Someone give me a push

[HarryT]

All too often it's a rather pointless discussion, because people haven't nailed down what their needs are. I always advise people to look first at what they want to read, see what the dominate eBook formats are for that particular content, and then choose a reader that supports it. ie start with the book, not the reader. If you do that, very often the choice of reader will be pretty obvious.

[charadeur]

Originally Posted by tech_au

Do I sense another A is better than B battle brewing here
I get the feeling 2009 is going to be Sony vs Amazon.
We can add it to the Beta vs VHS, HDDVD vs Bluray, PC vs Mac and so one

It seems silly to me. It is an electronic appliance not a religion. The way some people defend any criticism of their favorite device you would think it was the tablet Moses carried down from the mountains.

I guess it is just human nature to be proud of your choice and think it is best. Some people will ignore all reality to defend their position. However when people use personal attacks in an attempt to invalidate another persons opinion they are only showing the weakness of their argument.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by charadeur

It seems silly to me. It is an electronic appliance not a religion. The way some people defend any criticism of their favorite device you would think it was the tablet Moses carried down from the mountains.

It's also a mistake to believe that one device is "the best" for everything. Every device has its own strengths and weaknesses; there's no one "best" device - if there were, we'd all buy it and there wouldn't be any discussion .

[Boston]

Originally Posted by charadeur

I had no idea some people were so overly sensitive and easily annoyed of any criticism of Amazon no matter how minor.

Not to speak for grandma, but she prefaced her comments by saying "if..the Kindle is the one they really want". So for someone who really wants a Kindle for whatever reasons over another model, doesn't it make other choices "second" for them? I personally didn't see her comment as defending the Kindle at all

The different models each have their own valid pluses and minuses. Likewise, we all have our priorities on what is important. If it weren't so we wouldn't be having these discussions. However, I do think that the price of these are too high to not buy/wait for the model that best suits your needs given this is a discretionary purchase for most....unless you think that you would get enough on the secondary market for you used reader when the one you want becomes available -or- are buying it for some life altering event that won't wait.

[Boston]

I started writing my response and stepped away from the computer...posted before I read HarryT's more succinctly worded post

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by daesdaemar

With the various tools found on this forum I have been able to download literally hundreds of books and convert them appropriately. I don't think I would have been able to do the same for the Kindle.

You would. The Kindle has access to MobiPocket Creator and Stanza as well as various command line tools. For me, I have found very little need to use those tools (other than for personal documents) because I have been able to find all the books I want at Amazon. If Amazon hasn't had a book I wanted, no one else has either.

I think most ebook readers have access to conversion tools, so if it can be found, you can read it.

[charadeur]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's also a mistake to believe that one device is "the best" for everything. Every device has its own strengths and weaknesses; there's no one "best" device - if there were, we'd all buy it and there wouldn't be any discussion .

Well said. For me I can see ending up with the Kindle and Sony to get the best of both worlds. I was planning on getting the Sony at a later date but if I can really get $995 on ebay for the Kindle I will sell it and get the Sony now and wait the 11 weeks for another Kindle. And have an extra $300 + dollars to buy books. How cool is that?

[sassanik]

I don't know if anyone mentioned it, but I have eb 1150 and I love mine! If you have not looked at it as an option in addition to Sony PRS 505 and the Kindle.

It is back lit, and comfie to hold, and best of all more reasonably priced!

Amy

[tech_au]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's also a mistake to believe that one device is "the best" for everything. Every device has its own strengths and weaknesses; there's no one "best" device - if there were, we'd all buy it and there wouldn't be any discussion .

I agree whole-hearttedly. I am a one-eyed Sony 505 fan( not much choice about this as options are very limited in Oz at present) but I am very impressed at how many Kindles have been sold in the US despite the fact that it is the ugliest in the world at present and severely limited in the formats it can read. Big Kudos to Amazon's Marketing prowess.
Sony started down that road but thankfully took a Uturn with the new firmware.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by tech_au

I agree whole-hearttedly. I am a one-eyed Sony 505 fan( not much choice about this as options are very limited in Oz at present) but I am very impressed at how many Kindles have been sold in the US despite the fact that it is the ugliest in the world at present and severely limited in the formats it can read. Big Kudos to Amazon's Marketing prowess.
Sony started down that road but thankfully took a Uturn with the new firmware.

I do think marketing power has a lot to do with it but the differences in features and content availability are still quite compelling for many people. We can't deny the power of the top spot on the front page of Amazon.com all the way through the Christmas shopping season and beyond. Now they even have Oprah behind it. I doubt most Americans had heard of ebook readers until the Kindle. I'm sure many of them still don't even realize there are other devices out there. By contrast, I don't think Sony really threw all that much marketing muscle behind their device.

Still, marketing isn't everything. I've been interested in ebook reading for a long time before the Kindle came out. I even like the looks of the Sony Reader better. It's a good deal less expensive, too, yet I waited about a year since I first spotted it in a shop before getting the Kindle. If it were all about marketing and looks, I'd have long been the owner of a Sony Reader. It was the only e-ink game in town when I first started looking at e-ink devices. The feature set of the Sony Reader just wasn't acceptable to me. The Kindle's not perfect but I found it good enough to take the plunge. I'm still amazed that Sony hasn't added at least dictionary support in the new model. I was hopeful when I saw epub support come out that they were getting more active in adding firmware features. I know it's a great device for a lot of folks, but it's not one-size-fits-all as Harry says. We all have our own sets of priorities for what we want in a device.

Of course once you have the device, you need books and Amazon really does have a ton more of the content I'm looking for. They did a great job integrating store and device. Plus, I think the wireless delivery is pretty attractive for folks who aren't the most comfortable with computers. I bought when it first came out, too, so at that point they were charging A LOT less than most other ebook stores. These days other shops have lowered the prices to compete but Amazon is still usually a bit less and you get the free sample chapters. So even if you go beyond the marketing and do research on the available devices, there are still plenty of reasons folks might go with the Kindle even if, like you, they don't particularly love the looks. Not all Kindle owners are consumer zombies.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by tech_au

and severely limited in the formats it can read.

I'm not sure what is meant by "severely limited". Here are the formats for the Sony and the Kindle (I've removed the proprietary formats for both).

Sony (native support)
PDF, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, MP3, AAC

Kindle (native support)
PRC/MOBI (non DRM), TXT, MP3, AA, JPEG, GIF
(Amazon or self-conversion) DOC, HTML, PNG, BMP and PDF

IMO, there is only one additional format that is lacking... native pdf support. There are some documents that just work better as pdf's. Mobi seems to be the dominant format and ePub has not yet come into it's own, so I don't understand what else is needed.

[tech_au]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I'm not sure what is meant by "severely limited". Here are the formats for the Sony and the Kindle (I've removed the proprietary formats for both).

Sony (native support)
PDF, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, MP3, AAC

Kindle (native support)
PRC/MOBI (non DRM), TXT, MP3, AA, JPEG, GIF
(Amazon or self-conversion) DOC, HTML, PNG, BMP and PDF

IMO, there is only one additional format that is lacking... native pdf support. There are some documents that just work better as pdf's. Mobi seems to be the dominant format and ePub has not yet come into it's own, so I don't understand what else is needed.

Perhaps I should have said natively supported.
For the kindle it is mobi or txt and anything else is converted by emailing it and receiving the converted file back but with Sony everything listed is natively supported (no conversion neccessary). I can't understand why Amazon didn't provide the conversion program on a CD that you get when you buy the Kindle.
I wonder why no Ebook readers read DRM lit at present. Maybe Microsoft don't want any support ?
I guess it is not a big issue if you only buy from Amazon but having multiple formats available to you bring competition hence price reductions.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by tech_au

Perhaps I should have said natively supported.
For the kindle it is mobi or txt and anything else is converted by emailing it and receiving the converted file back but with Sony everything listed is natively supported (no conversion neccessary). I can't understand why Amazon didn't provide the conversion program on a CD that you get when you buy the Kindle.
I wonder why no Ebook readers read DRM lit at present. Maybe Microsoft don't want any support ?
I guess it is not a big issue if you only buy from Amazon but having multiple formats available to you bring competition hence price reductions.

The conversion process via Amazon is very fast, and can be sent directly to the Kindle via Whispernet. The conversion software is a version (free) MobiPocket Creator, so it's very easy to do yourself.

Amazon consistently has the lowest prices for eBooks (Fictionwise coming in 2nd) and because the depth of the catalog, it's rarely necessary to go to another site to purchase content. I have only converted personal documents. And I've also only *had* to buy outside of Amazon when a magazine that was not in Kindle version had a short story I wanted to read.

Getting content on the Kindle is *a lot* easier than some folks think.

[charadeur]

Before I decided on the Kindle I tested the conversion process so I would be fully informed. It really is no big deal. However it is extra steps. If you really need secure pdf then Sony is your choice. Anything else the Kindle seems to do.

Seriously it really all boils down to content for me. In the end the rest of the stuff is nit picky little things that I think I can live with.

With that said I just ordered the Sony too. The Kindle is set for delivery on the 8th so I will put it on ebay and make the profit. The closer it gets to xmas the more it will sell for. I figured I did not want to wait for 11 or 12 or however many weeks it will take to reorder Kindle so now I will have a Sony while I wait.

[tech_au]

I guess people from the rest of the world have not seen the Kindle in action with Whispernet and it does seem to be the killer feature for the Kindle.
I wouldn't mind owning a Kindle-ony to get the best of both worlds but I guess Sony adding mobi support is about as likely as Amazon discovering the rest of the world.