Sony 650 / Kindle 3

[LucentBeam]

I have been battling this out in my mind for about a month now and I am still just as stuck as I was to begin with.

At first, I couldn't decide between a 350 and a Kindle 3, but even though I cringe at the higher price of the 650, I like the size of it better and I want to enjoy my experience.

Here are my pro's and con's:

Pro's for Kindle:

• 3G/WiFi means that you can buy books without hooking up to a computer
• Bigger book selection on Amazon.com
• Usually the lowest prices for eBooks on Amazon.com
• Can go online with 3G

Con's for Kindle:

• Bigger and would be hard to carry around in my purse
• Apparently you cannot jump ahead to a specific page unless you already bookmarked it... which would be really annoying when reading a non-fiction book for information. Am I wrong in thinking you can't skip ahead??
• Cannot rent from libraries
• Basically locked into the Amazon.com store without extra effort
• Apparently does not have an easy way to use a English/Spanish dictionary while reading... there is no official dictionary on board.

Pro's for 650

• Touch screen makes interface easy to use
• Double tap a word to look it up in the dictionary
• Contains foreign language translation dictionaries on top of regular English one
• Can download books from public libraries
• The 650 seems smaller.... smaller means it can go in my purse more easily
• You can jump ahead to any page in the book or slide ahead in the book
• You can take free-hand notes on the touch screen over a page
• Better with pdf's

Con's for 650

• Cannot get books from Amazon
• No Wifi/3G
• Less options for text
• More expensive!

Help! I keep wavering no matter what I think I have decided on.

[bainsy]

You can email books to your Kindle from Calibre so that another plus for the kindle so if you convert an epub to mobi and send it over email it really takes the sting out of being locked to Amazon store

But your list of pros and cons are good it really depends on your wants and needs I ordered a K3 as I didn't think the 650 was worth the £199 price tag in the UK and the K3 wifi is only £109 here

happy deciding

[Cpl Punishment]

I bought them both...Compared them for a weekend and brought one back...Only you can decide which one you would rather read from....All the technology aside, its main purpose is reading.....Buy em both and hangout on the hammock all day Sunday, and use em both WITHOUT covers to see where your fingers naturally fall and see if its any effort to turn pages...

[dordale]

bainsy--Why bother with e-mailing the book to your Kindle? Just attach the kindle to your computer via the usb cable and Calibre will recognize the Kindle. You can then just use the "send to device" feature within Calibre to transfer the books to the Kindle.

LucentBeam--It's a hard decision to make! I think Cpl has it right--if you're undecided, buy both and then figure out which one works best for you.

Personally, I love my 650. It is quite a bit smaller than the Kindle--since it doesn't have the keyboard. I also love the touchscreen interface. But the ease of use of the dictionaries were really the tipping point for me. I love being able to double tap on a word and see the definition at the bottom of the screen.

For me personally, I don't mind not having wi-fi. I also have a nook--and never really used the wi-fi on it. I'd rather do my purchasing at the computer and then transfer it to my reader. Right now, I have plenty of books on my reader--enough to keep me busy for a couple of years anyway!

Good luck with your decision!

dordale

[Piper_]

LucentBeam, I bought the Kindle3, but I would love to have the Sony features you listed, and I'm often tempted to switch.

To answer your questions, though:

You can "jump to" a specific location in a Kindle, but it's pretty clunky. You have to do some math to guess at a destination "location" (a 128 byte chunk of data, including source code), then go to it.

Say your book isn't highly formatted, so you're seeing a similar number of locations on each page, you can just multiply the average of that number by however many pages you want to go forward and add it to the current location number.

You'd then hit "menu," select "go to," type the number, and then enter.

If you know what you're looking for, you can also do a search for a phrase you know and go to it.

(Needless to say, this whole location thing is my main complaint about the Kindle.)

As for size and weight in a purse, mine fits into a side pocket of my current purse fine, even in the cover, and the weight isn't a problem at all. It depends on the size of the purse, though.

As for stores, the Amazon store was my biggest reason for selecting the Kindle. It's just so user-friendly to buy books from them, even without the wireless.
Plus, the ability to go online allows you to download mobi books from other stores or here, directly from the kindle.

I do prefer to run all my books through calibre, but when I want to grab one from Amazon, it is ridiculously quick and convenient.

Another plus with the Kindle is the ability to synchronize with other Kindle devices and applications (and those applications themselves are nicely done), the web features, like sending snippets to facebook or twitter, and the ability for calibre to wirelessly send you your articles.

It is for sure a tough choice, but I hope some of this helped you out a little.

ETA: OMG, I actually forgot to add one of the best things about the Kindle and my #1 reason for choosing it! The Text To Speech feature. That, all by itself, is the deal breaker for me. I couldn't do without it.

[JSWolf]

If you go to Borders and buy a 650, you can get a free light cover. That drops the price of the 650 and the K3 goes up in price as you have to pay for a cover. So if you get a 650 before the 31st, you basically get a 650 for about the same cost as a K3.

You can get books from Amazon. As long as you can strip off the DRM, you can use Calibre to convert to ePub to use with a 650.

[tofubean]

Recently i got the k3 (due to the price difference between 650 and k3) and i find that i have to adjust my reading experience a little since i am used to using a sony. The little things that i have to get used to:

1) Turning pages. I got so used to just swiping the screen with my finger. Now when i get engrossed in reading, sometimes i wonder why the page won't flip when i swipe at the screen. Its also a habit from reading on the iphone/ipad.
2) Trying to find the page in ibooks/stanza that i'd read up to in k3 is tricky. I use a bit of guessing the % here and there to get to the exact page i want... I really should get the kindle app but i can't find the download for it in my country unfortunately.
3) I really really like the ability to double tap a word and see the dictionary meaning in sony. Much easier than k3. Not that its very much harder but double tapping is faster and doesn't break the flow in reading that much.
4) I miss the red design of sony whenever i look at my k3.

These are little things that i get used to. Nothing groundbreaking but i do notice them.

[SeaBookGuy]

"I really really like the ability to double tap a word and see the dictionary meaning in sony."

How do you get dictionary definitions on a Kindle?

If only Sony had a less clunky way of going back to the action after tapping on a footnote!

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

"I really really like the ability to double tap a word and see the dictionary meaning in sony."

How do you get dictionary definitions on a Kindle?

If only Sony had a less clunky way of going back to the action after tapping on a footnote!

You just put the cursor in front of the word, and the definition appear either at the top or bottom...to make it 'disappear' you just hit 'back'.....

[LucentBeam]

I ended up buying a Kindle.
Although as I am reading, I am thinking it would be very very convenient to double tap words to look them up, scrolling to them is not as annoying as I anticipated it would be. And I did download the free Spanish dictionary that someone made and it does work.

My only complaint so far is the text size.... even at its smallest, I feel like it's too big as I'm reading.
I know the Sony has a tiny size and I thought it would be too small over time, but I've read about half a book on Kindle since last night and I can't help but feel frustrated that the print is so big.
A teeny part of me thinks I made a mistake, but I figure.... either way, I would have a great eReader and get to read!

[dordale]

Congrats on your new reader LucentBeam!!

Regarding text size--on my Sony and my nook, "small" can be different in different books. So, sometimes I have to set the text size to medium in a book in order to read comfortably, while on other books small works best. I would assume this would be the same for the Kindle as well--Kindle owners please correct me if I'm wrong!

dordale

[Spartacus2112]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you go to Borders and buy a 650, you can get a free light cover. That drops the price of the 650 and the K3 goes up in price as you have to pay for a cover. So if you get a 650 before the 31st, you basically get a 650 for about the same cost as a K3.

You can get books from Amazon. As long as you can strip off the DRM, you can use Calibre to convert to ePub to use with a 650.

Is that deal only at the physical store or online as well?

[polly]

Originally Posted by Spartacus2112

Is that deal only at the physical store or online as well?

The deal is only at the physical store, with no rain check. You can also get the deal from Abt.com with free shipping and no sales tax, but last time I looked they were backordered.