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Jan
E-Reader Purchasing Tips
Having recently purchase an e-reader (a Kindle
- Book Selection. Even the best reader is useless if it doesn’t have the books you want on it. I suggest looking at the device’s “store” (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, etc) and seeing which one has the books you would want. I chose about 20 books I already have and 15-20 I want to buy and saw which store had them and compared price.
- Price. While the Nook and Kindle are the same price, several other e-readers are not. Keep this in mind when you want to purchase.
- Connectivity. How are you going to get your books? Does the device have a 3G/cellular connection? Or are you tied to Wi-Fi? Or will you have to load your books solely with a USB cable. The ability to get a book anywhere via 3G/cellular is nice. Also, will you be traveling worldwide with the device? If so, you may want to check out if the device has worldwide roaming or what your limitations are.
- Battery Life. E-ink is very good for battery life because it requires no power unless the page changes. However, some of the newer devices have color LCD screens, second full screens, etc. This may be a benefit and worthwhile, but it will certainly cut down your battery life.
- Book Formats. What book formats will the device support? Can it natively read the format you want? Can it be converted? (By the way, Calibre is a must for book conversion). Can you easily check out books and put them on the device? All things to think about.
- Lending. This may or may not be important to you. Can you loan your books to other people not on your current account. Currently Kindle does not support it and Nook barely does by allowing you to loan a book one time to one person for 14 days.
- Hardware Limitations. Keep this particularly in mind. Some things (formats, lending, etc.) can be fixed with a software update if the vendor feels it is a necessity (competition is a good thing here, and we have already seen Amazon respond to the Nook by adding a native PDF reader). However, hardware limitations cannot be fixed without buying a new device. So if a hardware feature is important to you, weight it a little more.
Feel free to e-mail me or post questions in the comments. Also, if I missed anything, let me know. I struggled with my decision, but I am happy with my choice. Weigh those things which are important to you, and then GO FOR IT! Enjoy!
I struggled with my purchase for almost a month as well and I eventually got a Kindle. I went to the B&N and looked at the Nook, but wasn’t impressed. The Kindle is definitely the best e-reader right now.
January 11th, 2010 at 5:48 pm