[bookport] Re: Is the book port more then I need
- From: Woody Anna Dresner <wadresner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 16:35:17 -1000
Hi Christie,
Some major advantages of the Book Port over mainstream MP3 players
are as follows:
The Book Port includes text to speech. This means you can use it to
listen to Word documents, braille files (like the ones from Web
Braille and Bookshare), and DAISY books, like the ones from
RFB&D. It also means you can always find out the name of the file
you are playing or any other file on your machine, find out how much
of the file you've listened to, find out the battery status, and
other information.
You have considerably more navigation options with the Book Port than
most players. In text files, you can move by letter, word, sentence,
paragraph, page, or to the top and bottom of the file. In DAISY
books, you can move by headings of a variety of levels if those
headings exist in the file. In Audible books, you can move by
section (with A and D together to move back and C and F to move
forward). You can do this with most MP3 players as well, but with
Audible files the Book Port also guesses things like sentence and
paragraph, making it easier to skim the book or quickly find the part you want.
The Book Port saves your place in every file you listen to. This
could be annoying with music, since often when you listen to music
and return to it later, you'd rather start at the beginning of a song
than in the middle, but it's great with books. Most players keep
your place in Audible books, but not in other files, such as podcasts.
You can speed up audio as you transfer it to the Book Port. There
are other products that can do this too, like the Olympus DS30, 40
and 50, but it's a nice feature.
If you really just want something to play Audible books and MP3
files, you might try the Zen Stone, which costs $40, plays Audible
formats 2 and 3, plays MP3 and WMA, and uses no special
software. But if you think you'll want to read other types of books
and value text to speech and more navigation, the Book Port is a
great choice. Or since the Stone is so cheap, you could get both (smile).
HTH,
Anna
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