decisions, decisions - sony or ?

[HarryT]

Perhaps the confusion arose from the fact that some people misguidedly call the Sony Reader the "eReader"?

Anyway, as others have said, Sony have their own e-Book format, "BBeB". It won't read "eReader" format books.

[basschick]

actually someone called ereader sony's proprietary format... go figure!

anyway, after seeing how many sites both offer free ebooks in mobi format and sell all sorts of books in mobi format, i'm pretty darned impressed with mobipocket. i downloaded it on my pc to see it at work, and the reader is very intuitive and easy to use. on the other hand, if amazon keeps getting more and more books and publishers, kindle may well be - as someone said - the ipod of ebook readers.

[HarryT]

Amazon own MobiPocket, of course, so I think that Mobi have a bright future. They have a world-wide market, compared with the US-only Kindle.

I agree with you about MobiPocket; I decided a while ago to standardise on Mobi-format books myself, which is why I use a CyBook, which can read Mobi books.

[basschick]

which version of cybook do you have?

Originally Posted by HarryT

Amazon own MobiPocket, of course, so I think that Mobi have a bright future. They have a world-wide market, compared with the US-only Kindle.

I agree with you about MobiPocket; I decided a while ago to standardise on Mobi-format books myself, which is why I use a CyBook, which can read Mobi books.

[HarryT]

The CyBook Gen3 - as you can see in my profile info listed to the left of the message .

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by basschick

actually someone called ereader sony's proprietary format... go figure!

anyway, after seeing how many sites both offer free ebooks in mobi format and sell all sorts of books in mobi format, i'm pretty darned impressed with mobipocket. i downloaded it on my pc to see it at work, and the reader is very intuitive and easy to use. on the other hand, if amazon keeps getting more and more books and publishers, kindle may well be - as someone said - the ipod of ebook readers.

Wasi t a post here on Mobileread that called eReader format Sony's format? if so, can you post a link?

One thing we are waiting on for the 505 is the next firmware upgrade which we think ma very well be supporting ePub and have better PDF display. The tools available make it quite easy to convert content for use with the 505. You can purchase some other formats and take them, strip the DRM and convert for the 500/505. The most popular is MS Reader format for stripping DRM and Calibre does a very nice job converting to LRF from MS Reader with lit2lrf.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You can purchase some other formats and take them, strip the DRM and convert for the 500/505. The most popular is MS Reader format for stripping DRM and Calibre does a very nice job converting to LRF from MS Reader with lit2lrf.

In all fairness, however, one must point out that DRM removal is illegal in many countries!

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Text can be read without conversion. HTML and PDF needs to be converted.

HTML seems to work if you just rename it to .txt according to the Kindle forum. No need to convert.

Dale

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Amazon own MobiPocket, of course, so I think that Mobi have a bright future. They have a world-wide market, compared with the US-only Kindle.

So if Amazon expanded the market for the Kindle would that change your view? After all, just because they debuted the Kindle in the US doesn't mean they won't ever release it to other markets.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Alisa

So if Amazon expanded the market for the Kindle would that change your view? After all, just because they debuted the Kindle in the US doesn't mean they won't ever release it to other markets.

I think Amazon needs to do two things.

1. Make the "Kindle" store a standard Mobipocket store where you can input up to 4 mobi device ID's.

2. Make the "Kindle" a standard Mobipocket device which will display it's PID in the about screens which you can use at any Mobi store.

Personally, if they did the above I would still buy from the Kindle store using my Kindle. But, this would open the device up outside the US. They could even sell a radio free version for maybe $50 less.

BOb

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

In all fairness, however, one must point out that DRM removal is illegal in many countries!

This is true.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Alisa

So if Amazon expanded the market for the Kindle would that change your view? After all, just because they debuted the Kindle in the US doesn't mean they won't ever release it to other markets.

That's true, but Mobi is also multi-platform. There's potentially a huge market out there in eBooks for "smartphones", etc, and Mobi reader dominates that market.

[JSWolf]

eReader does a good job on portable devices as well. Just that eReader is formatted in a way that will look awful on anything with a large screen like all the eink devices.

[HarryT]

eReader certainly dominates the Palm market, but I get the impression that that's now rather dying. I'm not sure that they have that much dominance in the Pocket PC field, and they don't (to the best of my knowledge) have any Symbian version at all, and that's the o/s that the majority of mobile phones use.

[basschick]

a perfect solution!

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I think Amazon needs to do two things.

1. Make the "Kindle" store a standard Mobipocket store where you can input up to 4 mobi device ID's.

2. Make the "Kindle" a standard Mobipocket device which will display it's PID in the about screens which you can use at any Mobi store.

Personally, if they did the above I would still buy from the Kindle store using my Kindle. But, this would open the device up outside the US. They could even sell a radio free version for maybe $50 less.

BOb