Quote:
Originally Posted by pilotbob
I went from the Sony 500 to the Kindle 1. I feel the Kindle is a much better machine and the content selection and pricing is infinitely better. However, I had zero $ investment in the Sony store. I had got all my ebooks either free or in a format that I could liberate and convert for the Kindle.
The screen and speed was a big improvment over the 500... but the 505 does have the same Vizplex screen which the Kindle has.
BOb
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That was pretty much my experience.
After my 500 broke I decided to order a Kindle because I really wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I was really hesitant about spending that much money on a reader, which ironically was exactly how I felt when I first bought my 500. I was very happy with my 500 and liked it much more than I expected to after I learned the tips and tricks. It was the same way with the Kindle except even more so because of all the features the Kindle has that the Sony doesn't. Features like search and dictionary support are important to me and are what really make e-books unique and worthwhile.
Not only that, much of the content is more open if you decide to crack the DRM. LRF DRM hasn't been cracked yet. People talk about Topaz but I haven't seen a book I wanted in Topaz format yet. I'm kind of a picky reader, though. I think you'll find that most bestsellers and a lot of good literature is in AZW (aka mobi) format. You can tell by looking to see if the file size is listed, which I hear means it's probably AZW.
What you really have to decide is if the extra features are worth the money to buy two Kindles. I agree with the poster above who said you might want to order one for your wife first and see if you like it. If you are content with your Sony and, like me, never buy e-books with DRM that can't be cracked, you will have no problem sharing content. And here's a little tip for your mobi formatted ebooks: if you use the mobi2oeb tool in Calibre, zip up the resulting files, and rename the extension to EPUB, then most ePub readers will be able to read it. Granted, it's not real ePub due to a slightly different file structure and I don't know how the Sony Reader will handle such files but you could potentially have a very easy solution for sharing content between the Kindle and the Sony. Does anyone here have experience with trying this on the Sony? As JSWolf pointed out, though, you will always be able to convert ebooks without DRM into LRF.
Epub books are also easy to convert into mobi by simply using the OPF file in MobiCreator. Just open the file, click build, and you have yourself a very nicely formatted mobi e-book.