Ordered a blue 505 yesterday and looking forward to my first reader. I was stuck in Mexico City's airport for 6 hours last month and didn't care much for the huge selection, huge being 10, of books in English. I had already read my book and magazines and was dying for something to do.

I was shopping I-Pod devices earlier yesterday and got irritated after a while and decided to get a reader. I saw reviews about the 2nd gen E-ink screens and liked the format of the Sony so there you go. If the website is accurate I will also get $50 towards purchases in addition to the 100 E-Classics I get to choose. That brings the reader down to $50 if I ignore the fact that many of the classics titles are available elsewhere for free and that I am not sure I will find much more than 25 that I will eventually read.

Curious about the different versions of the same titles that are available. In some cases the classic version have larger files. In other cases they are smaller. Has anyone had the money to waste to see what is different between the free and the $2 and $5+ versions available via the Sony Store? Maybe the illustrations are included in some?

Anyways, I am very glad to see all the active forums here. Hoping to find more sites like PRweb for news content as well.

Welcome to MobileRead Milton. :bigwave:

Some of the people that have read the Sony Classics have found editing errors in them. There are also complaints about the size of the type and the excessive use of white space around the outside of the center text area.

The free downloads available here at MobileRead (MR) are all hand edited and formatted. Many are from the proofed text at Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders. They are great source material. Many of the MR downloads have added covers, table of contents, and internal graphics.

Patricia, for example, has restored many texts that are censored or have segments left out of the common versions. Her Voltaire works are great. Harry has assembled many omnibuses that collect related books into a unified volume. His Sherlock Holmes Omnibus has been on my Reader since he first published it last year. He also has collected the works of Dickens, Haggard, and Appleton along with many more. I have collected and produced the full 49 volume Harvard Classic series. SciFi, history, pulp fiction, whatever you want; there is something there for anyone.

There is also a request area if there is something you would like. If we can we honor all requests.

Glad to have you here. If you have any questions, just ask.

Hi Milton, did Sony give you a delivery date?

Hi Milton. Welcome to the Forum.

Be very interested in how you like the 505. Am considering getting one in the new year.

Sony was offering the $50 in free books plus the classics last summer. Didn't know they went back to it.

I went back to the order site and I am not seeing any mention of the bonus now so maybe I just got lucky and hit an old version of the page. It was there when I ordered Friday and it shows up on my order summary as temporarily out of stock so I am not sure what will happen. It will be a bit of a bummer if it isn't really available.

I ordered late in the evening so expect to get my ship date/confirmation tomorrow. I will post what happens. Another interesting item is the site defaults the shipping to free 4 day ground but picking 2 day air didn't raise the amount. I imagine I will be getting some 'feedback' from Sony on both the bonus and the shipping charges. Hopefully it won't be so negative that I consider changing my mind as I don't really care for any other model currently available.

I called Sonystyle customer support this afternoon to check on a few things. I placed the order late friday so this was the first business day since I placed it. After a long wait, the lady I eventually spoke to said that the custom engraving would result in shipping on Wednesday. We'll see. She mentioned the $50 bonus was 'out of stock' as indicated on my order summary but that I would receive it. I won't hold my breath but she said I would. I haven't seen the offer again on their site since I ordered it.

I am psyched! Downloaded Book Designer and playing with it already.

I really like my dark blue 505. I have already read a few short books and made a 'rough' 2008 calendar in Book Designer. Today I hit the jackpot with a message from Sonystyle that my $50 bonus code has been shipped! Funny they spent the money to fedex air the bonus code considering they could probably email it but who am I to complain! Have a Merry Christmas!