e-book readers any advice.

I am thinking of getting an ebook reader, anyone had any experience? Got any recommendations?

Bought the wife a Sony one, she is really happy with it, but no doubt someone will come along and say something else is better!

Make sure it's got the widest source of books you can get. A real problem with ebooks is that many authors books are scattered around various publishers with different regional availability, and some ebook readers will only work through certain online stores, though that may be changing. I use my iPhone for reading ebooks, and I use Stanza and Kindle apps, because often I'll try to get hold of books on Stanza only to be told my credit card address is geographically unacceptable: I'm in England, and publishers through Stanza are really hard on that issue. I've also found books scattered around from on writer, I bought most of William Gibson's books via Stanza, except for one, which I eventually found on Kindle, and the final one I can only find as a pdf file. Kathy Reich's Tempé Brennan books are restricted geographically via Stanza, but three can be bought through Kindle. I've even bought the first book in a couple of series, only to be refused the following stories. It's a real mare's nest, but possibly Apple's iBooks store might shake
some sense into the publishing business regarding international availability.

I've had a kindle and a Nook, which are both ok but sooo slooow at doing anything except reading a book. i.e. the navigation menus are laggy and trying to play music or whatever the other functions are is virtually impossible. I spent my whole time being frustrated at how long they took to load books and refresh menus.

If you take the plunge then prepare to be frustrated. I'm going to wait a year or so until the tech catches up and the ebooks get faster at stuff.

Arse, this is not encouraging, can any of the above read pdf's? or DJVU?

Wait to see what happens with iPad 🙂

I like the idea of an e-book reader for travel – no more stacks of books in my holiday luggage!!

Judging by the responses above it looks like the current e-book makers are leaving the door wide open for Apple to steam through!!!

im with Dr J-was v excited when e book readers came out but biding my time for when they get super small, flexible and cheap(er)

They need to be more open, I'm not bloody buying one that only takes books from one shop, how effing crap is that. Rant..

I'm sort of in the business (work for a publisher, have played with Kindle and iPad, read books on a Sony). The Sony can view PDFs (but I'm not sure you'd want to, unless the PDF is designed for a very small screen, and is black and white – e-Ink screen *very* slow for greyscale images), not sure about the Kindle.

If you have to buy one right now, I'd say Sony Reader rather than Kindle – now that Apple have adopted it for the iPad, it feels like ePub is going to become the 'standard' format, rather than Amazon's proprietary whatever it's called format. I think go for the touch screen one – any e-book reader that doesn't have a touch screen is going look so backward at the end of this month when Apple launch the iPad, and the ergonomics on the Sony with buttons and the Kindle leave a lot to be desired.

It may also be the case that any e-book reader that has an e-Ink screen (Sony, Kindle) is also going to look very slow and backward after the fast, very high res and full colour iPad – even though it makes the batteries last forever, I wouldn't want shares in e-Ink screen tech right now.

Or wait until the iPad is out, and then look for one of the older models on eBay (right now eBay prices are implausibly high, but iPad may change that).

Yeah I dont need to buy one right now.. I shall wait I think.