My little friend (the Velocity Micro Cruz Reader) is still quite friendly, but I wanted to update y'all on a few material changes in how I use it as an e-reader:
- Since I bought the Cruz, I've stopped doing business with Amazon. So far as I know the Kindle app still works just fine ... but I don't use it.
- Also since I bought the Cruz, Borders has gone out of business, so that app became vestigial and I uninstalled it.
- I've never been able to get the Barnes & Noble Nook app to work on the tablet. Never been able to figure out why, either. I'm guessing some fundamental incompatibility, seeing as how that app isn't available in the Cruz-proprietary "market."
But no, the Cruz is not a brick.
- I'm still using FBReaderJ (a fine, free app that I describe in another post) to read books that aren't encumbered by Digital Rights Management nonsense.
- I've installed the Kobo app on both the Cruz and my Mac desktop. As you may remember, Kobo was the company that Borders partnered with to produce e-reader devices.
The Kobo app runs beautifully (better on the tablet than on the Mac, IMO). I've downloaded some of the free books (mostly classics formatted by the Gutenberg Project), and purchased a wonderful short story by Ken MacLeod ("Earth Hour"). Everything -- purchase, download, syncing between reader and desktop, and of course actually reading things) runs smoothly. Highly recommended.
I've elected not to sign up for Kobo's affiliate program, but if you'd like a coupon for 20% off your first purchase from Kobo, send me an email via the contact form, and if they're still running that "tell a friend" thing, I'll send you one.
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