I'm thinking of buying the PRS-505, but could still use a little advice.

[Elfwreck]

The tools available to convert to MobiPocket format are, with the greatest respect, just as good as those available to convert to LRF format.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

No, they're not even close, but lets put that aside, since I'm obviously biased

Well, I'm interested, even if you're biased. (Even though I don't think I have anything that reads MobiPocket at the moment--I tried it on my Clie a while back and decided I liked eReader better and I'd just do my own conversions with their markup language.)

And what makes Calibre better than Stanza? (Which, umm. Might be better suited to its own thread, but it came up here.)

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Well, I'm interested, even if you're biased. (Even though I don't think I have anything that reads MobiPocket at the moment--I tried it on my Clie a while back and decided I liked eReader better and I'd just do my own conversions with their markup language.)

And what makes Calibre better than Stanza? (Which, umm. Might be better suited to its own thread, but it came up here.)

The Stanza team itself acknowledges that calibre's conversion to EPUB is better than stanza's. http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/how_to_create_epub

As for mobipocket, try converting the html in http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/downloads/html-demo.zip with mobigen and compare the output to the LRF created by calibre.

[i, Podius]

Originally Posted by JGB

Have you thought about ordering it from Canada?
Not sure if it's possible, but they are less then 320$ here, and our dollar is closer to yours.

I was in the same boat as you, and in the end I went with the Sony.
Originally I bought it because of the price, it was cheaper here, although that doesn't apply for you, and as much as I would like dictionary support, I would buy the sony even if they were the same price now.
four reasons I prefer the sony.

1. BUTTONS. The slow refresh rate means that it takes forever to get anywhere, having tons of buttons speeds up book selection and navigation a large amount.
Especially for early adoption of technology since new tech is usually slow, lots of buttons are good Being able to use either the buttons on the lower left or middle right are nice.

2. Caliber. This is probably the most important part of the sony reader.
absolutely and without question, the sony library was terrible.
The virtually nonstop updates, a clear and efficient interface(even if the really good functions are easy to miss for ages). Oh yeah, and the fact that it is the computer equivalent to a garberator, throw anything in and out it comes nice and ready to read
nothing else will do the job for organizing and converting to one format if you're working with piles of formats and so on from all the free authors around.


3. See #2.


4. The metal chassis, it looks slick and survives well.

That's phenomenally cheap - almost half the price, taking exchange rates into account! Were is that from? All I've been able to find is one on Archambault, which sells it for $390CAD.

I get your point about the buttons, but I have to say, when I used it in the store, I didn't find the navigation problematic at all. It was actually pretty quick, I found - it doesn't do a full page refresh every time you select a different item, so it's pretty much like using a menu on any piece of consumer electronics.

I don't doubt that calibre is awesome, but I find the complete lack of warranty and support Sony will offer me in Australia a bit of a turn-off.

And whilst the metal chassis is pretty appealing, someone pointed out somewhere that lightness is actually a more appealing feature in an e-book reader, given that usually you're holding it up for extended periods of time. It seems pretty reasonable to me. The Sony Reader also doesn't offer some of the features that I find so appealing - dictionary lookup and font sizes, for instance.