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Old 05-25-2008, 10:24 AM   #11
sjohnson717
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sjohnson717 began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 19
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Join Date: May 2008
Device: Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad
I have both: choose the Kindle

Both the Sony 505 and the Amazon Kindle use the same screen so it comes down to buttons and software. In short, the Amazon Kindle wins.

Sony is a hardware company. Their software and service is really poor. Product support is non-existent which is why I found this forum--trying to get an answer to any non-sales question from Sony is almost impossible. The client software for buying and installing books attempts to copy iTunes without any of the elegance. Sony's fonts are ugly Window fonts and italics are just slanted letters rather than an actual italic font. However, you can easily load free books in RTF format; this is virtually impossible on the Kindle. You can also load PDFs but you can't really read them--it sounds better in the brochure than it really is.

The Kindle hardware is clumsy--buttons everywhere!--but the software makes up for it. The fonts are more readable. You can mark or annotate passages for review later. You can buy books (perhaps too easily!) and they are loaded wirelessly to your Kindle. However, getting free books and documents into Kindle is convoluted; you email them to Kindle but the author becomes your email address. Annoying. If you are a power-user, you can convert doc or pdf files using utilities but you really gotta want it.

If you want to buy and read books, get a Kindle. If you want to load an ebook with free books, the Sony may be marginally better.

In the end, the Sony was built by people who love hardware; the Kindle was built by people who love books. I imagine Sony will discontinue this--or stop improving it--in 18-24 months when they get bored while Amazon will continue to bring out new versions.

In an ideal world, I would prefer the Sony hardware with the Kindle software.
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