kindle touch or sony?something different?

[Samsonerd]

I am looking for an ereader.

At the moment I am going back and forth between sony and the kindle touch.

A little background.

I am a physiotherapy student. I will use id manly for non fictional literature. My dream would be to have all my textbooks on the device with no need to carry around heavy book.
I realize that the availability is not to good yet, and even thought I found some kindle anatomy books I do not expect them to have the same quality’s manly because missing colors. It probably will take a few more years until technology and availability will make ebooks a proper replacement for (medical) textbooks. If anybody here has experience with this I would be curious to hear about it.
Aside from text books I will mostly read papers and magazines in PDF format.
Also I want to be able to write down notes with ease (that’s why I am going for touch screen) and share these notes across devices.
I probably won’t by a lot of books, but focus on public domain like project Gutenberg, so the store is not to important. But it should support popular free formats.

Because it seems to handle PDF a lot better I am orienting towards the sony device. I don’t really get whether the amazon conversion service does anything with the pdfs that helps in any way with readability.
Support for a lot of different formats would be nice. Especially those that are common in university. Like word, power point (haven seen that yet).
Finally I am living in Germany but intend to buy the device in the states. Everything should work flawless in Germany including buying ebooks.
Is it possible to buy ebooks in the german and in the us amazon store with the same account/device? There is a BIG difference in pricing and I usually read the original anyways.
I tried the kindle app for PC and after picking up a couple of the free books to check out how everything works I got this note

“You attempted to purchase an item while in a different country than listed on your Amazon account.
Are you traveling outside your country?
Please contact customer service in order to continue purchasing Kindle items.
Did you recently move to a new country?
You can easily update your country for your Amazon account.”

I guess buying books in the us store doesn’t work.

Feature I want:
- EInk
- price < 200€
- enough space for a lot of PDFs
- A Lot of formats. Most important good pdf support. Word and the common ebook standarts would be nice
- Good note taking
- notes should be synchronized across devices
- A feedread would be nice. But haven’t seen that on any ereaders so far.

What I like about the sony ereader is:
- the interface seems nicer
- PDF reading seems better (important)
- Note taking seems better
- card slot up to 32 gb
- Also there is the hack which gives you access to the kindle app for android (so it basically has the same feature as the kindle with whispersync, word, all the books. Any important differences between the kindle touch features and the kindle android app?)

What I like about the kindle touch
- a lot of formate (thought pdf seems bad)
- whisphersync
- cloud
- quite a number of medical ebooks in the store
Questions: Is it true that the cloud space for personal documents on the kindle is only 5gb and that its only supported for the kindle itself but not the kindle reader software for my personal computer (which would mean I can’t access my notes on the computer)?

Any advice which device would be better choice? Maybe a different device
Anything important I did forget?

thanks! I appreciate your help!

[susan_cassidy]

I think that expecting a good PDF reading experience on a 6-inch screen is asking for disappointment. The Sony is supposed to do a better job of reflowing than the Kindle, which does not reflow PDFs. PDFs are usually designed for a larger page size than a 6-inch screen provices.

The personal document storage on Amazon is limited to 5gb, but you don't have to use Amazon to store personal documents. You can move them back and forth to the Kindle using the USB cable. You can convert documents to Kindle format from pdf or ePub, etc. using free programs like Calibre or Mobipocket Creator. I don't think they support downloading personal docs from Archives from the Kindle apps yet (probably will in future).

[Rizla]

Sony makes the best e-readers hardware-wise, period, but you have to pay.

[gari189]

If its for your studies I would go with a 10 inch tablet. These can handle pdfs better than a 6 inch ereader and more important the colour will let you see the pictures in medical books much more clearly. You'll be able to make notes more easier and you can watch videos of lectures or manipulation techniques.....

[shinew]

A tablet like the iPad 2 is a much better choice for handling PDFs, it'll also be a lot faster because they typically sports a much faster processor.

However if you must have a eink device and with the criteria you have listed, I would say Sony is a better fit. Kindle's strength is at reading books converted to its format and its amazon cloud service, not at note taking.

[ProfCrash]

Sonys are now priced the same as the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. They are currently having some major glitches. I would wait to see if these issues are fixed in the next firmware update before buying one.

The Sony would be the best PDF reader but a 6 inch screen is not going to work well for you. I would look into a 10 inch tablet if you can.

[Samsonerd]

Thanks for all the helpful advice!

I guess i have to accept that PDF and small displays don't go well together.

Is there a freeware that is a good choice for converting PDF to any format that works better with e-readers?
I would like to check out how well the conversion works (quality wise but also how complicated and time consuming conversion is).
What program(s) should i try for conversion?
What reads can i use to check out on the computer whether i am pleased with the outcome?

I can't afford an tablet.
And i really what a screen without backlighting. For everything else besides reading i got my netbook. (I used to believe i could read with it just as good as on paper. But lately i realized that i read much more when i got it on paper. thats why i decided to look into ebooks.)

If there is now way to get pdf to work on ereaders i probably won't buy one at the moment. Maybe i will wait a few more years untill the mirable or eink color displays are established. (enough time to save some money, haha)

[susan_cassidy]

You can convert PDFs to .mobi (for Kindle) using free software like Calibre or Mobipocket Creator, Publisher edition. However, if the PDF is heavily formatted (2-column, lots of charts and graphs), it likely will not come out all that well. Calibre will also do ePub for devices like the Sony.

Amazon's conversion service does the same thing as Calibre, etc.

Conversion only take a couple of minutes, in my experience. Of course, I've only converted fairly small PDFs.

[no.guru]

Originally Posted by PhillipA82

That's right! (in response to Rizla's "Sony makes the best e-readers hardware-wise, period, but you have to pay.")

Right, but at about $150 for the reader I would be willing to pay for a new device even if they lasted only one year.

My 505 is on its third year and going strong and it's likely to last much longer because my T1 has basically replaced it.

[Samsonerd]

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...k-color-video/

That looks pretty much like what i want!
Except for the price

btw. the price for the sony reader just dropped 20$.


I will try the conversion software.

Maybe i just go for one (probably sony) and see what i like and what not. the device i am looking for is obviously not available at the moment. maybe i will find a pleasing alternative so i know what i want and what not when i spend more in the future.

One more questions what eink readers are there with a bigger screen like the kindle dx. and are they a beter option for pdf?

[Rizla]

Tablets are coming down and are the right solution for complex pdfs. But I wouldn't want to read a long book on LCD.

If you know what you are doing, you can make pdfs reasonably viewable on a 6" e-ink screen.

The Sony is probably the best bet because it is Android and rootable, so you should be able to customize the software to a huge extent. The Sony has had crash problems, but Sony have stated they will release an update soon to fix it.

The Nook is also Android and rootable, but I know less about it.