100 Great Books at your fingertips (100 Classic Book Collection (DS))

Member Name: bobsta

Product:	100 Classic Book Collection (DS)
Date:	09/02/09 (355 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clear layout, great range of titles

Disadvantages: Titles won't be to everyone's liking, internet functionality comprises your wireless network

I clearly remember from my school days that reading wasn't much fun. Books got stolen, scribbled on or you could only read them in a library with your mouth shut. As a result, I never read for pleasure unless I had to read work material and I missed out on some great books. But something has come to rescue and I wish the people who made those e-books and devices thought of the same thing - assemble 100 of probably the best books ever written. I hereby present to you the Nintendo DS 100 Classic Book Collection.

100 titles ranging from the complete works of Shakespeare and Dickens through to Jules Verne and Oscar Wilde amongst lots of others. Imagine saving all that bookshelf space and having all those books in the palm of your hand. So how does it work in practice? It works out very well.
When you load up the collection, you have a number of choices. You can instantly pick a book from the virtual bookshelf or by answering a series of questions and the collection will suggest some titles for you. The virtual bookshelf is simple and very effective. By moving your finger from left to right of the screen, you scroll through the book binders. Once you have identified a book you want to read, tap the binder of the book. You can read a brief summary of the book and the author before delving into the book.

There are some audio and visual settings that you can configure prior to reading a book. The visual element concerns the font size and which screen will serve as the touch screen so both right handed and left handed people are catered for. The small size font is clear and I had no problems with it. Secondly, there are some audio settings. You can play a background sound to accompany your reading ranging from a hot summer night to a journey on a train. Sounds gimmicky but it works. As for reading the pages, nothing could be simpler. You turn the pages as it you are turning a physical page. By moving your finger on the touch screen from right to left, you get to see the next two pages. Do the opposite, and you'll move back two pages. Of course, it is a bit distracting seeing so little text and then viewing the number of pages at the bottom so don't be shocked if you see the book running into thousands of pages. Remember, they've literally put a quarter of a page across two screens.

By tapping the bottom portion of the touch screen, you can see which page you are on and you can scroll forwards or backwards and the pages scroll through beautifully.

By tapping the top portion of the touch screen, you have access to the bookmarks. There are three in total which applies to the whole collection. Once you've finished reading a chapter, you virtually place the bookmark on where you've finished. When you power up the DS, the collection will ask if you would like to continue from where you left off. Nice touch.

There is a bit of internet functionality on the collection. For example you can download additional titles (I had access to another 10) and you can view what books in the collection are the most popular. You can give books your own ratings once you have finished them. But there is a fly in the ointment - to use the internet functionality, you need to decrease your wireless internet settings to WEP. This is because the DS Lite is not capable of connecting to WPA networks. It's a small price to pay for such a great collection of books.

I must admit that reading books on the DS was a strange but novel (pun intended!) experience. I've become accustomed to it. After showing family and friends this collection, most people are going out to buy a DS solely for the book collection.

Nintendo and Harper Collins have really struck gold. Whilst other manufacturers and publishers bicker amongst themselves with these various e-books and readers, Nintendo already had a head start with the 100 Classic Book collection. Thoroughly recommended.

Summary: Save bookshelf space - get the 100 Cassic Book collection