It’s Christmas and I want to read trashy novels on the train without people judging me, so let’s talk about e-readers.

Is Kindle the way to go? It’s the most obvious choice, but is there anything that really kicks its ass? I want to read books from it….that’s about it…..maybe PDFs too? I’m not fussed about tablets, I can play Angry Birds and watch cat videos on my phone.

Ta,
Andy

Kindle Paperwhite.

It really is as good as people say it is.

….also has a huge library, and lots of cheap deals on books.

What the Jamester said!

Was playing with a paperwhite today, absolutely lovely. Though tbh the basic Kindle and Nook seem good as well… Nook glow is getting a rep for being delicate.

Amazon seem to have the better apps as well- I’ve got the kindle reader on my phone and it’s been nice to have when I’ve been unexpectedly delayed places, always got a book with me.

Whoever invents some sort of book-ripping service will have my eternal loyalty 😉 Til then looks like I’m getting a paperwhite.

I was looking at the Paperwhite today in Waterstones, is the worth the £40 extra over the standard Kindle?

I would say it is.

Lit screen.
Better battery.
Touch screen.
Higher Res.

For a complete comparison, hit this link and scroll down till it gets to the feature comparisons.

As a heads up, as Amazon are out of stock. If you get it from Tesco, and have not used Tesco Direct before, use code: TDX-KJPW and get a tenner off.

Cheers for that Jamie, I’ll put it to good use! I think I may as well just get the Paperwhite.

Got my Paperwhite last week as soon as they laned in Tesco – 😀
Not using it before Christmas – not even a peek – 🙁

Don’t get one from Waterstones, they’ve crowbarred an advert onto the front page that’s impossible to remove. Lots of people are really pissed off about it, as there’s no discount for carrying their ad.

What do we reckon, will the price of the Paperwhite drop after christmas? Haven’t paid that much attention in the past but Kindles do seem pretty much price-fixed and undiscounted right up til they’re replaced so I’m tempted to just buy now…

Hmmm, I reckon they’ll stay pretty stable. Often they’re about the same price everywhere until a new model comes out. £99, with that voucher, from Tesco is pretty good.

Kobo has the advantage that you can borrow library books on it, can’t do that on a Kindle.

My wife has asked for the Kindle Fire (I’ve reserved the HD at Argos), what do folk think – is this better/worse than the Paperwhite?

Not as good at being a book. Better at being not a book.

The Fire is a bit of a different beast as it’s a tablet rather than a pure e-reader. If she wants it just to read, then a Paperwhite will be infinitely better as the backlight on the HD will get very fatiguing when reading at night (and blue light before bed means more restless nights apparently). However, if she also wants to use it as a tablet (interweb, apps etc) then the Fire is the way forward.

Kobo has the advantage that you can borrow library books on it, can’t do that on a Kindle.

plus –
Store for it seems decent – only thing i haven’t been able to find was the Moss Roberts translation of the Romance Of The Three Kingdoms.
Battery life is excellent
No backlight
Pretty tough, it’s been dropped and abused and still ok
Linux software seems a bit ropey, but drag’n’drop works fine

Thanks speed12, but does that mean an iPad would be better?

If you got one of these Nook readers
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/nook/379003208/

and read some smut, would it then me a Nooky reader 😆

those tablets are OK to read from if you put an anti-glare cover on the screen, which makes them much more matt like an ereader and not a glossy, reflective surface.

When reading at night you will turn the brightness down really low on the backlight – I use Mantano reader which I think lets me turn the brightness down lower than normal, so I am not finding any eyestrain issues when reading from an HP touchpad – whereas I was when using an ereader with one of those attached lights.

Also mantano reader has a night mode where you can invert the colors, so white text on a black background.

So I think the main issue is bulk/weight of a tablet is more, and battery life.

Changing to a tablet for reading has been a big step forward for me, but then I read technical-type PDFs a lot.

Thanks speed12, but does that mean an iPad would be better?

The iPad is, arguably, the pick of the tablets if you want a tablet – nice UI, great selection of apps etc. the Fire is a bit of a weird e-Reader/tablet mix as it is an Android tablet in form, but the UI Amazon have put on it pushes it as an e-reader. A better alternative for similar money is the Google Nexus 7 (or 10 for an iPad sized one).

But as far as pure reading goes, no backlit LCD screen can compete with an e-ink for non-eye-tiredness. The new Paperwhite screens get rid of the ‘need a light to read by’ bit of the older Kindles as well, but at the same time won’t melt your retinas like a tablet would…

My thoughts anyway! (Kindle and iPad owner)

I’m glad someone has asked this question as I have been thinking about one of these for my “old chap” he reads a lot and it is hard for me to keep up with books from the library or magazines having looked on amazon there seems to be quite a range of books not just harry potter.
He has also “had a go” on my ipad to view a classic car club forum which he likes to keep upto date with not post just read. but on the spec’s for the paperwhite it list a experimental browser. do we know if this would cope with a forum type website?

but on the spec’s for the paperwhite it list a experimental browser. do we know if this would cope with a forum type website?

The browser might be able to show it, but using it would be horrible. I would just completely ignore the fact it has a browser. If you want one unit to do anything other than read books then skip straight past a Kindle. Think of Kindles doing just one thing, but doing that one thing incredibly well. You’ll sacrifice some of the ‘niceness’ of reading with a tablet, but gain a huge amount more functionality. Depends where the main priority is.

I’ve got a horrible habit – I read in the bath. I don’t drop books in the water but it sometimes gets a bit steamy. Will any of the ebooks survive such abuse?

The iPad is, arguably, the pick of the tablets if you want a tablet – nice UI, great selection of apps etc. the Fire is a bit of a weird e-Reader/tablet mix as it is an Android tablet in form, but the UI Amazon have put on it pushes it as an e-reader. A better alternative for similar money is the Google Nexus 7 (or 10 for an iPad sized one).

I think that’s true of tablets generally. Having a choice of ereader apps gives a much wider choice of book sources. As I’ve said elsewhere, a bunch of books by a particular author I like, that have turned up on Kindle an iBooks, are around £1.50 cheaper through iBooks, and only half of the books are available for Kindle, which is annoying. But generally, it’s being able to get hold of books from little-known sources, and which have heavy DRM that will only work through something like Bluefire, that makes a big difference.
I’ve just found an ebook archive for hundreds of SF books, in ePub, that probably wouldn’t work on a Kindle, and has made me a very happy bunny indeed! Dozens of different writers, but not all of their back catalogues, though.
I’ve downloaded Larry Niven’s entire works for free, and they’re really good quality, compared to the unbelievably crap ebook of his I bought from Amazon, which was so badly done I gave up trying to read it after four of five pages!
It’s for that variety of choice that makes me favour tablets, but, I am a massive book-lover and reader, so having a huge library of ebook versions of paperbacks I’ve bought over the last forty years or so is hugely important to me, probably not so much to many other people.
I’ve no idea how many books I’ve got on my pad and phone now, but as I managed to retrieve 152 from my dead Stanza app and get into iBooks, so I must have three hundred or so across tree or four apps now!
The base Kindle is only £69, now, so that has to be a bargain for many who just want an ordinary reader to stick in a bag and not worry about.
Oh, and it’s possible to install the latest Android OS on the first Kindle Fire, which makes that a very attractive option… 😀

I’ve just found an ebook archive for hundreds of SF books, in ePub, that probably wouldn’t work on a Kindle, and has made me a very happy bunny indeed! Dozens of different writers, but not all of their back catalogues, though.
I’ve downloaded Larry Niven’s entire works for free, and they’re really good quality, compared to the unbelievably crap ebook of his I bought from Amazon, which was so badly done I gave up trying to read it after four of five pages!

See, that’s hooky stuff you’ve downloaded there. If you go down that particular route to hell then it’s a bit disingenuous to start preaching about the prices Amazon charges.

Oh, and it’s possible to install the latest Android OS on the first Kindle Fire, which makes that a very attractive option…

Which has never been sold officially in this country.

Its called an Ipad mini 🙄
I just don’t see the point in buying anything else 😉