Buying a Reader in SFO

[SJS]

I am from the UK, but am visiting San Francisco next week with work. Is it generally easy to pick up a reader out there? Sony store? Borders? Should I phone ahead to reserve one? Any tips appreciated...

thanks!

[Azayzel]

Perhaps you'll be lucky and find one in the airport, otherwise there are a couple of "official" Sony stores through San Francisco - The Metreon (catch a movie while you're there) or the Stanford shopping center, to name a few. Following your suggestion might be a good idea to keep from venturing to a shop and finding that they don't have one in stock (save yourself the trip).

[NatCh]

The Dealer Locator might be of use, too.

Welcome to MobileRead, BTW.

[acantha]

there are four borders in san francisco: union square, stonestown, SF center, and the one by the ball park. having just purchased my reader at the one in SF Center, i know they have a few. The union square one is planning on getting more any day now, and the guy i talked to on the phone when i was looking for mine said stonestown had a whole mess of em. they'll hold stuff for 3 days in advance, so if i were you i'd just use www.bordersstores.com to find the one nearest to where you'll be staying, then call ahead and have them save it for ya.

they generally also stock the cradle and the covers, so you can grab those there as well.

[AdamT]

I bought mine at Borders during a business trip to San Francisco in January. I'm afraid I don't know which store it was, but they had a stack of them. I also saw them at another Borders in LA a month later... I don't think you'll have a problem finding one.

[AndiR]

If you have no joy from Borders or Sony try CompUSA.

I bought mine from a Miami store when over last November.

Downtown shop is here http://www.compusa.com/locations/Sto...ores&store=254

AndiR

[a13sda]

I'm from the UK, and bought mine in San Antonio, Texas in late November.

Despite what follows, I'm actually very pleased with it, and tend to recommend it to others, albeit with the following caveat. I travel quite a lot, for business and pleasure, and am lucky to have a boat in the Aegean, which I try to spend weeks at a time on, out of reach of civilisation. Since I read a lot (a book a day in ideal circumstances) the Sony Reader would logically appear to be the perfect solution, enabling me to carry a library without the volume and weight restictions of paper books (I can take a suitcase full!). However, there's a problem in this respect, and consequently I offer you the following VERY SERIOUS warning:-

Although you won't find any indication in the store where you purchase your reader, the reality is that you'll be discriminated against, because they forbid you from buying content for the Reader at their on-line "Connect" store. Unless your credit-card is registered to a US address, you can't register at the store - I've tried every trick that I can think of! It appears that they've - peculiarly - struck US only licencing deals with the publishers (why? - haven't they heard of the WORLDWIDE Web?) in a way that other ebook suppliers haven't.

The problem then becomes one of purchasing your books. The only other supplier in the proprietary Sony Reader format is at www.manybooks.net, where they've converted the better bits of the Project Gutenberg list of free ebooks - which, let's face it, although most of the "classics" are there, PG mostly consists of tens of thousands of very dull texts that are only of interest to a narrow academic audience. Manybooks.net also have a small selection of non-PG books that are also free, and have a much better interface than PG.

Otherwise, if you scan the "torrent" sites, you can find some content, although by and large this will be illegal, or you can purchase ebooks in non-compatable formats from other vendors (if bookwise can convert to the Sony format, why not everyone else?). Personally, I've tried some in the MS-Reader .lit format, as you can get a free converter from www.processtext.com. However, converting seems not to be 100% perfect; takes some effort; doesn't always work (I've had particular failures trying to convert from the Palm format); and never seems to provide a text that's as easy on the eye as the native Sony format. www.fictionwise.com has a large selection in the .lit format, although their strength seems to be romantic fiction, which isn't my personal cup of tea, and other posters to this forum enthuse about Baen - although they apparently only do SF, which doesn't grab me either.

Going back to the issue of discrimination against non-US citizens by Sony, I've had a long and frustrating correspondence with their so-called "customer service" people on this issue, which has reached the point where I've threatened to sue them; anyone want to join me in a class action?

Hope this ramble helps you in your decision making.
Steve