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Originally Posted by EricGagne
Hello,
I want to get an ereader but I can't figure out which one I should buy. I'm a bit confused with formats and although there is converters available I'm not sure it's if it's a good idea or not to buy a reader that doesn't natively support the format I'll be reading.
Although I'm posting this in English to get more answers I'm a French speaking person from Canada and I read books in frech. This seems to limit my choices of ebook stores to Mobipocket and Numilog.fr since Sony doesn't sell french books.
I've narrowed my choice down to BeBook, Cybook Gen 3 or wait a few weeks and buy one of the new Sony's.
Cybook: I may be able to get one almost new (only 3 months old) for 225$CAD, a new one would cost me 400$CAD but I see a lot, and I really mean a LOT, of posts here about frozen Cybooks, broken screens and recurrent freezing issues so now I'm not so sure I want one although the price is appealing. Is it really that bad ?
BeBook: Seems like a nice reader and like the Cybook it has native support for Mobi. I'm a bit hesitant though because it's not sold in North-America and I don't really like buying hardware from Europe because it makes it complicated after to have it serviced in case of a problem.
Sony: I like that it's sold in Canada and I know having it repaired if necessary won't be a problem. However it doesn't support Mobi format which is important for me. That's where the whole conversion thing comes into play. Can I easily and efficiently convert purchased mobi files (DRM) to ePub and then load them into a Sony reader. Would I loose any of the features or the original mobi file or on the quality of the fonts ?
And if converting works well, would it be a smart move to buy an older version of the Sony like the 505 ?
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BeBook is an OEM product. The "original engine" is Hanlin V3. For you, in North America, Astak's EZ Reader, another "clone" of Hanlin V3, probably would make most sense.
Mopickpocket easily can be stripped from DRM and converted to Sony. Either to Sony's proprietary BBeB format or ePUB, which Sony natively handles as well.
Check out the ePUB format. It's widely spread, you should easily be able to find most of the books in French for ePUB.
Sony is doing ePUB natively, most of the other readers in the meantime as well.
Personally, I still rank Sony 505 one of my alltime favorites.
Concerning Cybook Gen3: There are 2 firmware versions. 1 supporting DRMed Mobipocket, 1 supporting DRMed ePUB.
It's a nice unit, but personally I prefer Sony 505: More elegant design, Sony being major player in the eBook market, Sony's webshop isn't bad either.
In general, you're right: It's preferable, having native support on your reader for the formats of your choice. Stripping DRM and converting is quite time consuming and sometimes the results need some tweaking and tuning.