It's been over a year since I bought any new gadgets, and this geek girl is getting twitchy! Besides, I need a carrot to motivate me into finishing the current draft of my novel, because I've been working on it since December and my enthusiasm is, well, not flagging, but definitely worn ragged...
First, there's the question of what to do about my iPhone, which will reach the end of its 18-month contract in October. I could upgrade to an iPhone 4, but given the PR debacle over the antenna, I'm not feeling terribly inclined to give Steve Jobs any more of my money at present (and see my earlier post for why I'm not taken with the iPad).
My initial thought was to upgrade to a 3GS in order to get the keyboard connectivity, but that's not going to give me a lot of future-proofing. And although the 3GS is supposed to be rather less sluggish than the 3G when running iOS4, I'm not sure I want to take that risk. The alternative is to ditch the contract and go PAYG, which would probably save me a fair bit of money (provided I don't break the phone!).
This morning I downgraded my 3G to iOS 3.1.3 (using this excellent tutorial from LifeHacker, because I was heartily sick of its glacial response times - and a few bells and whistles like folders and a better Mail interface are no compensation for an all-round lousy user experience. I lost a bit of data in third-party apps because I didn't have a recent backup, but all the important stuff is synced, one way or another.
But if there's no new iToy on my horizon, does that mean my gadget-buying days are over? No way!
As I said back in May, I'm thinking of getting a new ebook reader. OK, so I already have one - a high-end, if old*, iRex iLiad - but it's slow to boot and significantly larger and heavier than newer models. And replacing it would be a lot cheaper than getting a new iPhone or iPad. But which to choose?
I've been lusting over Sony's offering ever since I saw a couple of them being shown off at FantasyCon last year, so I thought I'd look into it further.
My criteria for an ebook reader are:
- Must handle non-DRM content well, especially PDFs
- Must have some way to annotate documents, because I use my iLiad for critiques as well as leisure reading
- Must have a comfortable-to-read screen, because I'm on a computer all day (and for much of my spare time)
The Sony PRS-600 does well on the first two, but falls down on the last. Apparently its funky touchscreen is highly reflective and difficult to read in low light or direct sunlight. WTF? The beauty of e-ink is that it's as easy to read as paper - so why did Sony decide throw that feature out of the window just to give you cool fingertip navigation? Apple envy? Whatever the reason, it's lost them my custom. But I'm a fussy geek, not a consumer, so I'm sure they sell by the barrow-load, same as the iPad.
Instead, unless something really amazing comes to market in the next few weeks, I'll be seriously considering the BeBook Neo. It's more expensive than the Sony, but it looks nicer than its cheaper rivals, supports both mobipocket and ePub, and has the same Wacom technology that made the iLiad so tempting - at 2/3 the price!
So, all I have to do now is finish this ****ing manuscript...
* by the standards of the technology, which has only been affordable for about 2-3 years
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