Your Guide To Books

The eReaders are here to stay. The leading manufacturers producing even more advanced models and the popularity of the concept is on the rise.

With the Amazon Kindle 2 dominating the market and the Sony PRS series ereaders are coming close second, many are emailing me with the question: which one to choose?

There are advantages to each of the models, but there are also differences you should know about that can influence your buying decision.

The Kindle is the reader of choice for many. The wide selection of titles, along with newspapers and magazines, makes it lucrative enough not to consider the alternatives. And I’m not even mentioning the wireless capabilities.

But, one should keep in mind the lack of native PDF support in the Amazon Kindle. With the conversion in between, many academic and business users should think twice before making this purchase.

The reality is that most of the academic materials are available in PDF format. And, the fact is that Kindle’s conversion algorithm often makes documents display in an awkward way, often having alignment problems. The same is applicable to business documents.

The Sony PRS series ereaders, on the other hand, offer a native PDF support, making them a natural choice for those who consume PDF files. Although reviews say that the Sony ereaders are a little more difficult to master and the lack of wireless connectivity makes the experience a bit different than with Amazon’s Kindle.

But, that’s where things line up. Students and business users would have a computer and an internet connection available to them anyway, due to their lifestyle.

So, to summarize:

If you are a heavy news and magazines consumer and like the much easier buying experience the Kindle offers, you should get it. You will enjoy the seconds it takes to deliver the content to your device.

On the other hand, if you know that you will mainly read files in the PDF format, you should go for the Sony PRS series. The native PDF support is so worth it.