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e readers
Elin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm looking for personal opinions from people that own the devices. I am looking at buying an e-reader, specifically the Kindle. I have the Kindle app on my phone and enjoy it, I'd just like a bigger screen. There's the Nook though, and I hear that some people like it. Do you like it? I've used to Barnes and Nobel app and I didn't like it all that much, but it's been a year or so ago, I'm going to re-download it and try it again.
Other than the stores which I can run trial of on my phone, I'm looking for opinions of the hardware. Specifically the WiFi only Nook (non color) and the WiFi only Kindle. How good are the batteries? How prone are they to crashing? Are the screens going to get ruined easily? How are they with PDF files?
Other than the stores which I can run trial of on my phone, I'm looking for opinions of the hardware. Specifically the WiFi only Nook (non color) and the WiFi only Kindle. How good are the batteries? How prone are they to crashing? Are the screens going to get ruined easily? How are they with PDF files?
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That said, reading PDF files on it makes me want to gouge out my own eyes. So if you plan on doing a lot with pdf, I'd probably recommend an iPad.
The Nook Color is out but it's an LCD screen. Personally, I prefer the e-ink, it's like reading a book instead of being like reading a computer screen.
I hear good things about the Kindle too, so I don't think you can go wrong either way. Also, check out the e-reader thread in Moe's Technology Tavern (I'd link it but it looks like that forum is down).
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Lending books is great, I'm only sad that I can only lend the book once.
PDF files, if you transfer to epub using Calibre work rather well. Things with pictures don't do so great on the e-ink screen though. I do love that my Nook has a lot of space as well, for a while I was using it to play music in the car with its MicroSD card. ;-)
I agree that reading PDFs is misery, but (as noted above) Calibre does a great job converting PDFs into .mobi files. In fact it does all the format conversions I need to do, *and* it does a good job managing books between my laptop and Kindle. I imagine it does just as good a job with the Nook.
it has a beautiful screen and its limitations are only in its software which shouldnt be an issue very much longer as it has just been rooted
As far as I could tell at the store, it doesn't have any physical page turn buttons? I don't know about anyone else, but that's practically a deal breaker for me.
Plus, an order of magnitude less battery life and eink readers
That said, to answer your specific questions: I have the Kindle 2, and my battery life is fantastic. I read on the smallest font, and only have to charge the battery approximately once per book. But I also leave the 3G turned off. My understanding is they've doubled the battery on the Kindle 3, so you can safely extrapolate that out to at least one charge for every two books.
I've had my Kindle for about a year and a half now, and I don't recall it crashing on me a single time. It will occasionally (very rarely, maybe three times) have a weird hicup, where I'll return to a book, and it will have completely lost my place. But it's never glitched out on me while I was reading.
The screen is rock solid. I'm not rough with the device, and put it in it's case whenever it leaves the house, but I don't exactly treat it with kid gloves either, and the screen is still in pristine condition. I've dropped it a handful of times, always on carpet though, but it still feels as solid as the day I bought it.
I haven't read any PDFs on it, but I hear the experience is still pretty painful. Epubs are absolutely easy to convert via Calibre as long as they're already DRM-free.
Battery life when actually reading books is great, but I still have one issue with the battery. If I stop reading for 2 or 3 weeks, by the time I try to turn it on again, the battery will be dead. This wouldn't be an issue except that Sony doesn't supply an included AC adapter for the thing, you need to plug it into a USB port to charge it. None of the USB AC adapters I own put out enough power to charge the thing (bizarre???). So I end up having to plug it into my computer, which is far away from my bed, which is where I do all my reading. So then I end up not reading.
This is probably not an issue with the other e-readers, just a case of Sony being cheap and me being too lazy/cheap to get Sony's AC adapter.
1) Reading PDFs is nearly impossible on the smaller display (have not tried on the larger display)
2) Some material in reference texts (like programming books) becomes misaligned on the smaller display
3) It is difficult to navigate within reference texts, sometimes, and find the information you need
Overall, however, I love the device. I take it with me when I travel and to the gym and it has been rock solid. I will be upgrading to the large screen size in the future when I feel like shelling out the extra dough for another piece of electronics. I would strongly recommend, if you're using reference texts and not just reading linear novels, to buy the one with the larger display.
edit to add: I own a Kindle 2 that I bought a little while before the Kindle 3 came out, since Woot had a really awesome price on them. The fact that I could still use the wireless features (as in cellular network) while down in Australia was a very pleasant surprise.
I'm not sure you can class the Nook Colour or the iPad as eReaders given that they don't use eInk.
I'm looking at getting the Sony PRS-350, although now I'm wondering if it might be worth getting the larger one for PDFs (not that they will ever work all that nicely on a slow, black&white screen)
Battery lasts longer in airplane mode, of course, but it's quick to charge when it does get low, and I've always had a good reading experience.
My husband showed me the Nook Color, but I think if I want to go in that direction, I'll just get an IPAD.
Well since now you can download an app to any device and read Nook and Kindle files I think anything can be an eReader. Even tablets. I know the Nookcolor is a toned down tablet. But for it's cost that's all I really needed. Next year when they update the OS for handle flash and open up the app store it's going to get sweeter.
My phone has an ebook app. It's still not an eReader.
The whole point of an eReader is that it has a eInk screen so it is like a book.
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And I'm not sure why people think reading PDFs on the Kindle is a pain... I can understand if it has pictures, but if it's all text the Kindle treats it EXACTLY like a book you would buy on the Amazon store. I've had no problems reading my dozens of PDFs on it.