As you might have heard, the Kindle DX—just announced yesterday—is Amazon’s large-screen version of their flagship product. ]]> The Internet ate too much Kindle DX yesterday and threw up all over itself; there was instant analysis and little chunks of live-blogging everywhere. Now that things have calmed down a bit, here’s your guide to what everybody’s been saying.

As you might have heard, the Kindle DX—just announced yesterday—is Amazon’s large-screen version of their flagship product. Its specs are very similar to the Kindle 2′s feature set, except that the DX has a 9.7″ screen (instead of 6″) and costs nearly $500.

OK, those aren’t quite the only differences. The DX also sports an iPhone-like auto-rotate feature, which you can see in action in the first of a series of great videos from a MobileRead user. And the official DX page at Amazon crows about native PDF support; however, the new Kindle still doesn’t support any DRM formats other than Kindle proprietary. That means the DX still can’t talk to Adobe Digital Editions and still can’t borrow library ebooks, and all that has an Adobe exec, as TeleRead noticed, siding with Sony.

The bigger fish frying is how Kindle DX will perform as a textbook platform and as a newspaper reader.

As the New York Times reported, Amazon has three academic publishers and six colleges and universities signed on for pilot programs this summer that will test the DX as an etextbook platform. The hardware is unquestionably a step forward for ereaders, and the highlighting feature saves text automatically, and allows users to access it from a PC, which sounds great for students.

But the lack of a touchscreen makes the highlighting process clunky at best (see it for yourself in the second of those MobileRead videos). And the price is high enough to make a lot of people balk (CrunchGear collected some Twittered responses here). Students would presumably be at the head of the balking line, right up there with the most ferocious balkers, balking away.

The battle for student money is being fought between laptop-based etextbooks and dedicated devices like the DX. Laptop textbooks have advantages like lower cost, color display, and better interactivity. Dedicated devices have more readable screens and slightly better form factors.

GalleyCat has a couple of great interviews from both parties: a print discussion with Frank Lyman, who’s a marketeer for a laptop etextbook company; and a video interview with Steven Kessel, an Amazon exec, wherein Kessel tries to convince us that students will spend the money.

Clearly, neither solution is ideal, but I have to side with Lyman. Lit students don’t need the big size (and the accompanying price tag) of the DX, and I can’t feature science students dropping half a K for the privilege of using black and white diagrams. I’m not really sure what subject’s textbooks would benefit from the size and readability but not be hurt by the lack of color. (For the record, I think something like this Chinese Internet tablet has a better feature set for etextbooks.)

On the plus side for Amazon, the DX looks absolutely perfect for newspapers. This device is perfect for simple, black and white content that you don’t need to interact with. Also, magazines and newspapers have always been the Kindle’s strong suit, thanks to its Whispernet and auto-update feature.

The price is still a real issue, though. CrunchGear has a press release stating that a few major newspapers are launching pilots this summer, and plan to introduce DX subsidies for readers who live in non-home-delivery areas. Still, though.

If this thing was $200 instead of $500, and came with a year’s subscription to the NY Times, I think it could be a game-changer. It still might, but the odds are stacked a little against it.

This whole thing is going to be an interesting fight to watch, but a tough one to handicap.

OTHER BITS AND BOBS:

MobileRead reminds you that if you bought a K2 in the past thirty days, you can return it and get a DX.

The Times’ first impressions of the DX.

From DVICE: history of the Kindle; DX impressions by a Kindle vet and a newbie; and a DX/K2 size comparison.

DFrom CrunchGear: more hands-on videos; and predictions of upcoming DX stories.

UPDATE PREFACE: If you’re thinking of getting a Sony Reader, you should know that if you get a lemon, you’re in for a headache. Original review follows.

I’ve had my Sony Reader PRS-700 for two weeks now, and it has essentially fulfilled the expectations I had when I bought it. ]]>

The PRS-700's home screen

UPDATE PREFACE: If you’re thinking of getting a Sony Reader, you should know that if you get a lemon, you’re in for a headache. Original review follows.

I’ve had my Sony Reader PRS-700 for two weeks now, and it has essentially fulfilled the expectations I had when I bought it. It’s not perfect by any means, but for a certain kind of reader, i.e. me, it gets the job done while we wait for the Great eReader Adoption.

So, here’s my experience with and review of the Sony Reader PRS-700.

Physicality — Very Good

The Reader PRS-700 is about the size of a trade paperback. It’s something you can’t quite fit in the back pocket of your jeans, but which will easily fit in the pocket of your coat. It’s constructed of metal, and feels solid in your hand.

The 700 has a touchscreen, which has a bit of flex to it, and you have to press harder than you would on an iPhone. However, it doesn’t scratch easily, in my usage, and I haven’t had a problem with fingerprints or smudges obscuring reading. I haven’t had to clean the screen because I couldn’t see the text I was reading.

The case is disappointing. The outside is nice enough, and snugs up to the Reader itself with small magnets in the corners. The spine of it, though, where it hooks into the Reader, is made of crappy plastic that just bends to unhook the Reader. I haven’t broken it yet, but it’s already distended and it’s only been a few weeks. This is the worst constructed part of the Reader, but not a dealbreaker by any means. (I’ll post again if the thing breaks, and/or I get grief from Sony if I try to get it replaced.)

The frontlight is also quite useful, and not terribly hard on the eyes. It sucks up the juice, though. One full night with the light on, about four hours, would use your whole battery.

Music — Below Average

I didn’t think I’d often use this, but actually it’s quite nice to listen to a little instrumental music while you read sometimes.Unfortunately, it’s not incredibly useful just yet.

The volume doesn’t quite go down as far as it should; in a quiet room, the music is always a little too loud to be true background music.

The functionality, though, works very well. It’s easy to do everything you normally would while music plays. Sorting through your music library is a bit tedious, because of the refresh rate of the E-Ink, and also because each song is listed individually, and there’s no way to use folders to sort.

Wait a few more generations before you expect the music function of ereaders to approach that of dedicated mp3 players.

The good news is that music playing doesn’t drain the battery too quickly. You could probably get 6-8 hours of reading and listening in a charge.

Software — Abysmal

Easily the worst part about the Reader is the eBook Library software it comes bundled with. If you don’t use Windows, you won’t be able to read any books you don’t get DRM-free, and even then eBook Library is awful. I recommend introducing your Reader to Adobe Digital Editions, and then never using eBook Library again.

For more about eBook Library, read this post. For more on how to get ebooks for your Reader without involving Sony, read this one.

Readability, contrast, etc. — Below Average

This is a downside for the PRS-700, and I hope it was a conscious sacrifice. The touchscreen layer reduces the contrast ratio, and is prone to glare. Honestly, it’s not a big deal for me. I generally need to have brighter light than I would with a normal book, but I’ve never found myself unable to read in any conditions but the brightest fluorescents imaginable.

If you think that will be an issue for you, I recommend finding a Sony store and checking out the display in person (I wouldn’t trust any print ad you see of a display; they’re all doctored). The PRS-505 has a significantly better contrast ratio than the 700. Compare them side by side, and if you can’t live with the display of the 700 and you feel like you must take notes and search within books, then you’ll have to get a Kindle or the overpriced iRex iLiad.

If you think you can sacrifice note-taking and word-searching abilities, try the PRS-505, or the BeBook, which are both around $300. Both can read library books (though the BeBook reads Mobipockets).

Interface — Phenomenal

The Reader PRS-700′s touchscreen allows its interface to be intuitive and useful for all kinds of users.

With a combination of the touchscreen and the modest row of buttons across the bottom of the display, you can easily do such things as: page turning (and fast page turning, see 1:25 of this video); finding to a specific page (with both a numeric keypad and a navigation bar); searching inside the book with a touchscreen keyboard; highlighting; bookmarking; and note-taking.

You can change the orientation to read PDFs in landscape instead of portrait (page-turn gestures re-orient and you get a nifty icon that tells you whether you’re in the top or bottom half of the page).

If your PDF is stupid and doesn’t have reflow, you can zoom in and move around it, but this is a pain.

You also need to enter into a note-taking mode to highlight text. This is a little obnoxious, and could be incorporated into the sticky nav-bar at the bottom of the display in future versions.

Overall, though, the touchscreen interface allows you to read and interact with books in a convenient and intuitive way. A better processor and faster E-Ink, and this aspect of the Reader will be perfect.

Content Availability — Above Average

Sony’s eBook Store is awful, overpriced and generally worthless. Stay away from there. But the Reader itself can read secure PDFs, which I generally get from non-Sony ebookstores or the library, and which circumvent Sony’s software and load directly onto the Reader from Adobe Digital Editions.

PDFs are the way to go for now. They’re cheaper than LRFs (Sony’s proprietary format) when you buy them, but you can also find them for free at the library. For me, this is better than Amazon’s slightly cheaper prices coupled with DRM-crippled content, even with the convenience of the whispernet (it’s not free, even if you don’t get a bill).

Price — Below average

eReaders are still an early adopter’s game, and some people will balk at dropping $400 for a model they won’t use forever. If you’re only willing to spend the money on the only ereader you’ll ever need, wait a few more versions.

If, however, you don’t mind spending the money on a great ereader to use for the next two or three years, until that perfect model comes out, then this is the one for you.

Other Features/Random notes

Double-click and drag to select text to search for: nifty, but I haven’t used it very much.

Note mode resizes the text slightly instead of repaginating. A small thing, but a good consideration.

In landscape mode, there’s an icon that shows which half of the page you’re on. Great for medium or small text sizes; gets a bit unreliable at large size or above.

Stylus works well, but I rarely use it. The interface is good enough to use with just your finger.

You can’t charge the Reader and read on it at the same time. It doesn’t come up often for me, and it only needs to charge for a few hours every few days, or even less. Still, I don’t think it needs to be that way.

There’s a feature to organize your books into collections. I guess it might be useful, but the eBook Library is so bad, I’ve never used it.

Conclusion — Best ereader out there

If you have concerns about the screen, go see one in person, it’s a deal-breaker for some. If you see it and can live with it, though, this is the best reader on the market (we’ll see about Kindle 2.0). Openness = goodness, library books = awesomeness, and the interface and physicality of this device are well worth the price tag.

Contrast ratios will get better, and future versions of the Sony Reader might have their own wireless. Processors will also hopefully ramp up, and companies will turn out better eInk screens.What this means is that no device you buy now will be current for more than a few years.

However, I hate the idea of buying an ereader like the Kindle, because of the content I’ll be able to get. Content availability will even out eventually, and even before it does, the library is a phenomenal resource to get great content with no sacrifices (and no money).

At this point, I think potential ereader buyers should decide between the Kindle and the Reader by physical features alone, and in that contest, the Sony Reader wins by a lot.

I’ve since borrowed a Mac to see if I could circumvent the eBook Library system: no such luck.

It was possible to install Digital Editions on the Mac, and downloading library ebooks was ]]> Not long ago, I wrote about OverDrive Media Console for Macs, and how Sony Reader users still couldn’t borrow library ebooks on their Macs.

I’ve since borrowed a Mac to see if I could circumvent the eBook Library system: no such luck.

It was possible to install Digital Editions on the Mac, and downloading library ebooks was easy. The trouble came when I plugged in my Reader: Adobe simply couldn’t recognize it. I guess Digital Editions needs eBook Library to introduce the Reader to it, and eBook Library won’t work on Macs.

Yet another shame, and another thing that will have to change before the Great eReader Adoption can begin. Mobipocket ereaders like the BeBook work fine on Macs, and you can still get almost all the same library books in Mobi as you can in PDF. Just don’t buy a Sony.

The good news is that Calibre works on Macs, and talks to the Reader with no trouble. You can even transfer the (non-DRM) books already on your Reader onto different hard drives with Calibre. So you can at least use non-DRM ebooks with the Reader on a Mac. Small consolation.

The Mac Console isn’t new, it’s been around for three months or so, but it does mark a step toward Mac users being able ]]> I found out about a new OverDrive Media Console for Macs over the weekend. Overdrive makes the architecture for libraries that allows patrons to check out digital content, including ebooks and audiobooks.

The Mac Console isn’t new, it’s been around for three months or so, but it does mark a step toward Mac users being able to get the same econtent from public libraries that Windows users can now.

It looks like Macheads can also check out ebooks, but can’t yet transfer them to an ereader. That’s because the Sony Reader isn’t compatible with Macs, and it’s the only device compatible with Adobe Digital Editions, which manages the DRM for OverDrive ebooks. (This boggles my mind on behalf of both Kindle users and Macheads.)

However, it might not be true. Adobe says on their website that you must have the most current eBook Library software installed in order to use Digital Editions, but the two programs work independently of each other, and eBook Library is the only one that won’t work on a Mac.

I wrote a post a little while ago taking ereader producers to task for sacrificing the functionality of their devices to (try to) make more money. This smacks more of incompetence on Sony’s part than intercorporation stonewalling, but it’s equally as ridiculous.

Anyway, I’ll see if I can get a library book on my Reader from a Mac, and I’ll put the results in a new post.

Like a brick of lavender vomit

eBook Library is not just the clunkiest, ugliest, and worst ereader management software I’ve used, it’s the worst that I can imagine. eBook Library came bundled with my PRS-700; it’s Sony’s standard ereader software, and also the primary link to Sony’s eBook ]]>

Like a brick of lavender vomit

eBook Library is not just the clunkiest, ugliest, and worst ereader management software I’ve used, it’s the worst that I can imagine. eBook Library came bundled with my PRS-700; it’s Sony’s standard ereader software, and also the primary link to Sony’s eBook Store, which also sucks.

What follows is not for the weak of heart. It’s a tale of woe, and there is much gnashing of teeth. (And I’m a Reader fan.) But if you’d like to hear about a software catastrophe of historic proportions, come along.

Out of the box: The nightmare begins

From the start, eBook Library is bad. Often, “the user interface appears to freeze,” as an actual email from Sony Support reads. There’s no status bar for working jobs, it often just stops reacting to you while it does whatever it’s doing. Not good.

Granted, I am using Windows 7, and I had to troubleshoot the compatibility to get the program to even run. So maybe that’s one of my problems. However, Calibre and Adobe Digital Editions both work perfectly.

The eBook Store, where you actually buy books from Sony, looks like it was designed by somebody who’s heard descriptions of Apple’s iTunes Store, but never actually used it. Browsing is a chore, and the Categories are annoying to figure out. If you want to cash in on the 100 free classics they advertise, you have to go to a specific section to find the books that qualify. I accidentally got a non-classic copy of some Percy Shelley poems, and they charged me, so clearly their organizing system is beyond the ken of mere mortals.

Plus the whole interface is very, very ugly.

Actually buying books: I still get chills

The real trouble began when I actually bought books from the store. I bought 2, and got another 25 or so free classics. While I was syncing my Reader, trying to get these new books on it, the software froze and refused to cooperate. It wouldn’t talk to the Reader anymore, and wouldn’t even work without the Reader plugged in.

I contacted Sony Support, and they sent me a list of things to do. Eventually I had to wipe my Reader’s hard drive, reinstall its drivers, and uninstall and reinstall the Library software. Then, with another workaround to get the books I’d paid for, I managed to get the DRM content on my Reader.

I sent Sony Support another email, saying the program still wouldn’t work, and thanks, but I wouldn’t be using it anymore. They wrote back saying I should call in. I didn’t; it seemed like an awful lot of trouble just to be allowed to pay them more money for their books.

Essentially, what seems to happen is that Sony’s own DRM bogs down their own software to such an extent that it becomes unusable. Maybe I’m wrong about this, maybe it’s my Windows 7. I doubt it. In any case, there’s good news.

Calibre: Thank the merciful gods

Calibre is a free, open-source ereader manager that works on Linux and OSX, as well as Windows (and Windows 7). It works quickly, and very well. It talks to my Reader, and the SD card in it, and lets me edit the titles and authors of books I get, which I could never do in eBook Library. Sometimes the metadata in files gets confused, such as if you save a .txt file from Project Gutenberg as an .rtf, and your own name becomes the “Author”; it’s nice to be able to fix that (listening Sony? Probably not).

The downside is that Calibre only works, I believe, with non-DRM files, which means you can’t buy ebooks from most stores. I haven’t yet solved the problem of how to buy DRMed ebooks and load them on the Reader, so I’m just not buying DRMed ebooks. I guess it’s kind of a workaround. [UPDATE: You can also buy DRM PDFs from stores such as Fictionwise and A1 Books, and transfer them to your Reader with Adobe Digital Editions. Check this post for more on getting book for your Reader without using Sony eBook Library.]

Adobe Digital Editions: This is how you do DRM

I believe this is Windows-only, but [UPDATE: Adobe DE works with Macs, too, but it has to talk to Sony's eBook Library software before you can transfer DRM PDFs to your Reader, and eBook Library doesn't work on Macs.] Adobe DE handles PDF DRM like a dream, so I at least have the option to buy DRM PDFs. It also lets you check out PDF ebooks from certain public libraries, which is phenomenal. I haven’t had my Reader for long, but I’ve been able to find plenty of reading material at the Seattle Public Library’s online collection.

Or don’t use anything

You can also just drag and drop files onto your Reader or SD card (non-DRM, I believe), and the Reader will find them on its own.

The whole thing mystifies me, honestly. It’s as if Sony set out to make its Library software both useless and redundant, so that the easiest course of action is to simply not use it. The whole project reeks of half-assing, which is not a good smell. It feels overwhelmingly like Sony doesn’t care about their customers after they buy the Reader. Which is fine; all in all, I still think the Reader is worth the money on its own.

Soon, I hope, more publishers will sell more ebooks in more places without DRM. Until that happens, I’m going to the real elibrary, or, failing that, I’ll get the hard copy before I go back to Sony’s eBook Store.

The good news is that the firmware on the Reader works well, and you can cut the software out of the loop with no downside. Even knowing about all the trouble with Sony’s eBook Store, I’d take a Reader over a Kindle without a second thought.

Full review of the PRS-700 here. Also, you should know that if you buy a Sony Reader and get a lemon, you're in for a headache. There are pictures of ]]> [UPDATES: Check out our ereader comparison for links to more resources, and summaries ofall major available ereaders.

Full review of the PRS-700 here. Also, you should know that if you buy a Sony Reader and get a lemon, you're in for a headache. There are pictures of the 700's screen vs. the 505's screen at MobileRead; it's a dramatic difference. I currently read on a 505 and I've been quite happy with it. Plus the screen hasn't broken (probably helped by not being a touchscreen). The 505 is also the cheapest quality ereader for $270 on Amazon. [REUPDATE: The PRS-300 is now available for even less than the 505. There are also a few other options out there for around $200. Check our ereader comparison for quick summaries of the available ereaders out there.]

Despite the “advancements” made in Kindle 2, it’s essentially the same device. In retrospect, I wouldn’t buy another PRS-700, but I would absolutely recommend a PRS-505.

For potential Kindle customers: think twice before buying one, unless you read newspapers and magazines almost exclusively. Original article continues from here.]

I was in the market for an ereader for about a month. At first I was seduced by the Kindle’s wireless everywhere feature, and the fact that the Kindle store on Amazon has more ebooks than anywhere else, and almost always the cheapest books, too.

The Amazon Kindle

After a few weeks of research, though, I chose the Reader, the PRS-700. I’ve had it for about a

The Sony Reader PRS-700

week now, and I haven’t looked back. I’m not going to get too exhaustively into the features of both readers in this post, you can find such things here, and here, and here. And I’ll be doing a complete review of my experience with the Reader in a future post.

So here I’m focusing on the criteria I used to decide on the Reader, including the best feature of all, which Sony seems determined to hide.

Availability– Advantage: Reader

It’s no secret that the Kindle’s been sold out for weeks, and that this isn’t the only time they’ve sold out. I don’t know how they’ve screwed up production so badly, and so repeatedly, but there’s nothing that tells me they’ll figure it out when Kindle 2.0 comes out.

Holy crap, it's a place with things in it: Sony 2; Amazon 0

When I decided I wanted a Sony Reader, I was able to walk into a brick and mortar store, check out the much-disparaged screen that was my last reservation, and, more importantly, buy one from a big stack they had already produced, and walk home with it that day. I have no problem waiting a few days for shipping, but waiting two months for what appears to be just a production charlie-foxtrot… I don’t think so.

Content management– Advantage: Reader

The PRS-700′s touchscreen puts its content management far ahead of the Kindle. You don’t have the big page turn buttons people complain about. You don’t have to match up side buttons to options like you’re at an ATM. And you don’t have a big physical keyboard taking up space, but you can still search, bookmark, and everything else.

Touchscreen page turning is also a great feature, and you can fast-scroll through pages, (watch this video for a demo, start at about 1:20 for fast page turn).

More on these features in my full review of the Reader, for now, suffice to say: once you have books on your Reader, you can work with them more easily and dynamically than with physical buttons and a keyboard.

Price– Edge: Kindle

The Kindle is $40 cheaper than the PRS-700, and $60 more than the PRS-505 without the touchscreen, which I wouldn’t use because you can’t search inside books. If the Kindle 2.0 sells for less than $300, that’s a real advantage, but then I’d look for Sony to drop its prices.

Kindle has a slight edge in this category, but not yet what I’d call an advantage.

Physicality– Draw

This is, somewhat surprisingly, the first search result for "ugly brick," not the Kindle, as you would think

The biggest drawback to the Reader, by far, is its contrast ratio. If you have bad vision, this might be a real concern. For me, it wasn’t a problem. You need a bit more light than a real book, but that’s about all. There’s also a lot of kerfuffle about the glare; this also hasn’t been an issue for me, though I ordered an anti-glare screen (which turned out to be a disappointment. So these are Kindle advantages.

But the Reader has a better design, it’s prettier, only as big as it needs to be, and doesn’t have a ton of physical buttons. Also, at virtually the same weight as Kindle, the Reader feels substantial without being heavy.

The Reader also has a built-in light, and I’ll trade that and the touchscreen for the reduced contrast ratio and glare.

Kindle 2.0 might change some of this, but from the leaked pictures, it still doesn’t have a touchscreen and is still as ugly as ever.

Content Delivery– Advantage: Kindle

The EVDO delivery system is slick, it’s the first thing that got me interested in the Kindle. Also, the eBook Library software that comes with the Reader is god-awful. Really, really bad No question that it’s easier and cheaper to get proprietary-format books on the Kindle–books that you can’t use with any other device–and, despite that I hate all things proprietary, this almost had waiting for one, except for the catches that come with it:

DRM and Readable Formats– Advantage: Reader

You have to pay for everything you download on Kindle’s whispernet, even free blogs, so it’s not really free wireless. And all the content that comes from Amazon is chock full of DRM (digital rights management, the same embedded software that iTunes recently stopped using after years of complaints), which is a bit ludicrous after the lessons learned by the recording industry. You also have to pay to translate PDFs and docs into Amazon’s proprietary format. That’s annoying not so much for the 10-cent fee per document, but for backing up; presumably you have to back up the original copy, and the Kindle proprietary.

Hopefully the Kindle 2.0 will have PDF support, and won’t make you translate everything. Right now, reading PDFs on the Reader is a pleasure, with reflow and resizing, it’s my favorite way to read books. Also, hopefully publishers will sooner or later read a blog and realize that DRM is bad, people don’t like it, and it costs companies money, it doesn’t save them money. (Much more on that in future posts.)

Frankly, I don’t care about wireless everywhere if it lashes me so tightly to a system of proprietary DRM, and doesn’t offer any free content whatsoever.

“But wait!” you say. “Sony’s ebook store is smaller, more expensive and still DRMed.” That’s very true, and even though there will inevitably be an evening out of ebook inventory (not to mention a reduction in prices), this too almost made me wait for the Kindle. Except for one last thing.

Library eBooks– Big Advantage: Reader

Here’s the thing that finally got me on the Reader wagon: you can check out library ebooks on it. It takes a small bit of doing, and I think you have to have Windows, but that’s an enormous advantage. So big that I don’t know why it’s not in every ad that Sony prints for the Reader (both of them).

This is still in the initial phases; I had to use an old card for the Seattle Public Library to do it and they only have one copy of most ebooks (check out their ecollection). It looks like you can buy a non-resident card to the Ottawa Library, if your local library doesn’t do this yet. You’ve also got to get Adobe Digital Editions, and the ebooks you check out are DRMed (and expire in three weeks), but who cares, they’re free.

I’ve found about 50-75% of the books I want at the library. Soon, I imagine most, if not all, will be available, just like at the brick and mortar library. I can’t say enough about this feature, it’s happening and Amazon is missing the boat. With the current state of buying ebooks as abysmal as it is, paying for books is currently my last resort.

The Seattle Public Library also has Mobipocket versions, which Kindle might play, but it looks like Kindle only plays unDRMed Mobipockets. (If you make a library ebook work on a Kindle, let me know.)

Conclusion: Reader Wins, and It’s Not Close

There are clear problems to fix with the Reader: contrast, ebook store selection, ebook store software etc. In the future, ereaders will have perfect contrast ratios, but they’ll also damn sure have touchscreens. Sooner or later, all online stores will have the same selection at around the same price, and eventually they’ll all be DRM-free.

Subsequent versions of the Sony Reader might have wireless everywhere, but until it can provide access to non-DRM books and magazines from different stores, I’m not going to go out of my way to get a device with it.

Ultimately, it’s a compromise to get good, cheap content on either. As long as I’m compromising on content acquisition, I’d rather have the ereader with the much, much better content management system.