E-read or not to e-read?
Unless you’ve been living in Aruba for the last couple of years, you have most probably noticed an influx of e-books and various e-readers (well, mostly in the US but Europe’s catching up). Since the release of Apple’s iPad, the race for the e-reader market has become even hotter. Amazon’s Kindle reader still rules, but Apple has really put on the pressure and Sony’s Reader is making decent efforts too. While intriguing in many aspects, I personally have no intention to make a move from the good old paper (something I may reconsider in the future) but I guess it would do no harm if we have a look at three you can buy today. I’ve played with them all.
Kindle 2
Kindle 2 is probably the most popular e-reader today, at least that’s what statistics say. Some say that Amazon has over 60% of the e-reader market just because they’ve done a great job of packaging the reader with their extensive collection of books. Although nowhere near as flashy as the iPad, the Kindle does the job of allowing you to carry a lot of books with you in an easy-to-use small device. Kindle uses the E-Ink display technology, referred to as “bi-stable”, meaning that the screen doesn’t need a refresh and instead uses light reflected from the environment. The E-Ink displays are generally better than LCDs in three main ways. First, they allow much better battery life, because they use power only when they’re changing content. Also, they are readable in bright sunlight, where the iPad screen can get washed out. And finally, they don’t have as much glare. On the other hand, LCD displays have advantages as well. They work in darkened spaces, and they allow for color and video, which the E-Ink displays currently do not. The Kindle machine is fairly easy to use and has a built-in global wireless connectivity. It is small, light-weight, and fast. You can shop the Kindle store from just about anywhere without having to rely on W-Fi access and it can hold up to 1500 books, newspapers, and PDFs. Unfortunately, Kindle is a close device that doesn’t support other e-book formats unless you go the shady, “hacking” route that Amazon doesn’t want you to know. The price of $259 isn’t too bad either and now you can get the device shipped to Europe from the US.
iPad
The iPad, which was released by Apple only a few months ago, probably provides the best looking reading experience. In typical Apple style, the iPad is beautiful – the aluminium back feels great under the finger. iPad also makes reading kind of fun, provided you don’t read for hours. In direct sunlight, you will get a good amount of reflections, but overall, the iPad’s LCD display does ok. Page turning is fast, and the iBooks application allows you to navigate and search through various books and pages very intuitively. Overall, I don’t think that there is such a big difference between the iPad and Kindle when it comes to the actual act of reading but, as we all know, Amazon is a dominating book provider and when comparing iPad’s reader app with Kindle’s, that’s where it falls short. With Kindle, once you own a book, you can re-download it on as many devices as you want (PC, iPhone, etc.) and it will also let you to take notes (if you care about that). Also, Amazon has about 450k book versus Apple’s 60k, and Amazon eBooks are getting cheaper too. On the other hand, iPad is much more than e-book reader and with its extensive offer of apps and support of various multimedia formats, it’s much more versatile device than what others currently offer. As with other Apple products, you must be willing to pay a premium price but for $499, you get a beautiful piece of hardware which is far more than a mere e-reader (media viewer/phone).
Sony Reader Daily Edition
Until very recently, one thing has been clear about Sony’s e-readers: they were the most elegant e-reading devices on the market. It’s no longer true after the release of iPad but it still is a very nicely manufactured reader. This is also Sony’s first e-reader that includes built-in 3G wireless service for accessing e-books wirelessly from Sony’s Reader Store. The Daily Edition model also has a touch-screen interface with the screen size measuring 7.1 inches diagonally, at almost exactly the same length as the Amazon’s Kindle 2. The Daily Edition e-reader uses E-Ink technology, which, as mentioned above, serves to make the letters and words on the screen look more print-like in their appearance. Like the most of the today’s touch-screen smartphones phones, this device incorporates some gesture-based commands. You can swipe your finger across the display to page forward or back. As for the content, once you access the store, Sony has a decent selection of books and periodicals to choose from. You can subscribe to electronic versions of newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and several others but that said, the selection lags behind what you’ll find on the Kindle. Sony has made a great effort to catch up with Amazon in terms of the number of e-books it has available, as well as pricing. With the edition of thousands of free public domain titles from Google (which includes many pre-WWI classics), Sony boasts more than 1 million titles in its e-book store and the number continues to grow. But with the price of $350 for more or less the same functionality that Kindle offers (minus the huge selection of titles that Amazon offers), you may want to go for Kindle or pricier iPad.
