Thread: Favorite E-Reader

In your opinion, what is the best way to read your ebooks?

Do you prefer Amazon's Kindle, Apples iPad, or the Barnes and Noble Nook?

I prefer the Kindle, but never having tried any other e-reader, I can't compare functionality. What I can say is that in almost a year of owning a Kindle, I have not found one thing - not ONE - to complain about. Thin, light, portable and attractive, my Kindle has everything. The battery life is long, it can carry a ton of material, and it's not even that expensive. I'm pretty much sold on Kindle.



Do you have an e-reader? What do you like/hate about it? Tell us your experiences!

As I said in a related thread, I have a Sony PRS-900 also called "Daily Edition". I think it's a wonderful device and I'm quite fond of it.

It is though, flawed and could be improved.

The screen is at the same time what makes me love it and what makes me miss normal books too. In the negative side, there's always some kind of barrier between me and the text and it's uncomfortable to read on poor lighting. Another thing I'm missing, specially for my chemistry notes, is colours; when everything is in grayscale nothing stands out and that makes it harder to remember.

There's also the matter of converting and transfering ebooks to a device, which sometimes takes too much effort. In my opinion, this has to be resolved if ebook readers are to become common use.

Originally Posted by kokofan

As I said in a related thread, I have a Sony PRS-900 also called "Daily Edition". I think it's a wonderful device and I'm quite fond of it.

It is though, flawed and could be improved.



There's also the matter of converting and transfering ebooks to a device, which sometimes takes too much effort. In my opinion, this has to be resolved if ebook readers are to become common use.

The Kindle is great, as Jenna said in another thread. The wi-fi and 3g adaptation makes transferring books from you PC a breeze (if on the same network) and the 3-g allows for direct downloads from Amazon. I'm sure this will also be used as a feature for daily papers in the future.

I download e-books and read them, but I also buy books and read. Reading on iPad will be fun but I have iPhone 4 so I don't really see any other use of buying an iPad, not unless they get a hotspot in there. ;)

i use my ipod touch, but its a little small for my liking.

Dear Friends,

I have always preferred reading a book in the “Classic” Paper book form but off lately, I’ve been thinking of getting myself an e-book reader. The following are my thoughts on both.

I love & prefer Paper books as they offer the following multiple advantages:

• Paper books easily obtainable from many bookshops-In Original & in Reprints.
• Their choices are plentiful, as compared to e-book titles.
• They're easily portable-I can carry them anywhere-Be it rain, shine or snow!
• Although books are not waterproof, they don’t tend to conk off like electronics, when in close proximity with water and one can still get a good reading out of them, even though they may be drenched in rain or spills of your favorite beverage!
• They make perfect traveling companions as one need not worry about charging as, unlike e-book readers, they don't need power to function i.e. except the power of one’s mind and imagination J
• I can get to “feel” the touch of the page as I read through the words-something that neither my lappy nor an e-book reader would ever be able to help me with!
• They don't normally cause significant eye-strain, compared to many e-books readers that do. It may just be a matter of time that one’s eyes get used to reading an e-book via a reader or on a laptop, I guess!
• One can view them in color, as opposed to many e-book readers which can read only B/W.
• Reading with pictures and diagrams does enrich the experience compared to facing a wall of text in an e-book reader, which can be a daunting task to read through, for many!
• It’s much easier to make notes on Paper books compared to e-books.

The obvious cons are:

• Paper books are bulky and heavy. Carrying more than 2-3 around can become a chore, especially if you’re a fast enough reader who speed reads through a tons of pages in a couple of hours or perhaps you prefer reading multiple books together to keep yourself from getting bored with a single story or subject! This is a major one that compels me to opt for a portable e-book reader, other than my lappy, which unfortunately is not too portable either!
• You need a light source to read them - another thing that one will probably carry around if one is a frequent traveler.
• If you make notes in them, those notes are there to stay, for one can always see the imprints of lead while using a pencil, even if one erases every last shred of lead!

Reading the “e-Book” way

I do agree to the facts that eBooks do offer the following obvious advantages:

• They're easily readable. Most readers offer zoom functions, letter resizing, and so forth.
• They're easily portable. You can carry multiple books on one device. Ahhh…. What a blessing!
• Note-taking is challenging but also more powerful, for the notes one writes can be found and referenced quickly and easily. And best of all, they don't have to be permanent!
• Lighting conditions essentially become meaningless. Many readers incorporate display lighting allowing you to read whenever and wherever you like. This is a major advantage of having an e-book reader for this makes them an ideal travel companion, except for the charging bit i.e.
• Last, but not the least, they're much more environmentally friendly. You don't have to kill a few trees for each book!
• I love reading e-Books on my laptop but many-a-times; I feel that I would have a better experience in terms of portability and reading in general, by getting myself a reader. There are a few on the market, such as Amazon's Kindle, Sony's eReader series, and a few others. I mention these because they seem to incorporate a technology called e-ink, which resembles paper very closely, and eliminates most eye-strain issues. Moreover, I recently found out that once could also save and read web-sites with html links and cross references on readers! Nice, isn’t it?

During my short time that I invested in researching for and narrowing down on a good e-book for myself, I observed that the disadvantages of e-books do generally stem from the hardware one uses to read them on. If it's a laptop or a PDA, we’ve got the normal lappy problems which detract us from our reading pleasure like:

• Eye strain from long periods spent in front of a computer.
• The portability factor, especially for me for I can’t help but think why should I carry a laptop around when I could just simply carry an e-book reader? I can't even start to imagine reading an e-book on a Desktop!
  
• Charging & Power retention issues- Unfortunately, all laptops have them!
• The call for multitasking-I find it most challenging to keep myself from not attending to other pending tasks on my lappy while I read through my e-book in one corner of the screen-Something that a reader would help me do away with, for sure!
• PDA's share almost all the challenges of a laptop, in addition to their small size, which although makes them extremely portable, unfortunately does not making the reading experience quite that fruitful, in my humble opinion and experience!
  

The cons of owing an e-book reader, in my humble opinion, are as follows:

• One still has a battery life to worry about and charging is while on the road is still a challenge to be dealt with!
• Being a frequent traveler, I’m always worried about carrying them around and subjecting them to extreme conditions of climate and can’t help but ponder over their susceptibility of conking off in terms of spills etc! I’ve had one too many electronic devices die on me for the same reason and I can’t help but imagine why an e-book reader should be any different, unless someone has come up with a rugged model that I’m still not aware about!
• I’ve also read about various nasty software bugs in many readers can cause it to freeze up while you’re eagerly anticipating how things unfold in the climax, only to be disappointed when the reader conks off and you have to scroll through the pages all over again!
• The fact that many e-books titles are not readily available, and format wars between well-known make the decision to buy a reader much more challenging and difficult! Frankly, I’m still deciding whether to opt for the Kindle or the Sony!
• The pricing on many does make me re-evaluate my preferences and wait for a perfect reader that would incorporate more of the Pros and less of the cons I’ve highlighted so far, and that too at a reasonable price!

So, after mixing and matching the above Pros & Cons, I still find myself using my good old lappy to read e-books . Paper books are still my favorite though. They don't need batteries, and I can read them just about anywhere! But I’ve not totally given up on the idea of owning a good e-book reader and the search still continues!

Your feedback on e-book readers would surely go a long way in helping me narrow down on my search, so please feel free to contribute your thoughts and opinions to this thread, for we eagerly look forward to them!

:001_smile:

Best Wishes,

Mackenna

Sources of research:

Ebook Reader Reviews
The Ultimate guide to E-book readers-Gizmodo
Hubpages Reviews
CNet E-book Reader review

I extend my sincere & heartfelt gratitude to all the authors & sites above whose reviews helped me a lot while I tried to decide on the best e-book reader for myself and for helping me re-evaluate my decision of opting for an e-book reader V/s reading the "Classic" paper book form. The search still continues...:001_smile:

Hey mackenna. You may already know it, but the mobileread forums is where I go for everything ebook related: MobileRead Forums They should have all the info you may need ;).

I've been reading a lot about them lately and I think I've settled on buying a Kindle very soon. I'm still a little torn by the lack of ePub support though. I hate when companies try to limit you to their own proprietary formats.

When I do read ebooks, its right off the desktop. I tend to lie down with portable devices and that will put me to sleep.