I feel a bit decadent having two e-book readers, and it might seem a bit excessive, but then I have two cameras, two mp3 players and two computers which are used for different circumstances so why not?

The big question is whether the concept of an e-book is attractive compared to paper copies. I took the Sony away on holiday this year and found it to be fine. Holidays are when these devices come into their own unless you are only likely to get through one book while you are away. I read Oliver Twist, the first Psmith book, an EE ‘Doc’ Smith novel and a Harry Harrison short story, which would have been a bit much to carry.

The technology used in both devices is E Ink which is not backlit like a computer, phone or tablet screen, making it easier on the eyes – important for longer sessions, and better in bright light. I had no trouble reading in the sunshine.

Why not just stick with books? Well, I do like books, but I’ve now reached the point where I don’t have room for many more. I find it hard to throw old ones away to make room for new ones, and I found it just as easy to read electronically.

Why not just use a laptop, tablet or smartphone? Well, the form factor has a lot to do with it. A phone is too small for comfort and a laptop or tablet isn’t really portable enough, plus there is the advantage of the display technology. The Sony Reader fits in a jacket pocket or a cargo pants pocket.

There might be an argument for having one device that does everything, but I’m a bit old-fashioned. I like having a dedicated and seperate camera, mp3 player, phone and book reader, but that’s how I am.

The big question is why I wanted a Kindle when I already had a Sony. The Kindle is obviously the market leader now, but that has never really affected my decisions before. I have had an mp3 player for at least 10 years now but never had an iPod.

In this case the software had a lot to do with the decision. As they did with their mp3 walkman products, Sony have a nice piece of hardware let down by the software. I have started using some open source software called calibre (it is spelled with a small c) instead, but I am still a bit distrustful of how it handles DRM. I am quite happy to continue downloading classics from Project Gutenberg to the Sony but never really trusted it enough to buy anything for it.

The same issue existed with mp3 players for a while, but it soon became easy to purchase DRM-free content, and until then it was still easy to rip your own CDs. With book readers you can’t just rip your paper books onto a computer so unless you want to be limited to out-of-copyright books you can’t avoid DRM.

So, onto a bit of a comparison between the two machines: a Sony Reader PRS-300 and the Kindle 2011 model AKA the 4th generation Kindle.

Sony PRS-300 (left) and 4th Generation Kindle (right)

In terms of size, they are very similar. The Kindle is a little bit wider than the Sony (about 50mm?) and a little bit taller (about 75mm?) but a little slimmer. It is only a few mm thinner, though it looks more because of the more bezeled edges. The Sony is noticeably heavier though, and the Kindle screen is a lot bigger – about 15mm wider and 2cm taller.

The Sony on top of the Kindle

The Sony feels more solid than the Kindle, though neither feels too flimsy. Both have a hard front with a more tactile surface on the back.

In terms of display, both are adequate, but I find the Kindle to be a bit sharper with a better contrast. It just looks that little bit more like paper than the Sony.

Side-by-side with the same text being displayed

The Sony has a standard mini-USB port plus a DC power port. The Kindle just has a (less standard) USB port for charging and data transfer. You can charge the Sony up via the USB port but, in my experience, only from a computer and not from a mains USB charger. I discovered that the hard way on holiday when the battery was running low and the charger sucked the remaining life out of it instead of topping it up.

The Sony comes with a USB cable but not a DC adaptor. The Kindle comes with an extraordinarily long (2-metre) USB cable. The Kindle cable will charge up the machine from a mains adaptor and not suck the battery: that was one of the first things I tested.

When reading I find that the Kindle turns pages faster and starts up faster. The options for changing type size are also better on the Kindle. The Sony only has three sizes that you can toggle between, with quite a frustrating pause before re-rendering. The Kindle has eight font sizes in three different styles, as well as a few extra display options.

The other features which Kindle has that the Sony lacks are the ability to look up words easily and to make notes. Bookmarking is available in both but I have to admit I always found that fiddly on the Sony. The numbered buttons on the Sony are nice. In theory it is quicker than scrolling down, though I kep forgetting about them and scrolling down anyway. The round four-way control on the Sony is a little less fiddly to use as it is much bigger than the square control on the Kindle, but on balance I would rather have the extra couple of centimetres of screen and put up with the smaller button, which is still quite usable.

Selecting a book on the Kindle (not that I have much on there to choose from yet)

Really it just works better for me.

I guess the biggest difference between the two is the connectivity. The Sony has no wifi so you have to transfer books by USB. To do that, you download a book from wherever and import it into your library on your PC and then synch that to the device. I really got my knickers in a twist doing this with the Sony software before I finally gave up and moved to an alternative. Even after that there still remains an issue with the device taking its time to be ready afterwards – like it is redoing its index or something.

With the Kindle there are several options. You can still download a book from Project Gutenberg and then transfer it via USB, or you can have anything purchased from Amazon transferred by wifi either from their website or from the Kindle itself.

I have downloaded a couple of old books from PG which worked fine, and also downloaded from Amazon. I bought a book for Jayne’s machine and downloaded a couple of samples for mine. If I decide I want to read the whole thing I can then buy the rest. All very easy, although I am acutely aware that my purchased books could, in theory, disappear if Amazon disappeared. That is a potential issue with any sort of DRM media and I have decided to trust it for this.

There is a bit of a limitation, in that you are tied to Amazon for purchases, which is a new experience for me. Having never had an Apple product I am not used to being tied to one provider. On the other had there is an advantage – all your purchases are backed up in the cloud. If you ever lose the Kindle or break it or upgrade sometime in the future, all the content can be synched to the new machine.

I think I will keep both machines. Any classics I download will go onto both, but my first choice for actually reading them will be the Kindle, especially on holiday when it means Jayne and I can share a charger. The Sony will be kept because there are some file formats it can handle which the Kindle can’t. It is possible to convert them on your PC or by e-mailing them to Amazon, who will convert them and send them by wifi for free, but the conversion can get a bit scrambled if there is any fancy formatting.

The final verdict: despite the better open source credentials of the Sony the Kindle wins for me.

As for the concept, there is a lot of speculation about whether the paper book’s days are numbered. I don’t know about that, what I do know is that a lot of people now have these machines and you can’t use them without reading books (or newspapers or blogs I suppose) and there is a part of me that likes the idea that there is going to be more reading going  – surely better for you than playing Angry Birds or watching Eastenders on the daily commute.

Chiquita

For my birthday Jayne treated me to a new lens for my camera: the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens, which is often referred to as the ‘nifty fifty’.

What with one thing and another, I didn’t get round to really trying it out over the weekend, except for a really quick snap of the cat. I had intended to do some baby photos but couldn’t be bothered. I was also going to go out and try some bracketed shots so I can try out the HDR feature in the new Corel PaintShop Pro that I acquired last week, but couldn’t decide where to go.

I am a long way from being an expert on cameras and photography, but I think this lens could be useful for next week’s CCAR party.

Our last overseas holiday was a week in Crete in August 2009. Only two years ago but it seems a lot longer. I can’t remember when we last went anywhere for two whole weeks, but that is what we are just about to do.

The big question is how much technology to take. Certainly not the laptop. That can stay here for the kids to use while they are house-sitting. Part of the appeal of a holiday now is to get away from it all, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds and email plus newspapers and television. We will probably take our phones if only to use as alarm clocks and to call a taxi from Gatwick when we return but I’ll certainly make sure all the roaming data stuff is turned off.

Can’t totally get away from gadgets though. I’ll take my mp3 player and e-book reader with all the PG Wodehouse that I have downloaded ready for the trip. I might take the Flip video recorder since it is nice and compact but I’m still undecided about the big camera. I’m kind of inclined to just take my compact camera and leave the DSLR at home.

All I know for sure is that after Saturday its going to be pretty quiet here unless the sister posts anything.

Some of the gadgets were extremely generic while others were very specific.  for example, the iPod counts, even though it is just one amongst many mp3 players – and not even the first to hit the market – but another gadget was “the record player” when it could just as easily been something iconic like the Linn sondek LP12, the Technics SL1200 or the Dansette. The same applies to something as vague as “the PDA” instead of picking the cream of the crop (Psion Series3) or “e-book readers” instead of the ever-tempting Kindle.

I’m also confused about where you draw the line between toys and gadgets. If a RC car counts as a gadget then why not a RC helicopter or the Corgi model of the James Bond aston Martin with the working ejector seat and other trimmings? Or why is the folding bike a gadget but not the bicycle generally – or the mini scooter?

I think if it was me I would have substituted MagLite for torch and zippo for lighter and I would have found some way to squeeze in the Leatherman somewhere, and the GorillaPod, and the USB stick, and… ooh, loads more.  But then isn’t one of the main purposes of such lists to generate a bit of controversy and conversation?

Most amusing was the slightly disapproving way Fry said that some people spend an average of four hours a day watching TV – in the middle of a three-hour programme.

Personally I think the biggest effect must be from turning the backlight down a lot from what it was and setting it to turn off automatically at midnight for about seven hours. I’m sure that turning down ringtone volumes, turning off vibrations and not having alert noises for all events could make a difference too – but I already had minimal alerts and haven’t been getting enough calls for the lack of vibrate to make so much of a difference.

I can thoroughly recommend turning down backlighting to anybody who is having trouble with battery life on a BlackBerry Curve. Even at something like 40% it is perfectly readable and that is with my increasingly poor eyesight.

I think it is safe to say that battery life on BlackBerry Curves is not brilliant.  The battery is 1150mAH which doesn’t sound like a lot to me. I have had a look at RIM’s advice on extending battery life and followed it as far as I can.  I have now set the device to turn off at night and turned down the backlight level and the amount of time the backlight stays on.  That will probably have the biggest effect.

I have turned the level of ringtones down and turned vibrate off.  This will have much less of an effect because I don’t get called very often and I already had most of the alerts, for SMS, BBM, e-mails and the like either silent or very quiet.  Again, I don’t get a lot of SMS or BBM messages so it won’t make a lot of difference that they are all silent.  I treat BBM and SMS as something I don’t need to be aware of immediately anyway.   Thinking about it, I’m sort of surprised that the kids’ BlackBerry’s don’t need a recharge every few hours with the number of texts they get and the ear-splitting volume of the alerts.

Blootooth was already turned off, and I am now wondering about wi-fi.  If I am doing a bit of casual looking up on Wikipedia or whatever I prefer using wi-fi connections because they are faster and not using up any of my monthly data allowance, but apparently it uses a lot of power, especially when you are not getting a signal and it keeps searching for one.  I have the access points at work and home set up, but maybe I should get in the habit of turning wi-fi off when I am away from both. Either that or leaving it off an only turning it on when I am at home or work and want to use the internet.

One bit of advice I am not sure about is to delete original messages when replying.  I can’t see how retaining a message increases battery usage – but I tend to delete most messages anyway.

What might help a lot is receiving fewer messages.  I found myself in the position of sometimes getting three different notifications of some events.  This was because of having notification settings in TWitter and Facebook that pre-date me having a phone that could access them directly.  For example, if somebody I follow on Twitter snet a reply to me directly I would get an SMS message about, an e-mail notification (and that would go to the phone, having been forwarded by my mail server) and an update through the Twitter app on the phone.  When there is a bit of dialogue going back and forth it can get ridiculous.  It is similar with Facebook.  I have now turned off the notifications and we will see if that helps.

Having looked into it I am now getting a bit paranoid about how much communication the handset is doing without me actually doing anything.   I’m also wondering whether I should turn off GPS except for when I actually want it.

Anything other than having to resort to something ugly like this. It reminds me of the old 2CV when you could buy an extended boot.

At one point I stopped and looked at the monstrous stereos, full of buttons, holes, displays, protuberances, grilles and lights and had a sudden realisation: I don’t have a stereo!   In fact I haven’t had one for ages.  My old Sony midi system used to be in our old kitchen and then the attic but now Charlie has it.  I sold the turntable, and Frankie had the rest of the separates.  Jayne has a little micro system in the kitchen but I don’t actually have a stereo any more.

Music has always been important to me.  Ever since I left home I always had a stereo.  I had my own place for a year before I thought about getting a TV, and I was very late getting a VCR, but I always had a stereo.  I still listen to music a lot but it is mostly on the PC either from the hard drive or streaming.  If I listen in the bedroom it is by plugging the iRiver or Creative mp3 players into speakers I keep there and if I am gardening, going for a walk or taking the bus or train I will have the Creative with me.  I have a portable DAB radio on my desk (mono) and if I really want to listen to a CD properly, or get the full surround effect on an DACD or DVD-A, I will play in on the DVD player through the AV amp which sorely needs replacing, but I don’t have a dedicated music player any more.

So I was only mildly interested in the stereos.  It might be nice to have one, but I wouldn’t know where to put it.   I didn’t even bother looking at the massed ranks of TVs, HD TVs, 3D TVs and Blu-Rays.  I had a little closer look at PC base units because Jayne reckons she is due an upgrade this year, and had a stab at some of the tablet and touchscreen PCsbut that was it really.  The only toy of real interest was the Kindle on display in PC World.

At first I thought it was just a cardboard dummy display and then realised it was the real thing – that screen really does do a fantastic job of looking like paper.

Even with the fridges I knew there was little point looking.  I love those big American-style fridges with a water and ice dispenser in the door.  When we still had all three kids at home that would have been such a great thing to have, but the old place didn’t have room for one unless we took out a work surface and blocked the window with it.  We could fit one in this place, but such a cavernous device would look pathetic with the small amount of food we now keep – and even less next week when the boy leaves home. Again.

I should have been like a kid in a sweetshop today but instead I was more like a diabetic in a sweetshop.

It gave me a chance to have a play to see if it would help me make up my mind about whether to go for BlackBerry or Android, and so far I am quite impressed with it.  The only bit of bad planning was getting it on a Friday.  Although I had the PAC from Vodafone they only change the numbers over on working days so we had to wait three days before getting Jayne’s old number on the new phone.

I found it really easy to get the phone to hook up to Jayne’ s email account on my mail server and to get it to connect to our home router.  The screen is not huge so browsing normal websites isn’t going to be brilliant, but that’s not really what we expect to do – there are apps for Facebook, Twitter, and other sites like that and mobile versions of sites like Wikipedia.  I’m sure it will be fine for checking news, weather, football scores and so on, and brilliant for mail of course.

I thought I had almost made my mind up and then I took her phone into work to see what sort of signal it gets there, which turned out to be absolutely none.  I suppose its my fault for working in a building made of material which effectively tempest the whole place.  The only network that works reliably is Orange because we have our own repeaters to enable all the company phones to work.

I was faced with a choice between a phone I could use for email (through a corporate wifi) but not receive calls or texts on, or go to Orange which would cost a bit more and give less mobile internet megabytes just so it would work as a phone.   Then I found out that we can get a discount on Orange because the company has a deal with them and suddenly all the equations changed.

It turns out that Orange works out cheaper for me than Virgin.  They have a wider range of phones and options too, so loads more choice.  I found myselfy looking at stuff like the Motorola Atrix before reminding myself that it is a bit OTT for the minimal use I will make of it.  The inner nerd likes the idea of a dual core processor, fingerprint reader and huge touch screen but I have to keep telling him to be realistic.

I’m already annoyed with Orange’s silly animal names for their call plans and headbangingly frustrated by their bloody awful website.  I’ll probably go for the same sort of Blackberry as Jayne in the end but for now I’ll just indulge in a little more of the geekporn of looking at all the other machines until next month when I my own Vodafone contract runs out and I can ditch the tax-dodgers and save myself a few pennies too.

I know Blackberries are boring compared to the Atrix but at least I know where I am with them.

There is now a huge space devoted to electronic gadgets: iPads, PlayStations, iPods, etc. and naturally rafts of expensive accessories for all of them.  It is all very nicely laid out too – low counters with lots of these toys on display where they can be touched and played with.  I was slightly impressed, but there was something wrong that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Then it came to me: isn’t this vast space full of electronic toys where all the music used to be?   Where is all the music?

There is still the few racks of three-for-a-tenner bargains at the front, along with the current chart, but for anything even slightly obscure or for back catalogue there are a few measly racks at the back.  It has almost got to the point where I have more titles on CD at home than HMV have in their shop.

This would not be too bad were it not for the fact that HMV was just about the last chain selling music in any quantity that even pretended to go much beyond the charts and popular ‘greatest hits’ bargains and having seen Our Price fold, WH Smith give up and most independents get forced out of business there really is no other option than Amazon left, which is OK but deprives us of the pleasure of browsing.

HMV might as well just call themselves a DVD shop now.  I can’t even get angry about it since I know that I am as much to blame for this as anybody, and my own purchasing habits have contributed to the demise of the business.