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Abraxus · 05-30-2008, 03:48 AM

Hi all -

Been lurking around for a little while (great community here, by the way), trying to narrow down my choices, and I'm down to two: The Sony 505 or the Cybook Gen3.

Though I have searched through many of the sub-forums here, there are a few questions I still have that I haven't found the answers to, and I was hoping you could help me out:

1) File reading. One of the things that I do now (with all the books I read on my PDA) is make my eBooks into plain text (.txt) files. I know, I lose some of the formatting options, but for what I read, it's fine because I also put the books inside a .zip file and read them while compressed (with uBook reader). My question: can either the Sony or the Cybook read inside .zip files (or any other compressed format)?

2) Fonts. Going along with the above situation, can I choose a 'default' font for the .txt files that I'll be reading, or will I have to convert to a proprietary format to get a different font? I've read that the default for the Sony is not that great (some Times variant), but if I can change the default, that's fine, I just need to know if it's possible. I don't mind if it's a bit technical, but just whether or not it can be done.

3) Comparative advantage. I know that there are a lot of 'overlapping' features on all the e-ink devices (same screens, etc), but I'd like to know when looking at the Sony and Cybook if there is anything that one can do that the other can't at all, such as the font question above, or anything else? I'm not talking about what you like better or worse, but are there are features on one that don't appear on the other?

4) Any other advice you could give me would be great, especially perhaps a bit of explanation as to why the Cybook is nearly $100US more than the Sony...

Well, thanks for reading, and any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

05-30-2008, 03:48 AM	#1
Abraxus Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2008 Device: x50v (and soon a Cybook)	Almost decided... Sony vs Cybook Hi all - Been lurking around for a little while (great community here, by the way), trying to narrow down my choices, and I'm down to two: The Sony 505 or the Cybook Gen3. Though I have searched through many of the sub-forums here, there are a few questions I still have that I haven't found the answers to, and I was hoping you could help me out: 1) File reading. One of the things that I do now (with all the books I read on my PDA) is make my eBooks into plain text (.txt) files. I know, I lose some of the formatting options, but for what I read, it's fine because I also put the books inside a .zip file and read them while compressed (with uBook reader). My question: *can either the Sony or the Cybook read inside .zip files (or any other compressed format)?* 2) Fonts. Going along with the above situation, can I choose a 'default' font for the .txt files that I'll be reading, or will I have to convert to a proprietary format to get a different font? I've read that the default for the Sony is not that great (some Times variant), but if I can change the default, that's fine, I just need to know if it's possible. I don't mind if it's a bit technical, but just whether or not it can be done. 3) Comparative advantage. I know that there are a lot of 'overlapping' features on all the e-ink devices (same screens, etc), but I'd like to know when looking at the Sony and Cybook if there is anything that one can do that the other can't at all, such as the font question above, or anything else? I'm not talking about what you like better or worse, but *are there are features on one that don't appear on the other?* 4) Any other advice you could give me would be great, especially perhaps a bit of explanation as to why the Cybook is nearly $100US more than the Sony... Well, thanks for reading, and any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated.