I don’t know the first thing about ebook readers so I turn to the Teeming Millions for advice. I have a Palm T5 and I need a way to pass the time when I have no WiFi access. I eat through my Avantgo content relatively quickly so I’m looking for something else to read in my downtime. Free is good if it offers the same or similar features as a program that might cost money. Or are these things all about selling books and giving the reader away for free? What features do they typically have? Please enlighten me. If you’d like to recommend sites to buy ebooks as well feel free.
I like eReader and Mobipocket reader. Both have free versions.
I have the paid versions of both readers. I bought the Mobipocket because you can buy French ebooks from them. I was studying French at the time. I bought an ebook version of a French-English dictionary and a French ebook. The Pro version of Mobipocket lets you hilight a word you don’t know, and then select “Translate”. Very cool. I think you can do that with the paid version of the eReader too.
Mobipocket also has a “Publish” feature in its desktop version. I sometimes go to Project Gutenberg and download a public domain ebook in .txt or html format. Mobipocket will put it into a format you can read on the PDA. This only applies if you don’t have a program to read .txt files or html files on your device, which you probably have with a T5. I didn’t have anything like that on my Handspring Visor or my Zire 71.
I buy ebooks at eReader.com and at Fictionwise.
These days, I do almost all my reading on my Palm device. I like to read in bed, and I can turn off the light and read on the Palm screen. When I fall asleep, 2 minutes later the Palm turns off. I’ve done this for a couple of years now, and it works for me. I’ll also read at various other places (hockey games, standing in line at the post office, etc.) It’s nice to be able to carry a bunch of books with you.
Note that some folks like Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross have fairly new books available for free download. Very cool.
I use PalmReader. I download ebooks in .txt format, and use DocInOut to convert them to .pdb. PalmReader does all I want an ebook reader to do quite nicely. I think it’s freeware.
I like C Spot Run It’s free, too. 
How about this ?
It was originally the intent to make it a two-screen ebook reader, emulating real books. Of course, they could never get the price where it needed to be.
If you buy secured ebooks (e.g., from eReader.com), you wouldn’t be able to read them with the reader carnivorousplant uses. But you could probably read any of the multiformat ebooks from Fictionwise with it.
Thanks for the replies folks. I guess I’ll start off with one of the free ones and one of the free books from the authors Archergal mentioned. It appears the difference between the free ereader and the $10 one is color display and reference books? I didn’t dig around a whole lot. I’ll dig more after work today.
Sorry Khadaji, although very cool that item you linked is just way too pricey as you alluded to. Well off to work for me. I’ll see if I can scoop a reader and book before I go. Thanks again!
Keep an eye on Fictionwise too. They periodically have free ebooks/estories available for download. And you just missed eReader’s free ebooks in July promotion. Of course most of them were junk I wouldn’t read unless there was nothing else on the planet available, but I did get a couple that might be worthwhile.
Indeed. I was involved with the company when it was a startup in 2000 (then it was called Everybook.) I told them from the start that I didn’t see anyway they could sell it - it is too costly. But they still hold a firm belief that they will find their nitch and it will take off. That would be cool for me, I own 5% of the company. But I doubt it will ever happen…
I had a great post yesterday, but the hamsters in my computer ate it, apparently… so I’ll just contribute the link to the Baen Free Library. It’s got free ebooks from a number of well known SF/F authors in the Baen stable.
I went with the free version of ereader for now and got the free book “Eastern Standard Tribe” by Cory Doctorow. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to actually read today but so far I quite like having a book on my PDA. Thanks again for all the links and recomendations. I bookmarked your link also lizardling.
Oh cripes, I forgot about the Baen free library! Gut, I liked Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town a little better than Eastern Standard Tribe.
I like plucker.
Memoware has a fantastic library of content in the public domain. You can download Shakespeare, Tennyson, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, H. Rider Haggard, and more to your PDA. And read them! Haven’t you always wanted to read Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey while you were getting your car’s oil changed?
Whee!