so which one should I buy?

[danaes]

I want an e-book reader. I've thought about the Sony and pretty much discounted the Kindle. Why? I'm not really looking to buy books right now. I just want to be able to carry around all the free e-books I can get on Baen.com, Tor's free books, Eos and other sites like Project Gutenberg.

Initially I thought I wanted a reader that could read PDF's because my husband likes to read articles and journals while we're traveling. He's a math professor so most of his articles have a lot of theorems, graphs and formulas. Now, I'm thinking I just want a reader for myself. I was willing to spend up to the $300 for the Sony or Kindle, but now I think I don't need anything that fancy. I much prefer reading print books if I can, but I'm living in Korea and buying books is getting more and more expensive and I miss my public library system back home too much.

Many of the books I've downloaded through Tor's free books are pdf format. I don't understand computers very well, so I don't know if I get a reader that doesn't support pdf format, if I can use a program to convert it or not.

Please give me suggestions on a simple ebook reader, with a screen that's bigger than an IPOD, but not a small laptop. I would like something that I can download about 10-15 books at at time, though I'd prefer to have about 500.

Any help would be useful. Thanks.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by danaes

Please give me suggestions on a simple ebook reader, with a screen that's bigger than an IPOD, but not a small laptop. I would like something that I can download about 10-15 books at at time, though I'd prefer to have about 500.

The Sony, Kindle, BeBook and CyBook would meet your needs. If you were going to get ebooks from a library the Kindle would need you to do a bit of processing on each file first.

However the Sony and BeBook would meet your $300 or less... the CyBook and Kindle are a bit more.

BOb

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by danaes

Many of the books I've downloaded through Tor's free books are pdf format. I don't understand computers very well, so I don't know if I get a reader that doesn't support pdf format, if I can use a program to convert it or not.

PDF isn't the best format for ebooks, unless they have been created specifically with a page size siutable for a small screen. The TOR ebooks were also available in other formats which are more suitable, but even the PDFs can probably be converted to a "re-flowable" format.

The Sony will read PDFs directly, but you will most likely need to use Calibre to convert some content for the PRS-505. However, this is very easy to use.

The BeBook/Hanlin and Bookeen Cybook read mobipocket (MOBI or PRC) ebooks. Many of the books you are looking for are available in MOBI format, particularly since the Kindle also reads DRM-free MOBI (so many sites have added MOBI/PRC if they did not have it before). If you need to convert to MOBI, Windows MobiPocket Reader (or Creator) usually does a good job. If you buy a Kindle, Amazon will convert free ebooks to DRM-free MOBI for you via e-mail - but the conversion is essentially similar to what MobiPocket Reader does on your local PC.