s soon to be replaced by a newer, more impressive version in the US, still shines when compared to the iRex iLiad and the Amazon Kindle. When it comes to simplicity of design and functionality the Sony Reader rivals the ever-popular iPod. With a clear main menu and intuitive, easy to use buttons you can use the Reader straight out of the box without any difficulty.

The Sony Reader utilises two sets of page-turning buttons, on the bottom-left, and centre-right of the reader, precisely where your thumbs would instinctively rest. The buttons are sturdy and raised, which, unlike the Kindle, ensures they can’t be pressed accidentally. The Reader features a simple zoom button, to change the text size, along with a bookmark button. Bookmarks are made by pressing the button on each desired page, they are then saved and viewed either by individual book or on a main bookmark menu, clearly, and each labelled with the book from which it is taken. With one menu button, working simultaneously as a ‘back’ button, navigation is easy and intuitive.

The Sony Reader is slim, metallic, light and feels much more sturdy than the white plastic of the Kindle. It is detachable from the protective jacket it comes attached to, and is comfortable to hold with or without. The Reader features 10 numbered side buttons alongside the screen, used for selecting menu items, and in addition has a directional pad for navigating around menus, and a confirm button in the centre of the pad. One of the most useful features of the Sony Reader is the ‘Continue Reading’ function - simply allowing you to go back to the page of the last book you were reading.

The Sony Reader uses an e-book library, similar to iTunes, which allows you to download e-books to your computer and store them before downloading them to your Reader. It features a USB slot to connect to your PC, but unfortunately no wireless networking. The e-book library is also used to download pictures and audio files to the device, allowing users to listen to music while they read, or listen to e-books, whilst using headphones. The quality of images on the Sony Reader is better than expected, though are slower to load than pages of text.

The main drawback of this version of the Sony Reader (rectified with the forthcoming version), is that it doesn’t feature a stylus or keypad to annotate or make notes. The new version of the Reader (PRS-700) features touch-screen technology, similar to iPod Touch. The 10 side buttons are removed as they are no longer needed, and a non-permanent onscreen keyboard can be used to make notes and type in search terms. The new version also features Wi-Fi connectivity, and LED lighting is incorporated for poor-light conditions, retaining the impressive E-Ink technology which allows text to be read at almost any angle, and even in bright sunlight. Internal storage is to be doubled to 512mb on the new version. The one main drawback is that the new Sony Reader may not be available in the UK for some time.

E-book readers have some way to come, though it’s a time where all are quickly being developed and improved. The risks inherent with investing early in any new technology are very much present; the public won’t wait around to see which reader, and importantly, which DRM, emerges as the market leader. At this stage, the Sony Reader stands out when it comes to ease of use, functionality and design, and with the backing of Waterstone’s it is the obvious choice in the UK. At present in the US, however, the Kindle, although let down by design and functionality, holds sway with its ‘Whispernet’ technology - and of course, its connection with the giant, Amazon, cannot be ignored. With the new Sony Reader PRS-700, however, the limitations of the initial reader are set to be removed, and make an already strong product an even more attractive choice for the UK market.