Sony Touch Vs Kindle

Tizzy Dongue

I am so undecided as to which of these e-readers to buy my hubby for crimbo.

I actually flipped a coin last night and decided on the Sony Touch but kinda need a bit of reassurance.

So can anyone tell me in laymans terms why I should go for one of the other.

At the moment the Sony is winning out due to:

A) The flip of the coin
The ability to "turn" pages like in a real book
C) The price is £219 from WH Smiths with free delivery in the UK (and I have an address to do this to)
D) If there is a problem the UK is not so far to post it too whereas the US is
E) You are not tied to one site for downloading books.


So please, please, please can anyone help me with my dilema.

Thanks for reading and looking forward to any advice I can get.

Also...does anyone know if the power supply has to purchased seperately?

butts

Tizzy, if you are talking about the Sony PRS 600, then its going for €280 in Powercity at the moment, but sometimes drops down to €250 if they are doing 10% off for items bought from their web site:

http://www.powercity.ie/?par=20-12-RS600B

The Sony has the advantage of a touch screen but the Kindle can download books from the Amazon web site wirelessly. If your husband wants to read stuff already downloaded onto his computer such as PDF files then I think the Sony is the way to go.

00sully

I have the earlier sony prs 505 non touch. But I would still rate it over the kindle.

1. not locked down to format (reads pdf, EPUB open format!!)
2. if you are tech minded you can convert books to EPUB format.
3. small, compact with decent contrast

will prob pick up the 600 for a xmas pressie

got well pee'd off when amazon remotely deleted a book from every kindle that BOUGHT it. tut tut tut. certainly wouldn't go down that road. the book was 1984 to boot. oh the ironing is delicious

Patrickof

I have a Sony since last Christmas and love it.

BUT - ebook pricing is all wrong. Far too expensive.

Sony point Irish customers to the waterstones UK site, and for example, just last night Jeremy Clarksons new book is STG£16 but I can walk into any bookstore here and get the physical book for €14.99.

I buy my ebooks through a US website (booksonboard.com) but some titles aren't available (eg the new Hitchhikers Guide) and new releases are still overpriced (new Terry Pratchett is about $24)

Book publishers need to wake up and reflect the significantly reduced costs in their prices if they are to stave off what happened to the music publishing industry.

vespadriver

I am in exactly the same boat. No idea which is better Kindle2 or Sony600?

I like the look of the Kindle but prefer the freedom offered by the Sony.
I prefer the prices on Amozon.

I really don't like the fact the Amazon can delete a book that you have paid for, but I do like the ability to download on the 3G network.

Is it possible to keep a back up of your library locally rather than just in your amazon account?

Then a friend really confused me by saying that apple have something in the pipeline that would encompass i-pod and e-reader in one! Would that be worth holding out for or is that a long way down the road?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Eoin

The screen on the 505 is supposed to be easier to read than the 600 model.

00sully wrote: »

2. if you are tech minded you can convert books to EPUB format.

Or just download Calibre which can convert formats, and act as your library and synch program too.

I posted this in another thread, but for cheaper eBooks try:

www.booksonboards.com - the important thing with this site is to sign up with Google Checkout and to give an American billing address (won't be verified). Then you can download away, and they will assume you're US based.

www.diesel-ebooks.com - you can sign up with a standard Irish address, and you will still be charged the same price in US dollars, the only thing is that some books might not be available in Europe.

vespadriver

00sully wrote: »

got well pee'd off when amazon remotely deleted a book from every kindle that BOUGHT it. tut tut tut. certainly wouldn't go down that road. the book was 1984 to boot. oh the ironing is delicious

Amazon have said that this was a once off issue that will not occur again. In future they have said that they will bear all future costs and not delete from libraries if any legal action were to happen again.

However, I'm still no clearer on which is the better buy.

Has anyone used both?

BaZmO*

vespadriver wrote: »

Then a friend really confused me by saying that apple have something in the pipeline that would encompass i-pod and e-reader in one! Would that be worth holding out for or is that a long way down the road?

There's already a free application that you can get for the iPhone called Stanza that turns your iPhone into an e-reader.

A lot of the classics are available for free through the online shop.

clearz

BaZmO* wrote: »

There's already a free application that you can get for the iPhone called Stanza that turns your iPhone into an e-reader.

A lot of the classics are available for free through the online shop.

I find the iPhone screen just too small to use as an e-reader. In my exipierence with PDF readers the text dosen't wrap to the next line as you zoom in so you can only go so far unless you don't mind scrolling horizontally as you read each line.

BTW if anyone knows of a free PDF reader that wordwraps the lines when you zoom in please let me know.

Komplett: Marc

I believe that since earlier in the week the Kindle 2 does read PDFs and the battery life has been improved by something mad like 85% with a firmware update...

Just thought I'd say it in case it influences your decision. I've been looking at an ebook reader myself

butts

With regard to pdf, I read that the Kindle can't yet zoom in / enlarge pdf files. If that's true, then it is still not a great option for pdf's.

DirectEbooks

In my opinion, the Sony 505 is still the best overall model available. next would be the Sony Pocket Edition as the Sony touch has screen glare and touch sensitivity issues.

butts

The following video is one of the best I've seen for the PRS-600 and shows how it handles PDFs (play it in HD). The issue with regard to the extent of the problem of glare is something that varies alot from person to person:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVEv6AOw3HM