Monday, August 18, 2008

Sony Reader Gets Truth And Love

GUEST BLOGGER: MICHELLE GAGNON: The New Beta Wars: Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader
Worse yet, we had a hell of a time downloading the software to use the damn thing. And Sony customer service, in a word, sucks: there’s no live chat, no phone number to call, just an email that will reply to you within a day or so. But despite the very specific questions that you ask, the powers that be at Sony will only send you the same set of instructions from page one of their manual over and over again (until you start threatening their children, after which they stop responding at all). It literally took us four months of fits and starts to register the damn thing, get the store software on my computer, and transfer a single book to the Reader. Nightmarish. And mind you, my husband is much better at these things, and he was stymied as well. We were on the verge of making the Reader an extraordinarily expensive paperweight, or venting our frustration on it with a baseball bat (à la the fax machine scene in “Office Space”). And then one day, I had an epiphany. I clicked a tiny box in the upper left hand window and voilà: we were in business, no thanks to customer service.

And now someone at Sony should be fired, as a symbolic sacrifice:
In other words, we’ll be buying another one soon. Probably the Kindle this time around, because I suspect that with Amazon’s access to titles and download features, my little Reader will go the way of eight track cassettes and BETA video players.

Emphasis added by me.

Maybe that someone needs to be Steve Haber, who is only "open" to the idea of wireless eBook downloading.

The post is a delightful read. Go click!

Previously here:

Sony Fumbles Its eBook Reader
Sony Tries To Do Right To Reader Pioneers
Sony Still Shoots Itself In Foot
Sony Reader Gets Some Love
Sony To Kindle: Up Yours!
Sony’s Strange Strategy
A Gadget Too Far
Sony, The New Titanic?
eInk eBook Readers: They’re All Dead, Jim!
Amazon: Already Toast
More Bad For Sony Reader: Kindles Coming
Borders Catches Cold, Sony Reader Gets Pneumonia?
Sony Reader Can Be Bought In Spain!
Oprah, Get A Sony Reader!
Sony’s In Worse Shape Than I Thought
Sony Has Big eBook News Today
Oh, NOW He Believes Me!
Macbook Air Vs Everex Cloudbook Vs Sony Reader
Does Borders Know The Sony Reader Exists?
Sony: I’m Not Alone
What’s Going On With Sony And Its Reader?
Sony’s Got Something Big For Their Reader
Has Sony Just Lost Its eBook Battle?

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