So, as I slowly move forward towards my goal of being completely electronic I start to look at the readers that are currently available. A few things I just can’t seem to find out are keeping me from picking one over the other. The big one is, we as a family read a lot. So, currently I have hundreds and hundreds of books. Add to that we also read a lot of the same books, which is good, since we get more for the dollar when everyone reads it. So that begs the question, what now when I go to an eReader format. Can I share that book with another one of my family? Do they get their own user name on the reader? What if I have a couple readers, can we send the books back and forth between us? I mean, it’s not like I buy 4 copies of a book now so everyone in the house can read it!

Kindle: The really big plus to it is of course the wireless connection, that you can download a book on the fly. I have to admit, that is handy, but then, I honestly don’t know how often I would do that. I tend to be one of those people who likes to grab whole series of books, so odds are I would just buy them all at once and put them all on the reader. However, I do like reading the paper and my rss feeds, and updating those on the fly would be a lot more convenient. My biggest problem at this point with the kindle is that reading things like PDF’s is not such an easy task. From what I have read, you can do it, but you have to convert the file. Can’t say I really like that idea. However, with the new Kindle arriving someday (hopefully soon) will that be fixed?!

Sony PRS-700BC - The new Sony reader. Looks nice, I like the overall look way better. Sadly since I was never able to hold a Kindle I can’t compare that, but I do like the size and feel of the Sony (at least the older version). The new Sony has backlight, since I do a lot of reading in bed, late at night while the rest of the house is sound asleep, that seems very useful. I have seen images of the LED’s on, not the smoothest effect, but hey, better than nothing at all.

Sony is able to read a lot of various formats, which again, is something I think is really excellent.

Ok, so where does that leave me, no doubt the Kindle has the larger selection of books available, I mean its Amazon, they are book central! But how long will that last, Amazon sells the Sony readers, maybe they will sell the books for it as well? Or can you do that already.. I really need someone to do a write up with a lot more detail then I have been able to find so far.

Anyway, there you have it, my confusion into the world of readers. If you have any words of wisdom, feel free to comment