From the Boox Palma to the Gentle Cellphone 2, it appears that evidently everyone seems to be in search of distraction-free studying, if solely that they had the appropriate gadget. I don’t blame them: each time I pull out my cellphone to mindlessly scroll, I do know my time may very well be put to higher use. However because the proprietor of many wonderful devices, I additionally don’t really need one other gadget in my life, so I used to be fairly excited to come across a partial resolution with a gadget I have already got: the Playdate.
Sure, I’m speaking about that little yellow Recreation Boy from Panic and Teenage Engineering, the one with a crank jutting out of its facet. For the reason that launch of its on-device retailer, Catalog, the hand-held has turn out to be residence to fairly a variety of experiences. I’ve been taking part in tiny metropolis builders and dungeon crawlers and egg touchers. Even nonetheless, I used to be stunned to find Playbook, a full-fledged e-reading app. Maybe much more stunning is that it really works fairly properly.
The app comes with a handful of traditional books preinstalled, and I examined it initially by studying by way of most of Frankenstein. The Playdate’s black-and-white LCD display is fairly nice for displaying textual content, which exhibits up crisp and clear. The disadvantage is that it has no backlight for studying at evening, and the display is tiny. At one level, a single considered one of Mary Shelley’s sentences took up the whole show.
However, just like the gadget itself, the app can also be very charming. You may scroll by way of books utilizing the crank, which is bizarre however enjoyable in a tactile means (you may also use the D-pad as a substitute). And as a substitute of telling you what proportion of the e-book you’ve learn or how a lot time you’ve left, Playbook has a candle that serves as a progress bar, slowly burning down as you learn. It’s much less scientific, however far more cozy, with the flame flickering every so often.
There are lacking options — there’s no method to soar round in a e-book with out scrolling, for example, and you’ll’t spotlight passages — however the greatest hurdle would possibly simply be getting books onto your Playdate. It’s not so simple as syncing your Kindle library. As an alternative, you must join your handheld to a pc, put it in USB mode, after which drag and drop information into the appropriate folder. Earlier than that, you must convert .epub information to .txt, which is comparatively painless.
To check this, I grabbed a bunch of ebooks from Challenge Gutenberg, together with Dracula, The Fall of the Home of Usher, and The Turning of the Screw. (On reflection, my decisions could have been influenced by the thought of studying by digital candlelight.) Every thing I added to the app labored simply wonderful, except for The Full Works of William Shakespeare, which brought on my Playdate to crash each time I attempted to open it, presumably as a result of it’s so massive.
Now let’s be actual: a $5 Playdate app will not be going to be your one-stop resolution for studying extra. It hasn’t been for me. I nonetheless preserve a Kindle on my bedside desk and carry paperbacks wherever I’m going. However simply because the Playdate serves a complementary position, providing distinctive video games that aren’t meant to interchange a Swap or PlayStation, so, too, does Playbook.
The app isn’t my foremost device for studying. But it surely works properly sufficient and — crucially — is handy sufficient that it’s nice to have round in a pinch. Having a library of traditional novels on a tool the scale of a bank card is useful — and, if nothing else, it’s serving to preserve me from shopping for one other gadget.