We want to purchase an e-reader for daughter living in Australia ...

[hpjrt]

and I'm not sure the best way to go about it.

Our daughter lives in Sydney [or close by it] and we're in Canada. Ideally I'd like to purchase the e-reader online and either have it sent to her ... or have her pick it up.

Anyone from Australia have a reliable source for such a service?

Any suggestions of a better way for us to do this?

Thanks for any help.

Mary

[ProfCrash]

Amazon would ship a Kindle directly to her.

[Figlilly]

I would agree with ProfCrash but then I am biased in favour of the Kindle

Borders stock the Sony and usually the Kobo - the Kobo seems to be out of stock at the moment though. There is also Sony itself. The price seems to be the same.

Another source could be JB HiFi. I don't know what their readers are like though.

There is also the Kogan. I have read both good and bad things about it.

[viviena]

Originally Posted by hpjrt

Our daughter lives in Sydney [or close by it] and we're in Canada. Ideally I'd like to purchase the e-reader online and either have it sent to her ... or have her pick it up.

Anyone from Australia have a reliable source for such a service?

I don't think you have many choices open to you. If your daughter were willing to buy it in person, it would be easier and she could take advantage of current discounts, but then it wouldn't be a surprise.

It's easy enough to order the Sonys and Kobos online and have them delivered from Borders Australia, as Figwit points out -- the out-of-stock is because Borders AU is clearing out the old Kobo at a reduced price. I don't know of any place offering a pickup service. If interested in the Kobo, the Kobo WiFi is due to come out sometime at Borders AU at the end of the year. When? Who knows.

Of course, there's also the Kindle 3 shipped direct from Amazon.

To be honest, I'd suggest steering clear of the offerings at JBHiFi and by Kogan. I know they have their supporters here, but they honestly have poor reputations, and JBHiFi's offerings are overpriced for what they are.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by viviena

To be honest, I'd suggest steering clear of the offerings at JBHiFi and by Kogan. I know they have their supporters here, but they honestly have poor reputations, and JBHiFi's offerings are overpriced for what they are.

Sage advice.

There has been a small surge in cheap devices labeled as ereaders here of late. these range from $99 to over $250 and pretty much all of them are less than useful.

I just recommended a Kindle3 to a friend's wife to use. The reason? Easy to use and download books to. If the device was for him, then I would have recommended a Sony or Kobo because of the wider range of estores the devices are able to access.

For an entry level ereader that displays ePUB ebooks then the Kobo is the way ahead. As mentioned earlier, the final price of the Ko2 is not yet set, but I could not see it over AU$179. The Sony PRS-650 in comparison is AU$299.

[hpjrt]

Thanks everyone!

The links are very useful. Thanks for those Figwit.

I think we want to get her a Sony PRS-650. I had a Kobo1 and purchased the PRS-650 for my husband for his birthday. The differences in screen clarity and contrast were so vast and when the PRS-650 went on sale here at Walmart ... I got an early Christmas present of one for me!

I don't think that Brooke [the daughter in Australia] will have any problems with accessing books ... she's pretty computer savvy ... and the Sony is pretty easy to use.

I don't know much about the Kindle ... or how it compares to the Sony ... so the differences would have to be pretty compelling in order to shift Hubby from getting her the Sony.

Thanks again!

Mary

[Figlilly]

The Sony is great. One of my workmates has one - she got her's about the same time I got my Kindle - and we have compared both of them side by side. If I didn't have the Kindle I would love to have a Sony and she says the same about the Kindle (but I am sure we both secretly think that our own is much better ). I am a bit envious of the Sony's touch screen.

Your daughter is fortunate in having such generous parents. I am sure she will love her new book reader.

[ProfCrash]

The Sony will be great. I know with the Kindle you can share accounts, I am not sure about the Sony. If you can share accounts then the Sony is probably your best bet. That way she could share your husbands account and be able to read his books.

The big differences between the Kindle and the Sony are pretty basic

Sony is touch screen, the Kindle is not.

Kindle has WiFi, the higher priced has 3G and WiFi.

Kindle Costs $139 or $189 US, Sony 650 costs $199. (My god, Sony finally got a clue and dropped the price, that is actually not bad)

Sony uses EPub, Kindle does not

Kindle has the best bookstore available, Sony is probably fourth (Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Sony)

If your daughter is computer savvy then the format and bookstore really does not matter because she can remove DRM and convert files easily enough.

My guess is that the Sony will work well for her. She might prefer having the WiFi connectivity. Personally, I would not buy a device that did not have at least WiFi. I love being able to download books where ever I am so I really like having the 3G connectivity but with expanding WiFi availability I can see why people would choose the WiFi only version these days.

[lene1949]

Don't buy the Kogan... The buttons are too hard, and the turn page buttons need to be pressed 'in' rather than 'down', and I found that very hard to do...

Also the kindle will probably be the same price, when you include delivery...

Most online stores I've been on have 2 sections for addresses... One is Billing Address and the other Delivery Address, which suggests you can buy for someone other than yourself.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Kindle has the best bookstore available, Sony is probably fourth (Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Sony)

You can buy books for the Sony at Kobo, without any DRM-removing.

You also can join the Philadelphia Library for $15/year and have access to a couple thousand library ebooks.

-Marcy

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by Marcy

You can buy books for the Sony at Kobo, without any DRM-removing.

You also can join the Philadelphia Library for $15/year and have access to a couple thousand library ebooks.

-Marcy

I am not certain that someone in Australia can access the Philadelphia Library

[viviena]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I am not certain that someone in Australia can access the Philadelphia Library

Quite a few Aussies on this forum have memberships, maybe one of them will chime in. The $15 annual fee is for us non-residents.

[hpjrt]

Thanks again for the input.

I'm not so concerned with the WiFi feature of any of the readers. I gather that they only work in "hot spots" ... and I don't know how common those are where Brooke lives. I know that where I live, I have to travel about 15 to 20 minutes away in order to get to a hotspot. I live in the country ... where WiFi hotspots are non-existent.

Brooke lives on the beach ... and I know that Skype [computer to computer] doesn't work very well there. Whether that is indicative of WiFi connectivity or not, I don't know.

She does have her laptop ... and I haven't found side loading books to be a problem with our ereaders. I don't imagine that she'll have much trouble with that either.

Anyone know if a/any library in Sydney has ebooks? I'll mention to her the library borrowing feature ... which I'm sure she'll love ... but it would be nice to know what sort of ebook collection said library might have.

Mary

[viviena]

http://search.overdrive.com/Default.aspx

Try that (Australia, NSW). It'll have a list of all the libraries with Overdrive collections.

As a Sydneysider, I'm not aware of any local libraries with impressive ebook collections, but as I haven't joined all the libraries with ebooks, I could be mistaken. I definitely think our collections here simply don't compare to the big collections in the USA and Canada, although most of the libraries here will stock bestsellers at least, and the collections seem to be growing at a reasonable rate. (My own library also seems to have a fair bit of paranormal romance. -_-)

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by viviena

Quite a few Aussies on this forum have memberships, maybe one of them will chime in. The $15 annual fee is for us non-residents.

Good to know. I wasn't certain how Geo Restrictions would work. What a sweet work around. And a smart move on Philadelphia's part. They probably make a good amount of money on that service especially if it is that widely available.

Heck, I wonder if e-book users in China can get to their website.