Quote:
Originally Posted by ap10046
4) I DON'T LIVE IN THE STATES, so how would I get content? Free or Otherwise? What has DRM got to do with books?
Does one need to get rid of it?
5) Good Battery Life much appreciated, but not imperative.
6)Ease of use-Should read many formats with not much fuss..converting, etc
7) Price-I am not going to spend more than $300 it. Cheaper the better.
8) Are there any color readers?
Thank you
Regards
AP
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I live in Germany, so I understand the difficulties that can be involved with geographic restrictions. I use a VPN program that gives me a US IP address and I have a US credit card that goes to a US address. Between those, I've been able to buy books from the major book stores. Some people use PayPal and gift cards to get around the restrictions.
DRM encrypts books such that, in theory, only the person who purchased the book can read it. How the book is encrypted depends on the format and book store. Over the eight years that I've read electronic books, I've seen DRMed formats come and go and I've read on several different devices. I remove DRM because it gives me more flexibility to read content that I've purchased where I want and when I want. Also, I don't trust any format to be around in the future and would hate to no longer be able to read something because its format is obsolete.
You don't need to get rid of DRM to read a book on a reader; you just need to be careful to only buy formats your reader can handle.
Any of the epaper readers will give you good battery life. An epaper reader without WiFi, 3G, LCD screens etc. should last for a couple of books over a couple of weeks.
Ease of use is important, but I'm not sold on the idea of a reader that can read a bazillion different formats. I use Calibre to organize my library and it does a very nice job of converting to my preferred format. I've found that even if a reader reads lots of different formats, it doesn't read them well. Folder and/or metadata support is really important for readers. I still don't understand why the major players (Amazon, B&N, Sony) make it so hard to organize your books
There are several readers at our below $300 price point. I really like my Astak 5" because it's small enough to fit in my pocket. The PocketBook has a loyal following. I"d avoid the Sony 5" simply because Sony stripped so much from it that the other 5" have for the same price. The Sony 505 was a great reader. Sony discontinued it last year, but it's still available on eBay.
Color readers are supposedly on the way, but will almost certainly be more than $300 for a while. There's supposed to be a new generation of readers with SiPix screens, but there are problems at the factory that have delayed shipment.
Have you looked at the ebook matrix? It's the best place to compare readers and features.
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix