Mar 29 2009
Using Blackberry Curve as a digital reader
Well, as I mentioned on Flitting on Fiction , I was mucking around with my Blackberry last night, and downloaded the new beta software that fictionwise (who have recently been bought by Barnes & Noble ) now offers for it.
eReader eBooks now work on BlackBerry Handhelds, along with Apple iPhones plus other mobile devices using Palm, Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone and Symbian Operating Systems (as well as PCs and Mac). You can download free eReader software at Fictionwise .
So of course, even though it was bedtime by the time I got there, I had to download a couple of books and try it.
One of the good things about doing a degree in English Lit is that a lot of the books we talk about are classics - and a lot of classic literature shows up in the Free Downloads section. I downloaded Emma, by Jane Austen, and Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott for starters - haven’t read Little Women in decades, but it was a favourite when I was a young ‘un. There are other, more current eBooks as well, in the free section.
What there aren’t - and what will cause me to not spend my blogging money on book titles for the Blackberry Curve, but rather continue letting it build up in my paypal until I figure out which digital reader to buy - are very many books by Canadian authors other than Robert J. Sawyer - and much as I enjoy his books, he has yet to turn up on any of my syllabi and I don’t expect that he will anytime soon.
Since the Kindle is not yet available in Canada, I’m guessing that I’m likely to be disappointed there as well…. have to check out the Sony eReader selection and see what they’ve got for me - but since I happen to know that Penguin gave its employees eReaders, I’m hopeful that many they’ll have a better selection …. although still not, I would guess, the textbook sort of stuff that I would so love to have available on a handheld device.
Sure wish eBrary had a purchase option …. there are SO many books I want to read sitting on my eBrary bookshelf, but they are not mobile enough to suit me - I want to be able to download what I want and read it offline.
Anyway, enough pouting…I think I was meaning to talk about reading on the Blackberry! It is not nearly as bad as I thought it might be…. the only issue I have with it is that when you scroll down, using the pearl, of course, you pop entirely to the next section of text…. it is not a gradual scrolling action at all. I find that a bit irritating, especially as a couple of times, I apparently scrolled too much so the sentence I left off on carried on into a new sentence that had nothing to do with anything…. it was only because it didn’t make sense that I knew there was a problem.
I would prefer, I think, to have the last line of the previous bit show at the top of the next just to maintain some continuity. I suspect, though, that it is something one gets used to eventually.
I love my eReader, but I wish I had more books to choose from. Here’s hoping that’s a situation that will improve as the Kindle becomes more popular.
My ideal would be one o’ those mini-laptops, Patricia…small enough to fit easily in my purse and able to access the Internet AND with software for eBooks. A good daytimer program and I’d be all set.
Doesn’t seem as though that is going to happen any time soon though.
I still haven’t gone to the Sony store… that will be the next step in my research.