💾 Archived View for gem.saayaa.space › gemlog › 2023-08-18-i-miss-buttons.gmi captured on 2024-03-21 at 15:06:09. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-09-08)
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I just snagged a Sony PRS-650 ereader off Kijiji for $20 and I'm over the damn moon. It's in incredible condition, works like a dream, and the battery is still rock solid. It's an older device (released around 2011 I believe), yet it has all the functionality I need from an ereader in 2023. There is one feature of this incredible device that I would like to focus on. Along the bottom of the screen there are physical buttons for page turning, home, zoom, and options.
I've been on the hunt for an ereader for a while now. I always prefer buying refurbished or secondhand, so I scoured Ebay and Kijiji for days looking for deals. As I searched, I found that the majority of ereaders available were Kindles and Kobos.
I refuse to use a Kindle (Amazon), so Kobos were where I focused my search.
That is, until I was reading a review for an old Kobo device that referenced a Sony ereader from around the same time (about 2011).
When I looked up this device I saw that it had physical buttons AND a stylus. I was immediately sold and broadened my search to include Sony ereaders. A few days later and a single Sony ereader popped up for sale 15 minutes from where I lived and 24 hours after that it sits in my lap.
I love when tech, especially handheld tech, has physical buttons. Maybe it's because I'm tired of all devices just being one giant screen. I definitely miss physical keyboards on phones (RIP Blackberry), and even much later a simple physical 'home' button like the old Iphones and Ipod Touches.
I find it funny that we went from a world where it was a faux-pas to touch someone's screen, especially computer screens, to making it necessary to drag our grimy hands across every inch of them to do anything.I hate that all my handheld device screens are always smudged.
With my ereader, at minimum I wanted dedicated buttons to turn the pages. I don't want to have to constantly touch the screen to turn the pages. There is a Kobo model that has that functionality, however, my Sony ereader also has several other buttons, and more buttons are always better in my book.
The other thing I adore about this device is the stylus. It's very fine and requires very little pressure to activate.
I prefer using a stylus over my fingers to press buttons and navigate. It helps keep the screen clean, and it's way more precise. Having a dedicated stylus with its own slot on the side of the device is also a nice throwback. I have three non-working PDAs that use styluses and if I'm being honest with myself, the main reason I want to get them working is so I could use the stylus.
Anyway, I'm just super amped about this ereader and felt like sharing my excitement. I got it for an absolute steal and it even came with the original case and user manual. It works seamlessly with calibre and is fully compatible with .epub and pdf file types.
Decade-old devices FTW.