Considering finally getting an e-book reader. Help!

[deferredreward]

Ok, I resisted it for a long time cause I like "real" books, but what finally pushed me over the edge was discovering a lot of older books on Google Books (and since I've come to these forums a wealth of other sites) that I'd like to read. I simply won't do this on a computer screen & I'm not going to print them, so I need an e-book reader. I'm leaning towards the K3 or a Sony (as much as it pains me b/c I am not a Sony fan at all). I'm open to other suggestions. I will probably hope to get this device for Christmas, so future offerings are welcome too.

Considerations:

1. My reading: older books, mostly biographies, or religious; Google Books has many many of these. Newer books: along the same lines. Often, they aren't published by companies that do e-books, I don't see myself buying a lot of books.

2. Technical:
- I'm using Sigil to clean up a Google Book epub; using Calibre, or stripping DRM so I can buy a book anywhere & use it on the device I own is not a problem for me. However, the less of this I have to do, the better.
- I'd prefer e-ink. I don't read outside much, but I am not a huge fan of reading on LCD.
- I borrowed a friends K2 & liked the layout, weight, etc, I do like the buttons on the side over the Sony swipe for page turn (just pinching thumb & finger is much easier than taking the other hand & swiping to turn a page).
-The one big thing the Sony has for me is the stylus, so I'd really like some feedback on how that works - I have not historically taken a lot of notes in books (I don't like to mark them up), but I've started to a little & typing the notes seems a little clunky. I like SD card expansion, but really don't need to have all the books on the device at the same time.
- Don't need wifi or 3G, but not opposed.
- We are military family, so we move a lot, I could pick up several library cards & keep them, but we probably won't be near any huge cities that will have large e-book libraries.
- It'd be nice to sync my pages between my e-reader & iPhone in case I do end up stuck somewhere with nothing to do & only my phone: but it'd have to sync them with the free books I've loaded, not just one's I've bought - I don't know if any do that - & if any did, then I'd consider a wifi/3G (for specifically that).

3. Size: I have an iPhone, that's much to small to stare at & read for hours, I want it to be portable, but I really do most of my reading at home or on trips, so ultra-portable isn't a big issue.

4. Price < $200.

[ProfCrash]

One of the nice things about the Kindle now is that has a storage solution called "Collections". You build your own catagories and sort books into those catagories. You can build as many as you want and store books in ulptiple catagories. This makes it really easy to store all of your books on one device. You know your storage system so you should be able to find where you stored a book. This means you can store 4 GB of material and catalog it in a way that makes sense to you.

The keyboard works fine for typing up notes, especially if you do not take a ton of them. I know that the Sony uses a stylus for taking notes and the Nook has a keyboard on the small LCD screen at the bottom of the device. One of the nice things about the Kindle is that there is a website you can go to to look up and print out your notes. It is a nice feature especially if you are using books for class or a reading club.

All Kindles synch between devices with a great deal of ease. The synch feature only works for books bought through Amazon.

[fjtorres]

You listed four "requirements":
1- Side-mounted paging buttons.
2- Touch-screen note-taking.
3- Under $200 price.
4- cross-platform sync

Unless something changes drastically with the upcoming Sony and Pocketbook intro's, you'll likely have to pick two or three out of the four.

Side-mounted controls and touchscreen note-taking/highlighting, etc is doable with the Boox and Pocketbook 302, among others. But not under $200. And no crossplatform sync.

If you give up on the ergonomics and the sync, the Sony might do it.
Give up on the touchscreen and Kindle and Nook do everything else.

I'd say wait to see what Sony and Pocketbook are up to; shouldn't be more than a couple weeks.
In the meantime, consider *where* you're going to get your DRM'ed ebooks and how much value you expect to get out of the touchscreen, sync, and annotation capabilities.

[HarryT]

If Google books are your main interest, you really want a large-screen device that can read the PDF page scans well; the auto-generated ePubs are - let's say - not a happy experience . At present there's really only one eInk device that can do that well, and that's the Kindle DX.

[ProfCrash]

Check and see if the books that you like are available at Guttenburg PRess or FeedBooks.com. If they are any of the 6 inch devices should work for you since those books are free and have been formated for the various devices.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Check and see if the books that you like are available at Guttenburg PRess or FeedBooks.com. If they are any of the 6 inch devices should work for you since those books are free and have been formated for the various devices.

Or of course right here at MR, where we have nicely hand-formatted versions of a very large number of the classics.

[bevdeforges]

I'll second the idea of going through Project Gutenberg rather than Google Books. Everything available there is in the most popular formats - both ePub and mobi, as well as others. ManyBooks.net is also a treasure house of free downloads in a broad range of formats.

I went with the Sony, in part because it doesn't have wifi or 3G. No telling what the new versions coming out soon will offer. Like you, I'm partial to the stylus - got into the habit with my Palm T3. On the Sony 600, you can either handwrite or "type" any notes, using the stylus to tap on a little onscreen keyboard. Haven't made extensive use of this feature, but I do like not having to literally type comments on a tiny keyboard.

You don't have to swipe to turn the page on the Sony. The buttons are along the bottom of the device, and since that's where I tend to hold the reader, it's just a matter of "pinching" to effect a page turn.

While you're still deciding, you may want to take a look at Calibre as a software to handle the maintenance of your e-books. They have a forum right here on MobileRead and it's probably the easiest approach to synching your reader with an iPhone or other alternate device. I downloaded the software about two weeks before I got my reader, and played around with downloading books from Gutenberg to prepare them for the reader.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Or of course right here at MR, where we have nicely hand-formatted versions of a very large number of the classics.

ohhh I did not know that. Awesome

[ProfCrash]

I love having the 3G on my Kindles. I can download a book while sitting in the airport or on the metro or from my bed. It is very convienent. I have side loaded books, the K1 is not international, it is easy enough to do but it is nicer to not have to worry about if I have my netbook or laptop with me when travelling and the USB cord in a convienent location.

The K3 and Nook both come with a 3G Wifi option or a WiFi only option.

[deferredreward]

Kindle collections sounds great - any other of the devices have the ability to put your books into "folders"?

Project Gutenberg unfortunately doesn't really have a lot of what I'm looking for.

I agree the auto-generated ePubs can be a mess, but their readable with minimal editing (from what I've seen, just fixing headings throughout to make a good TOC & the slower process of pulling the footnotes out, which could be a REAL headache if a book is almost half footnotes, but in many should cause little time lost in prep).

+1 for Sony being able to turn pages with a naturally placed button.

Cross platform sync is somewhat of a long shot wish.

I already buy everything from Amazon, so that's where I'd likely go if I did buy books (ultimately, where ever is cheapest though).

[ProfCrash]

All of the e-readers have a variety of options for purchasing books.

I love my Kindle DXG. I like the larger screen. I have no problems with where the buttons are located and how they work. I really like that I can rotate the DX so that the buttons are on the left. Moving to landscape mode is great for looking at some graphics and the like. My understanding is that these options are availble on the K2 and K3 as well.

[deferredreward]

Do any of the stylus enabled devices do handwriting recognition? It's great to write free hand, but better to have it saved as typed text.