I don’t know anything about these things. A coworker has the barnes and noble version (nook?) and she let me play around with it today and I really like it. I like my physical books, but the idea of being able to carry hundreds of books around on such a lightweight device, especially on flights, has me interested in purchasing one.
I know you can do the same thing on your smartphone or laptop but the quality of the text on her device was nice (she has the non color model) and she says it has a very long battery life.
So, what’s the differnce in the nook and kindle? are there other versions that can do the same thing? what are the pro’s and con’s of each device?
There are several other threads out there discussing this, but in general I say go to a brick and mortar store and try them out. See if you like the form factor/display image.
I have a 3rd generation Kindle that I like. I value the e-ink display of the Kindle, however the Kindle (in general) does not play well with most public library ebooks. So if checking out ebooks is really important, than maybe a Nook or some other reader that directly works with the ePub format is better for you.
Get the Calibresoftware no matter which e-reader you get.
I also have a kindle that I love and I have the “official” case for it with light. It actually feels like I am holding a book with the case whcih I prefer to holding it by itself, whcih doesn’t have enough heft to it.
And a quick Google (e.g. “Kindle vs. Nook”) will turn up lots of websites comparing the various e-readers.
Last time I checked (which was around the Holiday season), Best Buy stores had display models of several different brands, including Kindle and Nook and others.
One basic fact to keep in mind is that, as of now, there are two basic kinds of e-readers available:
The dedicated e-reader with the black-and-white e-ink screen (e.g. Kindle, original Nook, Sony E-reader). Reading the screen of one of this is like reading a page of a paper-and-ink book (no back-lighting, can be easily seen in bright light), and they have a very long battery life.
The back-lit e-readers and tablet-type devices (e.g. Nook Color, iPad). These are backlit (which means you can read in the dark without an external light source, but they cause eye-strain for some), can display color, and have a shorter battery life.
El Hubbo bought me a 3rd-gen Kindle for my birthday, and I’m a huge fan.
I will say this: Amazon’s chosen to go with a different format than the now standard EPUB format for its ebooks. I’m not entirely happy about that. That said, I’m reasonably sure it’s something that they can support later, should a clear winner be decided in the ebook format wars - I think just a software update would take care of it. This means I can’t use my Kindle for library books, which annoys me. (It’s also true that I don’t know how good Minneapolis’ e-Library book availability is, though - I’ve heard many areas have pretty crap e-Libraries currently. Apparently New York doesn’t; you can pay something like $100/year for access to theirs, which is pretty neat.)
That doesn’t mean you’re locked in to just buying books from Amazon - Project Gutenburg has made older, out of copyright books available in most formats for free, and other booksellers have books in the Kindle format for sale.
My mom has the Nook, and I find my Kindle easier to navigate. That’s probably because it was my first experience, so I’m more used to how it does things. Love the easy purchasing of books, though that might get me into trouble later.
I haven’t tried many of the more “advanced” features - I haven’t used the experimental browser much to surf the web or get my email, though I know that others have and that it can be done. I haven’t loaded any music on it, though it does play MP3s. I haven’t tried any of the “Kindle-casting” that’s available, automatic downloading of blogs or web-content, but others find that irreplaceable.
My area Targets also stock the Kindle, in addition to Best Buy - you should be able to find a demo to check out. Borders also stocks the less-expensive Kobo, so you could give that a look too if you’ve a mind to.
here’s a large message board dedicated to e-readers.
I’ve heard with some of the free public domain books that they sometimes have errors in the text b/c the software that did the converting when scaned doesn’t allways pick up the right letters and b/c the book is free nobody looks over the copy for final errors.
for instance quote marks will come thru as CC instead or every t will be a d for instance, the word “the” looks like “dhe” .
not sure how common this is but I’ve heard it can be an issue.
Have you tried downloading the Kindle to your PC and trying it there? (Eg, kindle software for the PC) If you have a laptop or netbook, you may find you don’t want a dedicated reader.