Even if an ereader device doesn’t include a proper web browser, odds are that if you’re shopping on an online ebookstore, there’s a way to jump the fence and check out the rest of the Web. Nate at The Digital Reader has been playing around with his new Story HD over the weekend, and he found a way to do just that.
My trick involves first entering the Google eBookstore, then going to the Help pages. When you’re on the first Help page, look at the links across the top. The one labeled Books will take you to books.google.com, and that is one of Google’s home pages. You can jump from books.google.com to Google.com by clicking on the “Web” link at the top. And once you’re on Google’s home page, you can search for a site and go just about anywhere.
All those steps make surfing on a Kindle 3, clumsy as it is, seem delightful. I count at least six steps plus a search and more clicks to get to any website on the iRiver. I can get to my last-visited site on a Kindle in three steps, and easy steps at that. The Kindle is good enough, I’m almost coming to like reading my saved articles on it via Instapaper’s website rather than through the app on my iPhone. Yes, it’s a pain to scroll down using that too-tiny five-way button, but reading in epaper does beat reading on a tiny iPhone screen. The iRiver’s failings aren’t surprising. Google is brilliant with software, but they’ve yet to learn hardware, even here, where they obviously tried to copy the Kindle 3. It took Amazon three tries to get the Kindle (almost) right. Google may need that many tries or more to get its ereader right. Google also missed on much needed improvement when they copied the Kindle’s too tiny and convex keys. Keys need to be concave and almost fill the available space. And all the ereaders need to support Bluetooth keyboards for note taking.