Hi there,

I recently went on a short plane trip and could only take one book with me! :(

Now I hear that there are these things called e-books and you can take dozens of books with you all on one little reading device. I gotta get me one of these! ;)

I am still going back and forth between the Sony Reader and the Cybook Gen3. I will wait until September to see what the Gen3 will be like and then I will ask the parents for it for Christmas! :D

What a great forum for those just getting into e-books and looking to make their first purchase. Thanks!

Welcome to MobileRead Cosmo, glad to have you here. There are several of us from the DC area here.

It is good to be in a position to choose between two devices with both at about the same price point. Many of us with Sony Readers are also wondering exactly what the Gen3 will be like.

Good luck in your quest and please tell us when you decide what you decided and why.

Welcome, Cosmo! Hello from Germantown!

Although you can wait until you choose the Sony or Gen 3, be advised that e-books can also be read on PDAs, smartphones, the new iPhone... a PC or laptop... you may already have something that can read e-books, and so you can try them out before you buy your dedicated device. (I read mine on a Toshiba PDA, myself.)

In fact, the Sony reader has an emulator for the PC, allowing you to download and read e-books now... before you've even bought a reader! You can go to the Connect (http://ebooks.connect.com/downloadclient.html) site to download and try it.

In fact, the Sony reader has an emulator for the PC, allowing you to download and read e-books now... before you've even bought a reader! You can go to the Connect (http://ebooks.connect.com/downloadclient.html) site to download and try it.

And likewise you can download and read MobiPocket books using the MobiPocket Reader, downloadable free from the MobiPocket (http://www.mobipocket.com) web site.

And likewise you can download and read MobiPocket books using the MobiPocket Reader, downloadable free from the MobiPocket (http://www.mobipocket.com) web site.

*And* Mobipocket has viewers for many platforms. So if you decide to get the gen3, but later want to bump up to an iLiad, or read it on your blackberry, palm, or pocket pc, you can. :) Not to mention the unsupported Mac and Linux desktops with the iLiad java viewer. :thumbsup:

Very true. MobiPocket is as close to a de facto standard as we have at the moment. That might change with Adobe's "Digital Editions" in the future, but for now, MobiPocket certainly gives you the widest choice, both of books and platforms to read on.

These points also go for eReader and MS Reader. (I just neglected to mention the others, because cosmo specified his interest in the Sony reader.)

Actually, from Front Royal, VA, but work near DC. I have had the Sony Reader since April and am very much enamored with it. Once I figured out how to format my own documents to display correctly on the reader it really opened things up form me. I use if for work docs as well as my own pleasure reading.
Also, having figured out how to remove the hard returns from text files quickly and easily I can now make good use of the free stuff from project guttenburg and others!

Very true. MobiPocket is as close to a de facto standard as we have at the moment. That might change with Adobe's "Digital Editions" in the future, but for now, MobiPocket certainly gives you the widest choice, both of books and platforms to read on.

The book formatting part should be the same for Mobipocket and Digital Editions in the near future (it's normal for Mobipocket to updgrade from OEB to OPS). The only difference should be on the DRM part of the file.

The top formats for ebooks these days (in no particular order) are ...
MS Reader
BBeB
PDF
MobiPocket
eReader

Of the above mentioned formats, PDF is the worst one. Not very friendly at all. BBeB is for the Sony Reader, eReader is for small screen devices such as a PDA. If you read eReader books on your computer,m you'll want to stop reading. MobiPocket is available on the iLiad and hopefully soon n the Cybook Gen3. MS Reader is the best of the ebook formats for reasons that have been mentioned all over the forum.

Thanks a lot for all the info, guys. I've downloaded Mobipocket reader to my PC and I'm just messing around with the free ebooks. I may try to set up an account there soon (now that the site is back up and running) and see what really pay books are like.

As of the moment, I'm leaning toward the Cybook Gen3 because of the Vizplex screen and, I think, its flexibility with regards to formats.

However, I am considering getting an ebookwise 1150 because they are only $100...just to see how I like a dedicated ebook reader. But, then again, I may just save my money for more ebooks with the Gen3!

Thanks again and I look forward to learning a lot more with these forums.