[Siwickimom]

Ok. I am pretty technically proficient. I'm not a coder or anything like that, but if I have a good set of directions and troubleshooting information, I am pretty fearless when it comes to trying things out. As long as you back stuff up and always can revert- I usually say, why not? Here is my situation in a nutshell:

I'm busy. I have an 11 year old boy and a 3 year old girl and they are involved in everything under the sun. I love reading but my books seem to grow legs and walk off as little hands get a hold of them. I read a lot of online fiction at forums like fanfiction.net. I love reading classics and older works as well and I have ZERO personal/moral quandries about removing DRM and/or obtaining content in less than, ah, savory ways. I also don't mind paying for something if I really want to read it right away.

I am a long time Amazon customer and we have an annual Prime Membership and have long-lusted after the Kindle. However, being the geek that I am , I have to uber-research everything. Costco has the Sony 505 on display, I have never had my hands on a Kindle 2. But that Sony sure is sexy and feels so solid and comfortable in the hand. I'm also very anal about organizing my digital files (I have a million subfolders in Outlook, media center, etc) and the fact that there are no folder options for the Kindle kinda hangs me up, too. But- by and large- it's the Whispernet and browser that is holding me up.

I don't mind converting things, we have the computers and savvy to do it. But the things I have been reading MOST lately, by FAR is online fiction at fanfiction.net. Lots of stories that are ongoing and have new updates, etc. I know there are downloaders and grabbers out there and I was playing around w/ them last night. I can grab things and I know I'd be able to transfer them over to the Sony. But I just can't help having this daytime fantasy about being on the bench outside my daughter's ballet class and getting a notification from my cell phone that there is a new update to a story I was reading and whipping out the K2 and going to the forum and reading it. Or when I get 30 minutes to myself being able to just grab my Kindle and head off to my bedroom and browse for new LOTR fics and start reading, without having to pick what I want to read, grab it w/ a downloader, and transfer it over.

I DON'T like feeling locked into/tied to Amazon, even though we are loyal Amazon customers for the most part. I am very uncomfortable with them being able to change the Terms of Service on a whim.

*sigh*

What's a busy Mom to do? I just want to read more! Husband says I should buy the Sony from Costco this weekend, take it home and play around with it and return it if I don't like it and order the K2. I don't take a hundred dollar price difference lightly and don't want to overspend, either.

Oh, forgot to mention we are both Sprint customers and have awesome Sprint EVDO 3G signal in our area. That is another factor on the Kindles pro list for me.


Wow, that was a big nutshell, huh?

Thanks in advance for reading and responding!

Rebecca