I think that maybe, for non-U.S. buyers, the biggest issue is actually that of the Sony warranty in case of problems. BH makes it clear that warranty is strictly between the buyer and the manufacturer - no special offers of extended/alternate warranties seem to be available. I do have friends & relatives in the U.S., so I suppose that I could perhaps get one of them to handle things for me if I had to send it in under warranty... Though, frankly, the warranty on the Sony pretty much sucks anyway, so maybe it's no great loss as long as the Reader is thoroughly tested during the 15-days that BH would take it for return/exchange as defective merchandise. (90 days limited warranty and a year on parts?
Gimme a break; my Pentax Digital SLR had a better warranty than that
before I got the extra from Black's Photo. Heck, the iPod Shuffle that we gave my mom for her birthday has a better warranty - 2 years replacement - from Staples at a cost of a measly $9. Sony appears to be trying to match HP for lousy warranties. At least they aren't counting days from date of manufacture - yet.)
Hmm... after much digging around the Bookeen site, I have no idea what the warranty on the Cybook is like. All Bookeen has to say about it is:
Quote:
Article 8: Warranties and responsibility
You benefit from the legal warranty due to hidden defects.
The electronic products can have a manufacturer warranty indicated on the product description. In the case of a breakdown during the manufacturer warranty period, please consult the after-sales service manufacturer.
We decline any responsibility on the fact that the delivered product would not respect the legislation of the country of delivery.
We commit ourselves bringing the best service to the customer. Nevertheless, our responsibility could not be retained in the event of failure with our contractual obligations because of a fortuitous occurrence or of a case of absolute necessity as defined by the jurisprudence returned by the French jurisdictions.
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Anybody who's got one want to check their documentation and see what the warranty is like? Warranty may actually be a moot point here...
<Edit> Okay, found another thread that pointed to the warranty info on the Bookeen site - silly me, I'd looked for it under the reader's specs, not in the shop. So, there's a year of warranty and shipping to Bookeen is at the owner's expense while they cover the return shipment. Not too bad but trackable shipping to France from Canada would run somewhere in the $50+ range, I suspect, so the Cybook warranty isn't exactly perfect either.</edit>
Much as I like the idea of the non-proprietary formats used by the Cybook, it really is a lot more expensive. The price for the package from NAEB is definitely better than what's on offer from Bookeen directly but it's still over $75 more than the Sony - considerably more than the cost of the memory card and USB wall adapter that the Sony doesn't include. Mobipocket would be nice but I'm not sure that it's quite
that nice...