1) Kindle is ready out-of-the-box. Wifey punched in her amazon account info and that was that. The Sony Reader requires a software installation and about an hours worth (plus or minus depending on computer savvy, of course) of configuring before it is in a usable state.[/quote]
An hour is a major exagerration. If you already have Java on your PC, it takes 10 minutes to install software and set up an account
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One other detail that doesn’t get much attention is that the Kindle 2 reads just about any format you can throw at it, and the ones it doesn’t read by default, Amazon has a free, automated system setup that will convert them for you via e-mail. Txt, pdf, whatever, and it doesn’t care what the source is. It behaves like a thumb drive: plug it in, copy the file, and then start reading. I can’t speak for the Sony Reader in that regard, but format compatibility was my main requirement before I’d consider reaching for my wallet.[/quote]
There’s a big caveat. Kindle and Sony Reader read txt and pdf natively. But pdf’s are normally formatted for 8×11 inch paper and they are virtually unreadable on a 3.5″x5″ screen. Built-in zoom does not help much. Especially true for double-column pdf’s. For Sony, there are third-party freeware programs that allow you to convert pdf’s into readable form, by removing margins, cutting pages in an appropriate way, and adjusting fonts.
