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Here is a brief overview of the ebook readers, formatting, and helpful tips to help you with your eBook experience. There are a ton of readers out there for you to use. This list is not complete because things change. If you know of an ebook reader that we do not have listed here, please let us know so we can update our list. Thank you!

Click on one of the selections below or cruise through this page which is filled with some great information.

EBM-901  by Franklin Electronic Publishers: $109

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6.5 oz. 5.17" x 3.39" x 0.67" 16-level grayscale display and high-resolution touch screen with enhanced polarizers 

Manufacturer's Home Page 

Manufacturer's Information Page

Palm TX  $299

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5.25 ounces

3.08" W x 4.76" H x .61" D

320 x 480 transflective TFT touchscreen display with Support for over 65,000 colors, and landscape and portrait orientation modes

Manufacturer's Information Page

Manufacturer's Home Page 

EBookWise 1150  $124.95

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18 ounces 5" x 7.5" x 1.5" Back-lit 5.5" diagonal 4-bit grayscale LCD touch screen; half-VGA resolution

Manufacturer's Home Page 

Manufacturer's Information Page

Amazon.com   $399

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10.3 ounces 7.5" x 5.3" x 0.7" 6" diagonal electronic paper  

The Kindle is a proprietary e-book reader and web browser, all in one. For complete details, go to Amazon.com and click on the Kindle link.   The Kindle uses a wireless infrastructure (Sprint network) to access Amazon’s web site where you can download digital books, magazines, and newspapers. You can also listen to MP3 files and audio books on the Kindle. You don’t need a WiFi account with any carrier to use a Kindle. The network comes with the device.

If you have a MobiPocket (.prc) document: Plug your Kindle into your computer with the provided USB cable. Copy the .prc file to the /documents directory on the Kindle device. (When the Kindle is connected to your computer via the USB cable, it shows up in Windows Explorer. Just drag and drop the files into the Book folder of the Kindle.) 

If you have an HTML document: Each Kindle has a unique email (established when you bought the device). Email the HTML as an attachment to your Kindle email. The HTML is converted to Kindle format and appears on your device when you select “Check for New Items” from the Home menu. 

You can also email the document to yourname@free.kindle.com and Kindle will convert the doc and mail the converted doc back to your computer. Save the file and transfer it via the USB cable to your Kindle.

If you have a PDF document: Kindle does not currently fully support PDF files—meaning that you can put PDF documents on your Kindle, but the formatting and appearance may not come across well. Email the file to your Kindle (as explained above). You can read the story text with little problem. But graphics (like cover art) will probably be missing, chapters won’t start on new pages, the indenting of paragraphs or centered text may be irregular. 

You can also convert the PDF file to a MobiPocket (.prc) format. Download the free MobiPocket Creator program. Once you’ve converted your files, you can transfer them to your Kindle through the USB cable, as described above.

Sony   $299.99

Purchase

Manufacturer's Support Page 

9 ounces 5.9" x 4.9" x 05" 6" diagonal electronic paper- 160 pixels per inch, 4 level greyscale 

The Reader supports .JPEG, .PNG, .PDF, .TXT, .RTF formatted e-books. It has an application, "CONNECT Reader", that can convert MS Word (.DOC) e-books to .RTF before copying them to the Reader from your computer. In most cases, you should use the "CONNECT Reader" software to transfer supported files to your Reader.

If you have an HTML document: Save file as rtf. You can enlarge the font the same as other files.

If you have a PDF document: The text size for .PDF e-books transferred to the Reader is considered small by some readers, but if you hold down the <Size> button for five seconds, it will rotate the screen, which is a help.

Bookeen   $350- $450 

4.7" x 7.4" x 0.3" 118 x 188 x 8.5 mm 6.13 ounces -174 g (battery included)  6" E Ink® B&W / 4 greyscale Vizplex screen: 600x800 pixels, 166 dpi

Manufacturer's Support Page 

Manufacturer's FAQ 

Bookeen's Cybook supports Mobipocket, PalmDoc, HTML, plain text and pdf text files as well as jpg, gif and png image files and mp3 for sound. Bookeen has a software support page (bookeen.com/specs/ebook-software.aspx) for additional software information. 

Bookeen is proud to announce the availability of Cybook Gen3 on www.pixmania.com: European leader in online sales of Hi-Tech products.

Present today in 26 countries, the site reaches more than 10 million unique visitors per month and more than 6 million customers. With more than 45 000 references, Pixmania.com owes its success to the availability of its products, its low prices, fast delivery and its many services.

The presence of Cybook on Pixmania offers exceptional visibility to the ebook throughout Europe and marks a significant first step in the presence of the product on the consumer mass market.

Symbian OS is an advanced open standard operating system licensed by the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers and is already available in the Ericsson R380, R380e and R380 World Smartphones, the Nokia 9200 Communicator series and Psion's PDAs, and soon in the Nokia 7650. 

Here is a list of all compatible devices: 

Palm OS, Window Mobile Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Smartphone and Symbian OS Devices 

Many of the latest Mobile Devices and Smartphones can be used to read eBooks. Among them are the following:

Franklin eBookman (FUB, Palm Doc)

Transfering eBooks to your Franklin eBookMan device: To transfer a file to your Franklin eBookMan, you must save the file in the "Sync" folder. By default, this folder is c:\program files\Franklin Electronic Publishers\Data\Contents, assuming you installed the Franklin tools in the default location.  

The Franklin eBookMan can read either its own proprietary format (FUB) or it can read Palm Doc files (PDB). The FUB format is generally more desirable because it can display text formats such as italics and centering. (The Mobipocket Reader will also work on Franklin eBookMan. This software is used at Fictionwise for its encrypted eBooks and is recommended.) 

This is a rather long path to find all the time, so we suggest you change it to something simpler, such as C:\EbookManContents by using the eBookMan Desktop Utility (first create the new sync directory using windows explorer then go to the eBookMan Desktop utility, select the File menu and choose Change Sync Folder). 

So, all you need to do is save your files directly into your Sync folder, then use the Synchronize button in the eBookMan Desktop Utility to send the files to your device. 

Saving the eBook to your hard drive on some older browsers: Older browsers will not properly set the default file name when you attempt to Save an eBook to a file on your computer. Such a browser will show the default file name as "mw" as opposed to the name of the eBook file (such as "Poe-Tell-Tale-Heart.fub"). To save the file using an old browser, simply type in a sensible name in place of "mw," making sure you are using a ".fub" file extension, and select "All Files" on the file type pulldown in the Save dialog.

8.8 oz. 115.4 x 146 x 17 mm  Back lit 480 X 320 px touch screen LCD display 

hiebook runs its own operating system (EMOS), and requires a PC with a USB port running Windows 95, 98, 2000, or ME to transfer eBooks and files to the device. The hiebook cannot be used with a serial connection. 

The hiebook Reader for the PC (included on the CD you get with your hiebook device) allows you read and manage titles on your PC. The hiebook Reader for the PC includes a librarian feature to easily organize your titles and transfer them to your hiebook device. 

To add an eBook to your hiebook reader(PC): 

• Click the add button. 
• Browse to the directory where your eBooks are located. 
• Select the title you want, and click Open, or double-click the title. The eBook will appear in the "Unclassified" category. To organize your eBooks, select the eBook and click the Class button. Select your category.
• To add an eBook to your hiebook device: 
• Make sure your hiebook is connected to your computer. 
• In your eBookshelf, select an eBook from the list and click Download.

The Rocket eBook reader and Gemstar REB1100/1150/1200/2150 are devices dedicated to reading ebooks. The Rocket and REB1100 devices can receive files uploaded from your PC using a cradle. The 1150, 1200, and 2150 class devices can receive files from the Gemstar ebook site using the "Personal Content" feature. For all of these devices, choose "Rocket/REB1100" as your MultiFormat eBook download option. The files you receive will end in the extension: .rb 

Sending an eBook file to the Rocket/REB 1100 Device: When you download a Rocket eBook from Fictionwise to a PC that has your Rocket eBook cradle and Rocket Librarian software installed, things are easy. The Rocket Librarian should launch automatically after the file is completely downloaded. If your Rocket eBook Reader device is in the cradle and turned on, the Librarian will even offer to send the file to the Rocket automatically! If you are downloading the eBook file on some other PC (one that does not have the Rocket software installed) then you will need to save the eBook file to your hard drive. You may transfer the file to the PC that has your Rocket cradle (using a floppy disk or some other means) and then import the file using the Rocket Librian. (Import is under the Title menu.) 

Sending an eBook file to the REB1150, REB1200, or REB2150: In these cases, the device itself cannot download content directly from your PC, but can only connect to the Gemstar web site via a modem, USB (REB1150) or Ethernet (REB1200) connection built into the device. So, to get your Fictionwise eBooks to the device, you must first download the rb file(s) from Fictionwise to your PC as above. Then, you must upload the eBook file(s) to the Gemstar Ebook Site by clicking on the Personal Content link, logging in, and following the instructions. After you have uploaded your Fictionwise rb files to the Gemstar Personal Content server, you may then download the eBooks into your device over the device's built in modem. Web Site

Saving the eBook file to your hard drive on some older browsers: Some older browsers will not properly set the default file name when you attempt to Save an eBook file to a file on your computer. Such a browser will show the default file name as "mw" as opposed to the name of the eBook file (such as "Poe-Tell-Tale-Heart.rb"). To save the eBook file using an old browser, simply type in a sensible name in place of "mw," making sure you are using a ".rb" file extension, and select "All Files" on the file type pulldown in the Save dialog. Another option is to use the "bulk zip download" option to download all of your eBooks in a single ZIP compatible file, then unpack them using Winzip or some equivalent utility.