to buy or not to buy?

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Heh, yeah, they probably will.

Yeah! And they'll even sell you the tools to repair it to boot.
Seriously Amazon being very involved with books I am sure they will have an incredible selection. At this point they might even be pressuring publishing houses to prepare e-content for a specific date???

OH well! Time will tell....

[Kaisentlaia]

@ Huyggy: have you ever seen this? http://www.lesechos.fr/epaper/inscription.htm

@ scotty1024: I'll buy with credit card and I will have warranty (I suppose), but if the reader breaks or stops working I'll have to pay to send it in US for repairing.

@ clabot451: I don't worry about lack of contents here in Italy. I have already lot of various texts I read on my pc, and I will read them on an ebook reader as well. Ok, if I could buy a lot of well formatted italian ebooks I would surely do it, but I think we'll have to wait some times for this.
Hang on your friend for juicy news! Anyway, cellularbook will be too expensive, small and... late, for me. ^^'' And I don't care about so much portability... since I'm a girl, I have always with me a bag. A notebook bag, ok... but it's still a bag
Thanks for your two cents


BTW, I'm everyday more conviced to order a Sony Reader... there are a lot of issues, and more living outside US... but I definitely want one *__*

[UncleDuke]

there's this new invention where they print books on paper rather than view them on a screen, might catch on, wait and see

you have set yourself up to be unhappy with either choice, if you buy the new choices will be great, if you wait they will not impress you

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by UncleDuke

there's this new invention where they print books on paper rather than view them on a screen, might catch on, wait and see

But you know, we tend to forget that there is always someone new to the planet, new to culture and new to reading too!

Kids must not be alienated to paper...

[Huyggy]

@ Kaisentlaia :
I've already seen that: a good evolution indeed. If only more newspapers could do the same ! (<--- the smiley I needed ). ( "Les echos" is only about business basically, and I am not a business man )

But, for what I've read : When you try to see these kind of newspaper (A4 format PDF) on 6" (even 8") dysplay, you are still more convinced that you need a 10" display (at least).

[katania]

Hi... For some time now I have also been at ,;to buy or not to buy.
Today I decided and orderd the iLiad,. Now I cant wait for it to arrive!!
Just hope I can get along with it..... Well I can always ask here for help , no,,,??

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by katania

Well I can always ask here for help , no,,,??

Yes, yes you can.

Congratulations on your decision, I hope it works out just fantastic for you.

[Marian]

Well I too have been dithering about which one to buy for months now. I got to play with the Sony while I was in New York last month, I really did like it and I had a real hard struggle with myself not to buy it. But at the end of the day I really dont like the thought of having to bother someone in the US to purchase gift cards for me to purchase content from Connect. So with the news of Mobipocket support for the Iliad I finally took the plunge and ordered mine.
I'll bet now that I have finally ordered, everyone else will be releasing their eink readers in Europe.

[yvanleterrible]

Nice to see you again Marian. Sorry the Bookeen thing didn't go through. I guess you're better off with the Iliad.

[Neophyte]

Is there anyone in the forum who has actually handled both?

If there is any hope that Sony will incorporate touch-screen annotation in a future model, I'll probably wait. I can get on without it, but having it would be ideal. I'd go for an iLiad if it wasn't way more than I can afford, and didn't have a wifi feature I'll never use.

Good luck to everyone in their decisions!

[RWood]

Originally Posted by Neophyte

If there is any hope that Sony will incorporate touch-screen annotation in a future model, I'll probably wait. I can get on without it, but having it would be ideal. I'd go for an iLiad if it wasn't way more than I can afford, and didn't have a wifi feature I'll never use.

Never say never, but to me a touch screen seems counter to where Sony seems to be positioning itself in the market. It adds extra cost for very little additional functionality. Unless they add annotation and the ability to merge and save documents like the iRex, there is little point in having a touch screen. If they did add it the cost at retail would most likely be equivalent to the iRex. If this is important to you, save for the iRex and just not use the WiFi.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Neophyte

Is there anyone in the forum who has actually handled both?

One of our fellow bloggers, Larry Z. has made a comparison here between the Sony and Iliad.

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

One of our fellow bloggers, Larry Z. has made a comparison here between the Sony and Iliad.

That review is a bit out of date now that the iLiad supports MobiPocket.

To me it all boils down to flexibility. If you only want to read books, the Sony is the obvious choice. But if you want to annotate, take notes, read many formats without having to convert, play games, replace your PDA, etc; go with the iLiad.

[NatCh]

I'd agree with your summation completely, Adam B., except for a minor quibble with this point:

Originally Posted by Adam B.

read many formats without having to convert

With the addition of Mobipocket format, I count 5 reading formats on the iLiad (PDF, HTML, TXT, XEB & Mobipocket). I wouldn't really characterize that as "many." I wouldn't even consider it many more than the 4 formats the Sony supports (BBeB, PDF, TXT, RTF), they're basically the same set of types of file minus HTML (I'm counting both BBeB and Mobi as the same type in that they're both proprietary DRM supporting formats, I don't actually think that they're the same ).

Of course, opinions will vary, and I do recognize that the iLiad may well get home-brew viewers faster than the Reader, since iRex has actually released an SDK, so in the future the many formats thing may well come to pass, but I just don't see it as being so now.

Like I said, otherwise, I think I'd agree with your assessment of the two devices.

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I'd agree with your summation completely, Adam B., except for a minor quibble with this point:With the addition of Mobipocket format, I count 5 reading formats on the iLiad (PDF, HTML, TXT, XEB & Mobipocket). I wouldn't really characterize that as "many." I wouldn't even consider it many more than the 4 formats the Sony supports (BBeB, PDF, TXT, RTF), they're basically the same set of types of file minus HTML (I'm counting both BBeB and Mobi as the same type in that they're both proprietary DRM supporting formats, I don't actually think that they're the same ).

Of course, opinions will vary, and I do recognize that the iLiad may well get home-brew viewers faster than the Reader, since iRex has actually released an SDK, so in the future the many formats thing may well come to pass, but I just don't see it as being so now.

Like I said, otherwise, I think I'd agree with your assessment of the two devices.

With my comment, I was including some of the applications I have ported.

FBReader alone supports

    * fb2 e-book format (style attributes are not supported yet).
    * HTML format (tables are not supported).
    * CHM format (tables are not supported).
    * plucker format (embedded images are supported, tables are not supported).
    * Palmdoc (aportis doc).
    * zTxt (Weasel format).
    * TCR (psion text) format.
    * RTF format (stylesheets and tables are not supported).
    * OEB format (css and tables are not supported).
    * OpenReader format (css and tables are not supported).
    * Non-DRM'ed mobipocket format (tables are not supported).
    * Plain text format.

In addition, ABIWord Supports word doc, RTF, Open Document. Gnumeric supports xls. Scotty1024 has an app with DJVU and CBZ support.

I really haven't run into a format that I can't read on my iLiad.