[Lysandru]

I am down with you on this one.

I am now debating an e-reader purchase. The two biggest obstacles are: (a) budget when I am burdened with fiscally supporting my mother and brother (b) possible redundancy with the idea of getting a smart phone and/or tablet computer.

[bcsco]

I bought a Sony EReader in January. I love it. I picked it because of price, $99 for the pocket edition, and the fact that it handles the epub format. That’s the fastest growing eReader format. The Kindle and Nook readers have their own format and don’t support that format.

This is important because books purchased have DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. A library such as Calibre can convert one format to another, but not when the file includes DRM. This means, you’ll have to buy books from vendors who support the format for your device, and if you also want to read the book on another device (say a smartphone) for whatever reason, you may not be able to. Epub being the fastest growing file format, you may want to consider devices that are compatible.

I had 6 books I’d purchased for my Palm Pilot from www.eReader.com. EReader.com is part of Barnes & Noble (as is Fictionwise), and they support the pdb file format that the Palm uses. Well, I couldn’t read those books on my Sony (the Palm finally died and that’s why the Sony). It took me 1 1/2 months but I finally got around the DRM issue (yes, there’s a way to do it, but not for the faint of heart or those without PC smarts). I was able to strip the DRM and now can read those books on my Sony. No, I’m not going to market them, just want to read them since I bought them.

Long story short, be knowledgeable about the product before you buy.

[colinhester]

Smart phones/tablets have downloadable ebook readres - both Amazon Kindle and Google Books. I bought a Kindle for Christmas and it has not even been out of the box - use only smart phone.

[OregonRancher]

I bought a Nook, and wish I hadn’t. The price differential
is small with new books, sometimes only a dollar or two. And I DO like the feel of turning pages.

[newzjunkey]

It's best to look at the devices themselves. I found the Sony Reader slow.

I have a friend who swears by his Kindle but then again he'd never consider a tablet device like an iPad since he's anti-Apple.