Judith Proctor's Journal

 Remember that free Sony voucher I had the other week?

I got my credit card statement today...  They billed me.

I phoned up and complained.  They said the voucher was only valid for one of five books.  This was not stated on the original email, nor on the page the email too me too, not by the person I queried about the fact that I was taken to the billing page after entering the voucher number.

So I've phoned my credit card company and made a chargeback.  £3.99 may not be a lot of money, but I've had it up to here with Sony.  I wonder how many other people made the same mistake?

 I think the Sony wifi PRS-T1  just won outright.

You can borrow books from your local library on it.  (I just went to my library to check)

The Kindle is incompatible with library books.

I now know what I want for Xmas!

Decision made.

 A lot of very helpful comments are helping me to focus in on what I want.

1.  Touch screen - a definite for me now -  I hadn't realised that you can turn page with a gentle stroke - and that's ideal for me, less difficulty than a button.

2.  Easy way to prop it up - would be very handy - I'm told the case for at least one of the Kindle models folds back like a notebook and means it props itself up.  That could be very handy for me as I can't hold things in my hand for long.  What other models have this?

3.  Font size.  I like being able to adjust font size, mainly in case I have the wrong pair of glasses with me.  (Is it true that you can't adjust the font if  a book has DRM?)

4.  I can see Calibre  as potentially being a very useful tool both for storing ebooks in the cloud and for converting formats.  They also make it easy to find ebooks for sale without DRM

5.  Fictionwise and Baen Books are good places to purchase DRM free books.  Baen have an interesting selection of free books put up by the authors to allow you to try their work.  Project Gutenburg is probably the best place for books that are out of copyright.

6.  MOBI is the format for downloading fan fic.

7.  The big problem.  I currently buy most of my books from Amazon.  It seems to be that you have to pretty much decide to either go the Kindle route and buy DRM-locked from Amazon or go DRM free and be unable to buy from Amazon.  Have I got that correct?  (Or a similar issue with Barnes and Noble)  If I go DRM free, will I be able to get the books I want?  (format conversion seems to be a bit messy where DRM is involved and I'm not geek enough to enjoy the process)  How have people found availability of books they want?

(I think I'd still get my non-fiction in paper form - I like to be able to flick back and forth between sections)

8.  I like multiple bookmarks, to be able to record where I am in each book I'm reading and also to have easy access to the books I'm currently reading (the Kobo has a nice feature of moving whatever book you last opened to the top of the list).  How do different ebooks compare on this front?

How do touch screen ebooks that you own compare with the thoughts above?