E-book reader... any recommendations?

[Rerun]

My wife wants one of these for her birthday in August.

I don't have a clue about these things. Never even seen one in person. If you buy a certain brand are you limited in the e-books you can download on it? ie.. only e-books sold by the reader manufacturer?

Anybody have experience with these and any recommendations on brand/model?

What is the average price for these? How much does it cost for an e-book? I assume you download the book off the internet... or do you have to go somewhere like Chapters to get the e-book?

[Phaneuf3]

Got a Kindle about a month ago and love it. They just dropped the price too.
Buying and downloading the books online you're limited to Amazon but the connection to their service is free. Books on it generally range from $0.00 to ~$10.00. You can also hook it up to your computer and load content onto it that way; any PDF or text document will be fine.

The biggest selling point for me with the kindle was the screen. Surprisingly easy to read on and paper-like. I was also considering an iPad to be used largely as an ebook reader and the screen on the iPad just would not work for me for this.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

Got a Kindle about a month ago and love it. They just dropped the price too.
Buying and downloading the books online you're limited to Amazon but the connection to their service is free. Books on it generally range from $0.00 to ~$10.00. You can also hook it up to your computer and load content onto it that way; any PDF or text document will be fine.

The biggest selling point for me with the kindle was the screen. Surprisingly easy to read on and paper-like. I was also considering an iPad to be used largely as an ebook reader and the screen on the iPad just would not work for me for this.

Add another vote here for the Kindle. I put PDFs on it all the time and its awesome all around.

[Mazrim]

I bought a Kindle recently from Amazon, and I'm very happy with the purchase. It's really one of the best choices you can make on one, but the major limitation is that only can do books you get from Amazon, and not the popular epub format that pretty much every other reader can use.

The Kindle 2 is $189, a little bigger than a paperback book, and lightweight. The contrast is great and page turns are fast. I totally recommend this one as the selection on amazon is great for Kindle Books, and it has free 3G wireless to shop and download the books directly onto your kindle when you buy them. My favorite part of the kindle is that I can download samples of any book onto my kindle. It really helps weed out what I want to read. Unless you're big into anti-DRM stuff, this is currently the best reader on the market.

Chapters and Indigo have an e-reader called Kobo, and it is a bare bones e-reader. No keyboard, no wireless, just a plain old reader. Supports all formats of books, has expandable memory, and the kobo store is pretty decent. You can use the kobo with epub so you can borrow digital books from the Calgary Public Library. The page turning is a little slower, the screen not quite as clear, and the page turning joystick thing is kinda meh in my opinion. You can buy the Kobo for $149.

Sony sells e-readers as well but there isn't much that separates them from the pack, aside from their touch screen readers. They have glare issues though so I can't recommend them. Sony's readers are decent quality, support epub books, and stand middle of the pack for me. They range from $149 to $249.

As for book prices, the books I buy from amazon are generally $9.99. New releases range from $10 to $17 from what I've seen. There are literally thousands of books between $3-6 dollars and every day there are hundreds of books you can get for free.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

[Clever_Iggy]

Lots of good discussion here:

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=86367

I live in the US and went with the Barnes and Noble nook. I found it to be easier to use and more tech-forward than the kindle. If the kindle lost the hard buttons, it would be a huge improvement. You can access the Barnes and Noble site from Canada through Wifi and B&N sells "nook Lite" that doesn't include 3G access. Unfortunately, for Canadian purchasers, there are a few more speed bumps to get over to use the nook.

All that said, if you are looking for ONLY a e-reader, the nook or Kindle are good options and it comes down to personal preference.

[Russic]

I've only had experience with the iPad as an ebook reader. I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't in the market for one as they do cost quite a bit more ($600) than a device that is just for ebooks. If you were in the market for an e-reader and a basic laptop it would be a candidate, but it doesn't seem like that's what you're looking for.

I can tell you that after reading 2 books on the iPad that ebook readers are awesome and I find myself much more likely to read now.

The Kindle is what I've heard most about. I believe it just experienced a price drop thanks to the iPad (I want to say $200). It has an e-ink display, so it won't have annoying reflection in sunlight, and it uses almost no battery power. You download books directly from Amazon on the device. Prices are generally slightly lower than the paperback version I believe.

There is a Kindle app as well, so if in the future you get an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad all of your kindle books will just show up.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Clever_Iggy

Lots of good discussion here:

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=86367

The e-book landscape has changed significantly since February, though. Even the kindle 2 is different than what was mentioned then. The newer international versions have better screens and contrast than earlier versions, for instance. Plus, new readers have come out, including the Kindle DX Graphite just recently.

From what I've seen, the nook doesn't offer enough advantages to make it worth the hurdles you need to take to use it in Canada.

Lastly, I used http://www.mobileread.com/forums/index.php to do my research before buying an e-reader. Lots and lots of great posts about every e-reader out there.

[photon]

Yeah with the price drop of the Kindle it's pretty attractive, though all the arguments about DRM and locking in still apply.

[Log]

Originally Posted by Rerun

My wife wants one of these for her birthday in August.

I don't have a clue about these things. Never even seen one in person. If you buy a certain brand are you limited in the e-books you can download on it? ie.. only e-books sold by the reader manufacturer?

Anybody have experience with these and any recommendations on brand/model?

What is the average price for these? How much does it cost for an e-book? I assume you download the book off the internet... or do you have to go somewhere like Chapters to get the e-book?

I am in the exact same book as you.

I was leaning towards the Kindle.

However we were thinking of buying a laptop for Christmas this year.

I was thinking of just getting an iPad for both.

Can anyone shed some light into how the iPad is for browsing?

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Log

I am in the exact same book as you.

I was leaning towards the Kindle.

However we were thinking of buying a laptop for Christmas this year.

I was thinking of just getting an iPad for both.

Can anyone shed some light into how the iPad is for browsing?

As an ebook reader, I found the iPad to be a bad choice. I found reading large amounts of text on that screen for an extended period of time to be tough on my eyes.

[Kipper is King]

I have the Sony Reader Pocket Edition, and I love it for it's portability. It also is snappy, considering it has an E Ink screen.

The nicest thing about the Sony Reader is that it supports the most formats of any reader. Loading Word documents and PDFs on it is easy.

That being said, I bought my Sony Reader before they dropped the price on the Kindle. In my eyes, it's a tough choice between those two.

[kobafett]

I read 2 to 3 hours every night on my iPad and don't have any problems with the screen. I just adjust the brightness to the level that seems the best for the environment.

[atb]

Just bought a Kindle 2 last week for $189. Really like it so far, being able to get books anywhere is pretty awesome.

Another really cool feature is the Whispersync which let's me match up my reading location from my Kindle to my iPhone. Amazon description:

Whispersync automatically synchronizes your bookmarks and your reading location among devices registered to the same Amazon.com account. When you open a Kindle book you are also reading on another device, you are given the choice to go to the furthest page read if you are further ahead on the other device. This ensures that you can easily pick up where you left off regardless of which device you are using.

[Cowperson]

Love my Kindle.

Easy to read the screen outside, in bright sun.

There isn't an endless, Library of Congress-like stream of titles. Not everything is on there but a huge pile of stuff is.

The only thing that irritated me was knowing a favourite author had released a title in November and I wasn't able to buy it on Kindle until about May. I assume that was because it was being sold in hardback and was only available on Kindle when it was released in paperback.

Prices have been very cheap, particularly since I've been tending to catch up on favourite authors in titles no longer in print. So I bought a title for $1.99 recently and it's not uncommon to pay $3.99. I think the most I've paid is $16.99 for one.

Battery lasts a long, long time if you're careful to keep the wireless off when you're not using it, which should be virtually all the time since you only need to use it to search for titles.

I've also learned the trick of getting newspaper subscriptions on a two-week free trial basis when I'm out of town, then cancelling as I get back home. Basically getting newspapers and magazines for free while I'm on vacation.

A really handy device.

Cowperson

[GrrlGoalie33]

We have both the Sony Touch and Pocket editions in our house. I love them both and would highly recommend to anyone.

A huge selling point for me, is that with the Sony readers, you can borrow ebooks from the Calgary Public Library and transfer them to the Sony reader - something that's not possible with the Kindle. My $12 library membership has more than paid for itself since I got it in June.

[Rerun]

Can you read these in the dark? My wife sometimes likes to read in bed while I'm sleeping.

[photon]

No, you'd need a light to read an e-reader in the dark.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Frankster

We have both the Sony Touch and Pocket editions in our house. I love them both and would highly recommend to anyone.

A huge selling point for me, is that with the Sony readers, you can borrow ebooks from the Calgary Public Library and transfer them to the Sony reader - something that's not possible with the Kindle. My $12 library membership has more than paid for itself since I got it in June.

I was also disappointed with this with my Kindle. I know that there is a way to convert the library file and be able to use it on the Kindle (and of course delete it as soon as you are done borrowing it) but haven't had any luck. Maybe some kind soul could PM me and help me do this...

[sclitheroe]

Something to consider is what you’re going to be reading - if you like periodicals and other stuff with lots of colour images, the screen on the iPad is pretty phenomenal. Magazines like Wired and Popular Science (and even PDF’s of other mags I read like Model Airplane News) really pop on the iPad screen and look great.

I haven’t sat down to read a lot of stuff without pictures , so I don’t know how well the iPad holds up for extended reading sessions with just text. I don’t get eye fatigue on my laptop, so I can’t imagine it would be too much worse with the iPad.

[GGG]

The library has a pretty good selection of Ebooks and I assume that it will only expand in the future. To me that was a key selling feature on the sony. The kindle is probably a better product but the cost to operate seemed a lot higher.