eReaders?

[BookWrm]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum, but I figured this was the best place to ask. I read quite a bit, especially when travelling, and I've been thinking lately about picking up an eReader and saving space in my bag.

I'm not too terribly tech savvy though, so I'm wondering, Kindle? Nook or Sony eReader?

I've heard that the Sony readers are nicest, but also most expensive. I would think that the Kindle would be the best bet because it's sold from Amazon though, but I don't think you can see that in stores can you?

Anyway, any advice would be much appreciated!

Thank you!

[Veneer]

Book Wrm I have a Kindle and love it. E-readers are becoming an emotional subject these days, so it is going to be hard to get straight facts, if something like that even exists. But I will give a very short and hopefully not too terribly biased opinions.

There are two things to consider right off the bat, do you want e-ink or something with a better display? E-ink right now is black and white (actually gray) and it, like printing on a book, has to be externally illuminated with a reading lamp or clip on light. The advantage of e-ink is that you can read text for hours and hours with no eyestrain. The disadvantage is that it is not very good with illustrations, maps, fine detailed charts, or art work. The ads all show wonderful clarity, but I have yet to see an illustration in an e-book with e-ink that I thought was remotely acceptable. If you read books with little graphical content e-ink is great. If you are going to use it for magazines or books with a lot of fine detailed illustrations forget it, e-ink sucks--plus no color but they are working on that. They may get color but I still think the detail will still suck. If you want to be able to look at color and detail the only thing that falls into an e-reader category is the iPad at the current time.

The iPad is a wonderful device but it really is not a e-reader, but for magazines or art books that is what I would go with (actually I wouldn't I just stick with my lo-tech old PC). The iPad far exceeds what e-readers can do. Is that good or bad? Depends what you want to do? Myself, I want to read books, and I don't want to be able to Twitter, tweat, text, or email. If you want that sort stuff, go with the iPad. It is a reasonable e-reader (unless you are a read at the beach fan, iPads are not worth a damn in the sunlight), and you can do all that other stuff. The disadvantage of an iPad is expense and eyestrain. The iPad has a light emitting screen. I have read that the eyestrain argument is vastly over rated--the iPad has little eyestrain. I don't know that I believe that, but I have read it. The other advantage of the iPad is the availability of books. The iPad has its own store, but also has apps for Barnes and Noble and Kindle. So you can get books anywhere for the iPad.

Kindle verses Nook. The big problem for the Nook right now is will B&N be here next year? They are bleeding money badly. Who knows where that will go, but I would be reluctant to make my e-library ride on B&N fortunes at the moment. The Nook has some advantages over the Kindles, and vice versa. I think the Kindle is easier to use, but the Nook looks sleeker. But in my mind right now B&N corporate problems would keep me from investing in a Nook.

Sony is sort of the also ran. Limited books and bad book prices is what I have read in the past. I didn't really investigate the Sony too much when I bought mine. Some things have changed since especially in book pricing, so my categorical rejection of the Sony reader may not be so applicable today as is was last December.

So the Kindle. The common argument against the Kindle is that you can only buy books at Amazon. That is not true. There is a conversion program called Calibre that converts other formats to the Kindle format. So you can buy elsewhere. I don't know a hell of lot about it. I have more than enough to read at Amazon. All I can tell you is that the program exists and it works well from the user comments at the Amazon forums.

Amazon's customer service is superb. You have a 30 day return policy on the Kindle. If you buy a book by mistake, you can return it within 7 days. You can't lend Amazon books, but there are ways around it, but they are so klunky & risky that I just can't be bothered with it. You can share books up to 6 devices but all the devices have to be on the same account. B&N has a lending policy, but it is pretty lame. You can lend a book once for two weeks, that's it. Only once and only for two weeks. So you have to choose carefully who you are going to lend it to. Myself, I would feel guilty about being the only lendee of someone's book.

There are a number of other e-readers on the horizon but I would be careful. The physical contraption is one thing, but your library is the other thing. Which comes to another point, no matter which one you buy, you are buying a piece of equipment with a physical life and a software life. So you are buying something that will have to be replaced somewhere down the road.

If I had to do it again, I would take a better look at Sony now, but I still think they will fall short of Amazon. B&N right now in my mind is too shaky to even consider. iPad is a lot of money for stuff I would never use. I would still get a Kindle, I think. But that is me, check them all out and see which one you like the best. I may be making too big of a deal of B&N financial woes, but frankly that would worry me.

You can check around on the various forums, but be cautious, I see an awful lot of screeching about how wonderful this contraption is compared to that contraption. A lot of it is Chevies rule, Fords suck mentality. I don't consider you to be the epitome of evil if you choose an iPad (the work of the Dark Lord Steve Jobs) over a Kindle, but you will run into that on the forums.

One other thing to be careful with is book pricing. Right now things are in flux. The publishers are trying to see how they can make a buck. I don't think the pricing of today will be the pricing 2 years down the pike. In the 6 months that I have had my Kindle best sellers have gone up because of the agency model of pricing. Amazon has lost some of it arm twisting ability. I don't pretend to understand the economics of publishing, and the screech factor right now is roaring. My self I want quality books and everyone has to make a buck. The e-world is full of rancor about pricing at the moment. I think it will eventually settle down and books will be reasonably priced. I guess it just depends on your definition of reasonable. Good luck with your decision.

EDIT: Re-reading the original post, you can see the Kindle at some (but I gather not all) Target Stores. I would anticipate the sales staff not knowing anything about it. I have also read the people's experiences with the Nook at B&N is pretty sad. The sales staff generally does not know how to properly use the Nook, and they make all sorts of outlandish claims. I would take a look but not ask too many questions unless your BS detector can separate the wheat from the chaff. Kindle has some really helpful people on their forums to help new owners. These are just regular owners who take an interest in helping others. I don't hang out at the competition's forums so I can not say what the quality of their forums are.

[sillyme]

Thank you, Veneer!

I have been wobbling between investing in the cool new device versus keeping my reliable – albeit clunky – printed library. I do have an IPhone that allows me to read books in a pinch, but the screen is horrendously small.

Your post has helped me tremendously. I think I will wait a little longer to invest.

[fallenleaf]

I researched the e-readers and decided on a Nook. I read a few books on it and found it very acceptable. Nice and small, easy to hold, a good feel (more important than you might think). Then Husband got the eelectronics itch and came home with an iPad.

I'm sold. The iPad has color, it's a better size, it does all sorts of other things (it's my "kitchen computer" now). I heard about the eyestrain issue and turned the brightness down. Now it has the same appearance as the e-ink of the Nook.

The iPad is the e-reader to get if you want color or pictures. On my Nook I wouldn't even consider a cookbook, but I've got one on the iPad and it's great.

I'd like to say a thing or two about e-books in general. One is I thought I hit the motherlode when I found public domain ebooks that were free. Come to find out that some of them were scanned by distracted folks and no corrections were made. So you can be reading merrily along and find strange characters (not literary, alas, but typed) in the middle of your sentence, replacing what was probably a perfectly good word with gibberish. It wasn't too much of a problem with The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett (good book!), but it rendered The Wind in the Willows unreadable. Oh, and the second thing - why are there no "classic" ecookbooks yet? I'd love to have the Joy of Cooking but cannot find it in eformat .... yet.

Another plus of the iPad - I can play Skeeball in between chapters.

[Theomanic]

Personally, I'm still at the point of death before ereader. However, my boyfriend is a tech fiend and brought home the iPad a while ago, and it is pretty good. I'm not much of a Mac person (to say the least) but I've read a few things on the iPad and not had too much of an issue with eyestrain. Having said that, I've never read a novel or anything. My boyfriend has a Marvel app that has some of their comics (each comic is sold individually) and he loves that. Personally I love the cookbook app he has that's super easy and illustrated (since I can't cook... at all), and the wonderful edition of Alice in Wonderland he has. He is also reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" on it, which he got for free from Project Gutenberg, and he claims to have no trouble reading on the iPad. Though he never reads for very long stretches. I will say in the end I finished reading Alice via my bound paper copy rather than his electronic copy, though his was a lot prettier. But I think that's a personal bias I have.

I find eInk very underwhelming. I think everyone gets a bit too up in arms over eye-strain. Not everyone wants colour pictures or whatever in their books, but to buy a reader that is incapable of it seems weird. And while the iPad costs more than a Kindle, it also has a lot more functionality. For instance, my boyfriend's dad has an iPad as well and reads his morning papers on his. It's quite a handy little device.

Let me summarize with: paper books 4ever! Represent!

[perettifreak]

WOW! This is a lot of great info guys! I am so on the fence about e-readers. I am such a fan of actual books - the feel of pages, being able to tangibly see the wonderful progress I've made (or how much longer I have to endure), and occasionally (especially with great old books) the nostalgic smell - that I feel like I would really be missing something. My friends say I am like this because I am an old soul. On the other hand, I am a big fan of being green and can see the benefits of not having to use so much paper. So you can see my dilemma. I am happy to be more informed about the technology though!

[Theomanic]

I tell myself that books are green because they provide excellent insulation. Just put your bookcases on your outer walls and you won't loose any heat through that room!