First impressions - Sony Reader vs. iLiad

[jinibiza]

Hi Harry.

Thanks for the comparison. Any chance you will compare the Cybook with the iLiad?

Cheers,

J in Ibiza

[nigeldb]

HarryT,

Great thread and am very interested in your views. Just bought an iLiad and my wife is thinking about a Sony reader. Marc(montsnmags) has also been very helpful over on https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27911

Some questions if I may?
1. How do you share (or port across) the books you have on the Sony with your new iLiad? Easy or hard for a relatively non-technical person?

2. Can you get more books on iLiad/Cybook than Sony? i.e. Mobipocket vs Sony?

The fact the the iLiad supports MobiPocket gives it access to a hugely wider range of commercial eBooks than are available for the Sony, of course.

3. Sony seems to be the cheapest of the lot..best value for money?
Price Comparison in Aus
iLiad AUD 900 (www.dadirect.com)
CyBook AUD 600 (wwwdadirect.com)
Sony AUD 430 (converted from GBP 200) plus shipping

4. I'm worried that the video demo's of the Cybook are very amateur. It kind of lowers my condfidence in the company

5. Ease of use...which is best. For istance, I wish the ILiad could get more titles on the screen, had the name and Author and that and you could sort by Author. BTW I'm a e-book newbie so please no flaming if you can do these.

Anyhow, thanks for the great reviews.

Nigel

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by nigeldb

For istance, I wish the ILiad could get more titles on the screen, had the name and Author and that and you could sort by Author.

One of the problems with MobiPocket's own software is that it does not do subdirectories. So in order to allow the Windows MobiPocket Reader to manage MOBI ebooks on the iLiad, iRex had to make the Books/Mobipocket directory act differently than all other directories on the iLiad. In that directory only, when a MOBI file is opened it stays in the Books/Mobipocket directory. If an ebook is anywhere else on the machine, the first time it is opened it will be moved into its own subdirectory and from them on contentlister will key on manifest.xml to control what it displays on the screen.

So, if you want Windows Mobipocket Reader to manage your ebooks you are stuck (unless you modify the ebooks metadata, e.g. with mobi2mobi). However, if you are willing to move them yourself from the desktop to the iLiad (via USB) then you can manually create subdirectory trees to make navigation easier. For example you could have one subdirectory per author (or per multi-book author, with a misc subdirectory for the rest). It is also then possible to edit the manifest.xml file of previously opened ebooks to change what the contentlister displays.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by nigeldb

HarryT,

Great thread and am very interested in your views.
...

Nigel, me again. HarryT actually owns the Cybook Gen 3 now. I know he is quite enthusiastic about it.

I just mention this so as you know, but, in case he is distracted elsewhere, I might just drop him a line. His experience with all the devices might add even more than what wallcraft already has.

Cheers,
Marc

[HarryT]

Hi Nigel,

As others have said, I now have a Gen3. If you want to share books between two devices, it would be a very good idea to get two devices which can read books in the same format such as, for example, the iLiad and the CyBook Gen3. I've now had my Gen3 for about 10 months (in fact two of them) and am very happy with it.

You're right - the Sony is cheaper. Personally, however, I consider the extra features of the Gen3 (eg dictionary lookup, the ability to load your own fonts, proper support for font families, a user-replaceable battery, etc) to be worth paying the extra for. Others may of course disagree.

[pakiyabhai]

harryt , how about a comparision between illiad and a cybook now ?

[nigeldb]

Marc, Harry, Thanks very much for the info. Time to make a decision so I'll have a chat to Sally.

Thanks for your time.

Nigel.