Kindle or Sony Reader - International Edition

July 6, 2009 12:16 PM

I am looking to buy an e-reader, most likely Kindle 2 (or DX) or Sony Reader PRS-700. I live in Puerto Rico and was interested in international access.

I've researched this a fair bit already. So I'll post what I know to prevent you from having to spell out those parts.

For the Kindle, Amazon doesn't ship to Puerto Rico, so I would have to get it re-shipped from somewhere in the states. The synching to Amazon does include Puerto Rico. Amazon doesn't allow electronic purchase of books to a Puerto Rican credit card, however, I can buy a gift card, give it to myself and purchase books that way.

Sony Reader does ship to Puerto Rico, but Sony ebook store doesn't serve Puerto Rico. I'm not sure whether I can use gift cards to get around this or whether someone else has experience with foreign purchases from Sony ebooks. I can purchase books for the Sony from other sites, although the Sony store has hundreds of thousands of book choices versus the others with tens of thousands. Of course there are pdf's and free matter available elsewhere as the Sony device isn't tied into a single site (Amazon). I like the look of the Sony Reader PRS-700, the notion of touch-screen highlighting and bookmarking sounds great but I have a bit of concern about the reflective glare. I'm not concerned about the smaller memory, I have some old flash cards that I could plug in to extend it.

I plan to use the device for leisure reading, maybe downloading newspapers, for occasional research related reading, and if it supports foreign characters (Spanish), that would be a big plus.

So, the questions would be. Does anyone have experience with getting books outside the US with the Sony Reader? Is the glare a significant problem? Is there a price difference in the cost of books between the Kindle and Sony Reader? Are there other considerations I should factor in?

posted by dances_with_sneetches to Technology (6 answers total)

Best answer: You may want to check out MobileRead.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 1:49 PM on July 6, 2009

Best answer: If I were you I would go with the Kindle DX in a heartbeat. I have a Kindle 1 and a Kindle DX and I think they are great devices. The DX also has native support of pdfs and does a really great job of it -- I read a lot of scientific papers and they display really well on the Kindle, including all the graphs and figures (though of course only in black and white). They have an automatic rotate to landscape mode as well that allows you to zoom in on figures really easily.
For general reading for pleasure, it is hard to beat Amazon's selection. More and more books are added every day and I find most everything I want to read in the way of popular fiction. If you don't want to buy books from Amazon, that's fine too. The Kindle is not tied into a single site and can do pretty much everything the Sony Reader can (that is, read documents, pdfs, text files, mobi/prc files). The DRM is an issue of course, but it's not as though the books you are going to download from Sony's store are DRM free. And contrary to what you seem to imply here it is perfectly possible to load standard DRM-free formats onto the Kindle.
There really is no reason to go for the Sony Reader over the Kindle except for the price differential for the device or if you are concerned about wireless strength (even then, I would still argue in favor of the Kindle, since you could always mail the books to yourself and then upload via the USB cable). You will love the wireless access to the Kindle store and the unlimited free (but basic) internet that is included in the purchase price (that is you do not have to pay a monthly fee of any sort).
Most Kindle books are priced at around $9.99, though some books are much more expensive and some only cost a few pennies (most of these are out of copyright books that you could get for free on Project Gutenberg or manybooks.net, so be wary). There are often deals on Kindle books such as a huge Cook's Illustrated compilation of recipes that was offered free for a limited time.
posted by peacheater at 1:56 PM on July 6, 2009

Response by poster: I've been playing around with titles on Amazon and Sonybooks. The titles are kind of random although some have to do with personal interest.

Presumed Guilty
Kindle (Amazon): 9.99
Sonystore: $11.17

Katzung Pharmacology
Kindle (Amazon): 51.96
Sonystore: not available.


Beloved
Kindle (Amazon): 9.99
Sonystore: $13.46

Phenomenology of Perception
Kindle (Amazon): 14.37
Sonystore: $21.95

NYT
Kindle (Amazon): $14.00
Sonystore: not available

Savage Night, Jim Thompson
Kindle (Amazon): $7.19
Sonystore: $8.09

Devil's Knot
Kindle (Amazon): 9.99
Sonystore: $10.50

That really adds up in terms of price.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:01 PM on July 6, 2009

I've got a PRS700 in Australia, intended for bed-time reading. It's bad - the sreen glare and light are LAME, the page-turn controls are badly thought-out, and it's made of cold metal. The zoom controls are useless. For that reason alone, if I was going to buy again, I would try a Kindle DX or iLiad. Or even a 505 Sony, as it doesn't have the main 700 problems.
posted by cogat at 4:50 PM on July 6, 2009

Response by poster: I guess I'm going with the Kindle DX. The additional concerns about the glare, the cost of books and lesser availability, and the additional real estate in the DX made the decision for me. Nice thing is, with a 3 to 5 week waiting list, I can still change my mind.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:05 AM on July 7, 2009

I'm leaning towards a Kindle for myself. A colleague of mine has the Sony PRS-505 and loves it, nice form factor. He says not to get the PRS-700 for precisely the reason stated above with glare and less clarity of the fonts.
posted by arcticseal at 12:04 PM on July 7, 2009