[Joga_Bonito]

Hi all.

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for starting yet another thread asking what I imagine are the same old questions that, no doubt, many of you are tired of answering.

Anyway, I have been looking at e-readers for several months now. I already own hundreds of e-books and research papers (and I have dozens of paper books waiting to be read), so it is unlikely that I will need to purchase anything new for some considerable time. I have been reading those e-books on my computer, thus far, and as I'm sure that you are aware, it isn't exactly ideal. In fact, I've all but given up on it, as I was starting, for the first time in my life, to suffer from severe headaches due to the length of time staring at the screen.

The problem is — at least, that is the impression that I am getting — that the vast majority (~ 95%) of those e-books are PDF's. I would be willing to spend time formatting them for use on an e-reader, but I'd appreciate some advice about just how inconvenient it really is? I've read through a number of threads on here, already, but I must confess that I am still struggling to understand some of the jargon, and I'm still not quite clear just how arduous the task really is. Clearly my ignorance is something that I will have to personally rectify, but the real difficulty is in not being able to learn by experience, due to the fact that I don't own a reader, and it would be fairly annoying to find that I cannot read any of the books that I already own.

I have been concentrating mainly on the Sony PRS-505, to this point. I live in the UK, so the Kindle has not been an option, though it may well be come the end of the year. The only task that I expect to use an e-reader for is reading, but it is the fact that I already own so many PDF's that is really bothering me.

I have noticed that there will likely be two new Sony e-readers in the near future, but as someone has already mentioned, none of the new generation of readers appears to be a great leap forward in either the technology or functionality, and given that I am principally interested in using a reader for reading, I'm not really willing to pay over the odds, simply because something is "new". The Sony PRS-505 is now available in the UK for £150, for instance.

Finally, I'd love to own an e-reader, but I am willing to wait if necessary, largely due to the fact that many of the (non-fiction) subjects that I am interested in (science, religion, history, etc) are not, so far as I can tell, well covered in e-book format — at least, not beyond the popular titles (I could of course be wrong about that). So I will continue to purchase paper books, and I already have a back-log of roughly 40 books that are waiting to be read. However, if some of my fears were allayed, I'd be tempted to purchase one, principally as I have already spent a considerable amount of money on e-books which I'd like to read, but also because it would provide a great deal of choice between paper and e-books.

Any advice about either the readers that I should be concentrating on, and/or the difficulties in formatting PDF's, would be most welcome. Thank you for your time.