BlackBerry as an eBook Reader?

Okay, I read some post about using the bb as an ebook reader. The rationale used was, "you use the bb to read email, why not use it to read books?" It also cited MobiPocket Reader as the best solution, in part because they have an over the air (OTA) eBook store for the BlackBerry.

I have to say I was skeptical since the screen is so small and I wasn't sure what the experience would be like... But the thought of finding yet another use for a single device has always interested me (though I have come to realize that one thing can't be all things well... There are often sacrifices too big to succeed).

I installed MobiPocket Reader and accessed the online book store. I downloaded a sample of Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons' since I haven't read that yet, but want to purchase it. I figured it might be a decent way for me to see if the bb is a device I could see myself using to actually read a book. I have to say the OTA bookstore and its experience is pretty good.

After reading the sample of the book, I actually found myself kind of forgetting I was using a bb to read the book. This was after much tinkering to get the right font and font size so that holding the bb at a comfortable reading arms length was similar on the eyes to reading an actual paperback. I don't believe the initial font was good enough, but I may have run full circle on the fonts. Once I had that set, other than the limited amount of text displayed on the screen causing constant page turning, it seemed very natural (I was surprised). The process of moving forward and backward in the book is easy enough. To page forward, you can use the spacebar, which is nice and easy, but you can also use the trackball to go forward and backward, also very easy. The last piece of the pie, and I need to do some more testing on this, is how well it would display images in books. Angels & Demons has a picture of the word Illuminati that is pretty key to the story for you to see... It looked great. Very sharp and readable. And the ease in which you can page forward and back made it nice to go back and reference like in a regular paper book.

MobiPocket Reader also has some other abilities I have yet to explore. One of these is the ability to create annotations, and I believe bookmarks. This could make it easy and quick to get to and from various key places.

While I'm still unsure if I'm willing to drop upwards of $10 on an eBook, it's an interesting prospect. Time will tell if I make the plunge, but with my travels and the idea of carrying less, I like the idea. I'm already considering not carrying my iPod and using my bb instead. The fact that it has a standard headphone jack and takes high-end headphones without an adapter is great. Pair that ability with being able to also read a book while listening to music, which is all I do when traveling, it sounds like a pretty slick package.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed