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By Lance, February 6, 2011

I am going to purchase either a Kindle from Amazon, or a Sony eReader. Which do you recommend, and why?

I know the Kindle has the wireless download, and more memory. The price is pretty similar, except I can purchase the eReader here in town, which means no shipping charge. Other than that, what are some of the differences, and which would you recommend?

I’m a Kindle 2 owner. I’ll say you should definitely go for the Amazon Kindle as it has so much benefits over the Sony Reader. Here is a comparison of it with the latest model of the Sony Reader (the previous model PRS-505 is pretty similar to this latest model, just that it doesn’t have touch screen):

http://www.speedreaderxreview.com/kindle-2-0-vs-sony-reader-prs-700bc-comparison

Other than free wireless access, the advantages of the Kindle over Sony Reader are more content support and the text-to-speech function. Content support is the most important, most of the books sold for the Kindle are under $10 and there is a much wider selection, while most of the books for the Sony Reader are above $10. In long term, there can be hundreds of dollars difference as you buy more and more books.

Another key factor is that Amazon is a very strong provider for the Kindle. It is now providing over 320,000 books, and the number of books is kept on increasing (I remember there were only 270,000 Kindle books when I bought my Kindle a few months ago). On the other hand, I’ve heard that many owners of the Sony Reader find difficult in finding books they want, as there are less books available for it…

I like the text-to-speech function of the Kindle too, because I can “read” books without even holding or looking at the Kindle. Now I like to use this function when I’ve myself busy on some boring things, say when I’m on the step machine or doing some housework…

So these are my opinions. And I remember I read this review when I decide to buy the Kindle 2:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Freview%2FR2DUM7S4XW06QN%3Fie%3DUTF8%26ASIN%3DB00154JDAI%26nodeID%3D%26ref%255F%3Dcm%255Fcr%255Fpr%255Fcmt&tag=moreinfo-po-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957

Hope it helps

What is the Kindle? What does it do?