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slayda · 03-23-2009, 11:27 AM

I currently own a Sony PRS-500, A Bookeen Cybook Gen3, an EZ Reader (Hanlin V3 family) and an Amazon Kindle 1. Here's my take on them;

No matter which of the 6" screens you get, PDF will be mediocre at best.
No matter which MFG. you purchase from, they all have short comings so pick the one you can best live with.
There is no place you can go to "just buy any book you want" that will work on any particular reader without some degree of converting.
Sony no longer supports the PRS-500 as far as updates are concerned so the early adopters are left hanging. Their books are limited but they have recently teamed with Google so this should improve dramatically.
Amazon wants to completly control what ebooks you can purchase and read. They have a large supply of ebooks if you want general fiction.
Bookeen Cybook is difficult to get in touch for support but has a good firmware package. Good Mobipocket format support, thus several good places for ebooks.
The Hanlin V3 family ( aka BeBook, EZ Reader, Ibook) has, IMHO, the best HW and the firmware is interchangable throughout that family & also there is the open sourc firmware for it called OpenInkPot which is, IMO, outstanding making this combination (i.e. Hanlin V3 family plus OpenInkPot firmware) the best choice. Fortunately OpenInkPot supports many popular formats. Unfortunately OpenInkPot does not support any DRM. For me this is OK since I only have books without DRM.

03-23-2009, 11:27 AM	#13
slayda Retired & reading more! Posts: 2,764 Karma: 1884247 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: North Alabama, USA Device: Kindle 1, iPad Air 2, iPhone 6S+, Kobo Aura One	I currently own a Sony PRS-500, A Bookeen Cybook Gen3, an EZ Reader (Hanlin V3 family) and an Amazon Kindle 1. Here's my take on them; No matter which of the 6" screens you get, PDF will be mediocre at best. No matter which MFG. you purchase from, they all have short comings so pick the one you can best live with. There is no place you can go to "just buy any book you want" that will work on any particular reader without some degree of converting. Sony no longer supports the PRS-500 as far as updates are concerned so the early adopters are left hanging. Their books are limited but they have recently teamed with Google so this should improve dramatically. Amazon wants to completly control what ebooks you can purchase and read. They have a large supply of ebooks if you want general fiction. Bookeen Cybook is difficult to get in touch for support but has a good firmware package. Good Mobipocket format support, thus several good places for ebooks. The Hanlin V3 family ( aka BeBook, EZ Reader, Ibook) has, IMHO, the best HW and the firmware is interchangable throughout that family & also there is the open sourc firmware for it called OpenInkPot which is, IMO, outstanding making this combination (i.e. Hanlin V3 family plus OpenInkPot firmware) the best choice. Fortunately OpenInkPot supports many popular formats. Unfortunately OpenInkPot does not support any DRM. For me this is OK since I only have books without DRM.