“Hey, I wanna buy an ebook reader, which one should I get?”
How do you read?
“Huh? One word at a time, just like everybody else.”
True, but not.
Books
“Suzie” is a busy Mom and hosts several book groups. She has books tucked all over the house and in the car, she’s concurrently reading 6-8 books. She never travels, at least not until the kids are older, so for now, she really just needs books. She needs lots of them; from garage sales, church sales, discount stores, pretty much from any source possible. If she stepped into the eReader market she’d either have to change her reading habit (of leaving books all over the place), or invest $1,800-$2,400 for the half-dozen or so devices she’d need.
iRex Business Edition
“Lori” is a busy professional, she lives and works downtown. Her commute is easy, by public transit, but shuffling the financial and investment papers around and jotting cryptic notes on the pages during that time is annoying to other passengers and she arrives to work with ink-stained fingers highlighted in pink. She needs an iRex business edition 1000-s. It takes notes on the screen; no typing, she can just circle things if she wants. Its large screen displays charts and graphs without compressing them into little, tiny blobs (PDF rendering is an issue for small screens). Since her use is almost exclusively business driven, she’s opted for the larger iRex 1000-s, at around $900, plus subscription costs. If she only wanted to read (no graphs and charts) she could have gone with the iRex iLiad book edition, at around $600.
Sony prs300
“Amy” travels all over the world consulting on oil field reserves. She’s often away from civilization, isolated on rigs or test drills, for weeks at a time. Her needs are better filled by a Sony eReader because it’s flexible. It happily accepts a wide range of ebook formats; she’s not restricted to one source, or one Country. She can download from almost any ebook site on the web and be in almost any country. She can also upload any text file from her laptop to her Sony, for it also acts as an additional file storage device. She carries a little wallet of memory cards, with core data and drilling specifications organized by reservoir, which she can slip into her Sony at any time to reference (so those files don’t take up the internal drive space). That flexibility comes at a cost; it’s not wireless. The Sony needs to be plugged into a computer to download new purchases and upload her laptop files, but once done she no longer needs to be tethered. Amy manages these issues easily, because she likes having 60+ books on the Sony along with 14 Petroleum Textbooks and References; which she needs to finish her Doctorate Thesis (also on her Sony). However, if she wants to share notes with her book club, she has to take pen to paper, the old-fashioned way because there is no keyboard. Her cost? $200-$500, depending on the memory and screen size.
Amazon Kindle
Nook, front view
“Karen” is a Sales Rep. her territory is the West Coast. Her choice is simple, but then again, not. She’s deciding between a Kindle, and a Nook. Which one? Hmm. She buys both, to try them out. She only needed the computer once, to register the units and set-up accounts. Now, she can download titles wirelessly where ever she is. They are both so easy to use! There is a difference in the number of titles available from each source, but since she reads the popular stuff she hasn’t noticed. She also has not noticed that both the Kindle and the Nook only like eBooks from their own branded sites (it’s a format issue, like VCR’s used to BETA or VHS). Then, she reads a great book, and calls her sister, “Hey, you have to read this book!” But how? The Kindle won’t lend a book unless Karen buys a second Kindle and sets it up under her account (and by default, Karen’s credit card). She looks to her Nook and finds it will lend to any other Nook so, her Sister buys her very own Nook, now they share books back and forth. Karen’s investment? Just over $500 because she still can’t decide between the Kindle with the keyboard or, the Nook with the color scroll band and virtual keyboard.
But that’s not all.
Things get complicated when Suzie, Lori, Amy, Karen and her Sister, sit down for one of their book club meetings. Suzie has a paperback, Lori has the iRex, Amy has the Sony, Karen is using her Kindle and her Sister is using the Nook. Suzie starts the meeting by saying “I thought the quote on page 34, half way down, described the motivation of the main character very well. What do you think?” They all look confused, everyone’s page 34 is different. They spend the hour trying various formats, adjusting font sizes, anything to get the pages to agree from device to device. They can’t. They’re worried how this will affect their meetings from now on…
More details for consideration;
eReader Devices are not limited to those listed above. The market has a good range and selection of products and it is a growing market so, more will come along. As for the “ease of use” Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook, are the most user friendly and require little computer knowledge past setting up an account. The Sony and other non-wireless devices are a little more involved in setting up and are for people who are somewhat comfortable with computers – if you are comfortable downloading photos from your camera, and uploading them into scrapbooks or photobooks, then you should have enough experience to manage these devices.
How big is a 5 inch screen? It is slightly smaller than a trade paperback. If you have a paperback handy, open it to any text page and look at how the text fills only the center of the page, with blank boarders on the top and bottom and outer edges. The eReaders will display only the text, no blank boarders. They use that blank space for the hard frame around the screen, where they embed the controls like page turn, bookmark, and so on. You will not lose any text as the format of the ebook will flow the text from page to page, and will adjust that flow when you adjust the font size. So, your 215 page book in the regular font, becomes a 315 page book in the slightly larger font, and a 415 page book in the largest font but the word count is exactly the same.
Wireless is Country Specific and Copyright is Country Specific. Why is that important? You can’t buy a wireless eReader in the USA and expect it to work in Canada (and other countries) because different Countries have different Wireless Regulations, and most difficult of all – different Publishing Laws (copyright). That slows down the introduction of eReaders into those markets. The wireless eReader’s have to wade through a morass of legal restrictions, licenses, and so forth before they are allowed to sell their products. To be clear, your eReader will work, but not the wireless option (so you can’t buy new books in those countries) and don’t forget to turn off the wireless mode, as searching for a signal will drain the battery quickly. As for the eReaders like Sony, which still need to connect to a computer for downloading purchased ebooks, these issues are nonexistent.
Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (Nook) are both working to expand their file formats, however for now they are still “closed” and prefer to read only their own eBook formats. There are workarounds, but that is really the realm of the tech-savvy.
Sony eReaders support a wide range of file formats, making them “open” and allowing you to purchase from virtually any eBook site on the web (you will need to be a little computer savvy). Third-party software such as Calibre further enhance this flexibility by converting from one format to another (like converting music from a CD to your iPod). Link to Calibre http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/
PDF files (pictures, graphs, charts, and more) are rendered by all the eReaders. The problem is trying to display them on the screens. This is where the larger screens have the advantage (iRex, and Kindle DX) display a PDF large enough for you to read it. When the same image is displayed on a 5 inch screen (the majority of eReaders) it has generally been shrunk so much that it all blobs together and you require a magnifying glass to make out the details. Some of the eReaders have a work-around, but it’s back to that magnifying glass; allowing you to only “see” what appears in the glass, much like seeing individual pieces of a puzzle and not being able to assemble them.
Touch screens have an additional layer over the display screen (to track the “touching”) and this can result in increased glare. Touch screens may also etch with continued scratching of the surface (like all those card-swipe units at the grocery check-out), so thin protective films are suggested, which is yet another layer to read through.
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Interested in more information? In order of appearance;
iRex http://www.irextechnologies.com/products
Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C
Barnes and Noble Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/
Comparison chart http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix
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This page was updated on November 10, 2009 to correct the iRex D1000-s, entry. The unit does not update wirelessly.
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© alias Hubbaloo and www.Hubbaloo.wordpress.com, October 2009, to Date. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to alias Hubbaloo and www.Hubbaloo.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
December 5, 2009 at 10:09 am
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