Readers Preference Reviews

Some day soon we may reach the point where we have the ability to download and read books complete with illustrations, tables, the ability to mark up the text or any manner of other things just like we do with regular books.  But the difference will be the ability to have several hundred or even several thousand books on a small tablet not much larger than a regular novel is today.  Although we are moving in that direction, we are definitely not there yet... at least not for the majority of us.

While there are at least a dozen competing pieces of hardware for this market there are only two real contenders in the U.S. market - the Sony eReader and the Amazon Kindle.  For the others there are various problems with lack of support, lack of marketing channels, lack of books available in a proprietary format, or any host of other problems.  After examining several that I was either able to obtain or supplied by readers of the Readers Preference Reviews site all were eliminated as viable options except for the Sony and Kindle.  Note that I was unable to test the iRex iLiad or the Hanlin as they did not supply a test unit and noone among our readers actually possessed one.  At nearly four times the street price for the Sony eReader it is easy to understand why the iLiad is not particularly popular.  Although it seems to possess some features not found in other readers they are also not particularly important features to most readers.

The Sony and Amazon eBook readers have come a long way and are continuing to evolve.  Many things are so similar that they are not relevant issues in deciding which one is your best choice.  Both use the same display technology, both support additional memory, both have significantly improved their page turn slowness problems, both are easy to read even in bright sunlight, and both have similar battery life.

Differences include the ability of the Kindle to connect directly to the Internet using EVDO to browse and download books directly to the device.  The Sony has a sturdier feel as a much superior ergonomic design for the average person.  The buttons are well placed and convenient without being in the way for normal use.  With the Kindle it is easy to accidently change pages and the additional buttons added to allow Internet browsing are generally in the way no matter what you are doing.  So while adding a function that some will find convenient on occassion it adds an inconvenience all the time.  Of course the formats supported directly by each of the readers is different since each prefers their own proprietary format.  However, Sony directly supports BBeB eBook format, PDF, RTF, and TXT.  It also directly converts Word documents to RTF during the transfer process to the device.  Kindle only supports formats other than their proprietary one via an email interface.  You email the document to them, they convert it and email it back.  

At this point in time either will be a good solution for reading a basic fiction novel.  Just words and chapters with no index, footnotes, or other formatting works great on both.  However, when it comes to non-fiction it is a very different story.  In the final analysis the Kindle may be the better choice for many readers who read purely fiction and can't contain their need to immediately purchase and download a new book.  With the Wi-Fi support (actually EVDO) you can purchase and download a book anywhere Sprint has good cell phone reception. With the Sony you have to download the book to a computer and then transfer it to the eReader.

On the other hand, when it comes to non-fiction books Sony is the clear winner.  The pdf support with the Kindle is generally not only annoying but also inadequate.  Although you send the file to them and they return it in the correct format for the Kindle it often has formatting problems.  On the other hand the Sony directly supports pdf files.  But that has its problems too.  Unless they have been created in a manner that allows the reformatting of text flow they generally end up with text that is so small that it is almost impossible to read.  But the formatting is perfect.  On the other hand, you can use free software like Calibre that allows you to convert the pdf file to Sony's format and it does an excellent job except when there are graphs or charts or illustrations.  Sometimes it worked well and sometimes it did not.  But it did end up in a format that you can enlarge and read easier.   

Newer is not always better.  The Sony PR-700 touch screen is nice but gave me eye-fatigue much quicker than normal reading.  The screen is not as bright as the 505 and I preferred the 505 over the new and improved 700 for that reason.  The 700 has a few features I would like but when the primary purpose is to read books and it creates more eye fatigue that pretty well ended it as a consideration for me.

Kindle does have one feature that I wish Sony had and that is the ability to do a word search through a book and produce an index of the finds.  This would be so nice to have with a non-fiction book when you are looking for specific information.  On the other hand, Kindle does this because it has that awkward keyboard interface and I don't know that I would be willing to put up with that just to have word search ability.  So, for now I keep a copy of all the books on my laptop also (a great backup) so I can read and search through them if I actually need to do research - which is more appropriately done on the computer anyway.

One of Amazon's most prolific arguments for why the Kindle is better is the huge supply of available books.  While this is true, the comparison is always between Amazon's book choices and Sony's.  For me I have purchased very little from either.  When it comes to non-fiction books almost all publishers have the ability to purchase directly from their website in Kindle, Sony, and PDF formats.  So, the books I want are always available and whether Sony has them or not is not an issue.  Again, if you spend almost all of your time with fiction titles Kindle may be preferable to you because many of the fiction publishers do not have direct purchase from their websites but depend on retail outlets.

The bottom line is most people who spend most of their time with works of fiction (read this as romance novels and similar tomes) will generally prefer the Kindle.  People who read the classics, non-fiction, and higher quality fiction works will generally prefer the flexibility and quality of the Sony.  That being said, the industry still has a long way to go in terms of non-fiction books and many may want to wait to see what happens in the next iteration.