Trying to decide,

[Teyrnon]

I'm trying to decide whether to make the investment or not. I like reading and have a large collection of books. I read about five to eight books a month. In my younger days I read that many in a week. Lately though I'm shelf space is becoming a serious issue. I also seem to be developing my mother's allergies to paper in the last few months. Not sure what's up with that. I've cut back on getting new books this year and haven't been reading but maybe one book a month. I'm leaning towards getting an ebook reader.

The devices I've looked at are the jetBook, the Sony PRS-505, and the Kindle DX. The jetBook was attractive in terms of price, $199 at Newegg, and offers supports for a goodly range of formats, which would be great for the wealth of classics available in nonDRM formats. The Sony & Kindle are both interesting in the availability of new titles. I've been looking over Amazon at the books available for the Kindle and they seem to have most of the books I'm interested in reading for the next year. I have a large collection of pdfs so the Kindle DX has a certain appeal with its large screen.

At this point in my life $300-$500 is a lot of money.

[ruth1304]

Hi Teyrnon and welcome to MR!

I got my sony 505 earlier this year partly because I was having space issues and I'm delighted. I've been reading much more, and I've actually managed to reduce the number of paper books I have in the house because I've replaced old paperback versions of classics with ebooks - mostly downloaded from here.

Whatever you choose there will be free books available - as well as the books here there is the wiki which has information about readers as well as book sources.

As I'm in the UK I didn't get a kindle because I couldn't use the Whispernet, but judging by the forums here there are lots of happy users, and the same goes for the jetbook. I think that whatever you get will be a benefit to you, and they're all good for slightly different reasons so it depends what's most important to you.

I have to say I love my 505, and have no regrets about getting it. If you're in the US, you can also easily use it to borrow library books, which is a good way to read more recent releases without having to pay a large amount of money for them. The wiki has more information about borrowing ebooks from libraries as well

If you have any questions just ask - people are friendly and helpful here!

[Peake]

Hi Teyrnon!

I am looking at a Kindle for my husband, and recently borrowed a Kindle 2 and a Kindle DX from one of his colleagues at university to see if either one would be a good holiday gift later in the year.

For reading PDF journal articles, love the Kindle DX. The PDFs looked nice on the big screen, and even those with complex mathematical formulas displayed well. One article had a few quirks in the display, but was still quite readable. It was not any heavier than a clipboard and paper, and held a lot more. It is a strong candidate for a birthday present in a few months However, I am hoping that other manufacturers will come out with a large-screen, PDF-enabled reader that overcomes the Kindle's lousy sort system (Author, Title, Most Recent are only choices). This makes a large library cumbersome to work with unless you know what to search for to narrow down the list. also found the lack of support for a PDF table of contents to be quite cumbersome. On the plus side, for non-DRM content, most of the freely available classics were available in mobipocket format, so he has been able to avail himself of those resources.

The Kindle 2 I found quite delightful for novels and other books that were mainly text. Being able to increase or decrease the font size was a treat for when my eyes were getting tired, and I was able to read on the Kindle 2 for longer than I could read my printed books. The size was right for portability -- while it would not fit in a shirt pocket, it did fit nicely in the inside pockets of my jackets Yet the Kindle 2 suffers from the same sort problem as the DX. The Kindle 2 I borrowed had a huge number of books loaded onto it, so it was not easy for me to browse to find a title to read, especially at it seemed as if our friend had loaded everything he liked from Project Gutenberg onto it, which was a LOT, lol. I am intending to explore other readers as an alternative for myself.

The owner of the Kindles did point out that Kindle books from Amazon are not readable on his computer. So if your Kindle breaks, you will not be able to read your Kindle books from Amazon on your computer. There is a software reader for the iTouch, but not for the PC.

Anyway, I'm still trying to decide also, but hopefully these impressions of the Kindles you will find useful.

Regards,
Peake

[Alisa]

Actually, you can read most Kindle books on your PC with a little (questionably legal) jiggery pokery. The .azw books are encrypted Mobipocket, so if you strip the DRM off, you can read them with the Mobipocket reading software. Some maintain that stripping DRM to format shift for personal use in this manner is legal. Others disagree. It hasn't been tested in court. A small minority of Amazon books are Topaz format and no one's cracked that yet so they're Kindle-only.

If you are comfortable with stripping DRM, the same library books are available to you. Some are Mobipocket books which you can actually fix with a script to read on your Kindle without breaking the DRM. The Adobe books can be deDRMed and converted to unencrypted Mobipocket as well. It sounds a bit intimidating, but it's pretty easy.

They're all excellent readers, though. I went with the Kindle when I did because it offered search and dictionary lookup which the Sony didn't. The Jetbook wasn't out when I bought so I know less about it but they seem to have very impressive format support and you can't beat the price. I like eInk a little better visually but the fast refresh on the Jetbook's LCD screen is nice.

[Kris777]

Teyrnon, I like my jetBook very much and recommend it to all my friends. I can't write better review than this one:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49701

[Wolfgang_HYM]

Hi there,

I am new here and I do not have an ebook reader yet. I am trying to decide which of the current ebook readers available in Europe I should buy. I have seen the Sony eboook reader PRS-505 and I really like the looks but it seems that it has some flaws left. Furthermore I own a MAC and Sony does not include a software running on Mac. Are there any hot devices getting released within the next couple of month worth the wait? What do you guys recommend?

Regards

Wolfgang

[ruth1304]

Originally Posted by Wolfgang_HYM

I am new here and I do not have an ebook reader yet. I am trying to decide which of the current ebook readers available in Europe I should buy. I have seen the Sony eboook reader PRS-505 and I really like the looks but it seems that it has some flaws left. Furthermore I own a MAC and Sony does not include a software running on Mac. Are there any hot devices getting released within the next couple of month worth the wait? What do you guys recommend?

Hi Wolfgang, welcome to Mobile Read.

There is already some discussion about sony producing Mac software here. There is also a thought that sony might be bringing out a new reader because shops like Borders in the US have sold all their 505s and don't seem to be planning to get more. I also saw a thread where someone said they were told by staff in Waterstones in Ireland that they would be getting a new reader in September.

So it might be worth waiting. But on the other hand if you can find something you like now, you'll be able to start reading on it straight away!

[Wolfgang_HYM]

Thanks for your quick reply. Maybe Sony will release soon the PRS-700 here in Switzerland. I did read a little bit in the Froum and the iRex iLiad Book Edition seems to be a expensive but good choice. I have posted a couple of questions there. Let's see if i can decide to get an ebbok reader now or if I will wait.

Regards

Wolfgang

[ruth1304]

Good luck - I know it's not easy.

The sony readers are great, but you have to get something that does what you need. It's an investment so don't rush into it

[Teyrnon]

Originally Posted by ruth1304

I have to say I love my 505, and have no regrets about getting it. If you're in the US, you can also easily use it to borrow library books, which is a good way to read more recent releases without having to pay a large amount of money for them. The wiki has more information about borrowing ebooks from libraries as well

I'm leaning towards the 505 myself. Looked at one in the store today and it was very nice. Still considering the Kindle DX. for screen size and availability of newer books I'm interested in. If I could afford it, I'd get both. As often as I find myself juggling multiple books I'd find a use for having two devices.

Looked for a library in my area that does that and I'm not finding much. I am in the US and I'm currently in one of the less progressive areas, sadly. Hope to be moving soon though.

[Teyrnon]

Originally Posted by Peake

Anyway, I'm still trying to decide also, but hopefully these impressions of the Kindles you will find useful.

You've certainly given me a few things to think about. Thanks. It's hard to make up one's mind. The Kindle has it's pluses but it's so much more expensive than the other models I'm looking at. The prices on books at the Kindle store are rather nice. I've heard the text is crisper on the DX than the Kindle 2, which along with the preferable size of the former is why I've dismissed the latter as an option. I might be making a mistaken but if I go with something in a 6" screen the PRS-505 seems like the better choice for me.

I wonder, does the Sony PRS-505 offer better sorting and organizational capabilities?

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Teyrnon

I wonder, does the Sony PRS-505 offer better sorting and organizational capabilities?

Yes. You can use their software or Calibre (which runs on Windows, Mac or Linux) to add categorizations to your books. Kindle only lets you sort by author, title and most-recent-first. You can search, which is a big help. Some folks have used the annotation system to add their own tags since your notes are searchable. You can't sort by them, though. I don't know what the Jetbook offers in terms of organization.

[grooks]

Sony allows you to create 'collections' for organizing your books. Collections can be created using either the Sony software or Calibre.

[AJ Starr]

Originally Posted by Teyrnon

I'm trying to decide whether to make the investment or not. ... The jetBook was attractive in terms of price, $199

At this point in my life $300-$500 is a lot of money.

You might want to check out Astak's EZ Reader. The 5" Pocket Pro is slated for $199 to $207 and it looks like it will have some great features. Or, their EZ Reader, 6", can be purchased for a bit more at the Fry Electronics.

I'm going to get the Pocket Pro just as soon as it's available.

AJ

[Kris777]

I don't think that I will change my jetBook with TFT screen for 5" Pocket Pro with E-ink screen but It will be interesting to compare these units. Do you know the date when
5" Pocket Pro will be available?