Thread: Nook, Kindle, and other e-book readers?

I'm suddenly in the market for one... suggestions?

I don't need to buy the most expensive thing out there. I'm looking for something cost-efficient (most bang for buck), practical, and able to support lots of e-books (does that matter? like are there more e-book available on one device and not the other?).

I Have a Kindle, and I've had the Sony 505 from a few years ago. Both were awesome, although the Sony definitely supported more formats. I do like the kindle for the simplicity of beaming books from the website to my reader (I generally only use it for the free classics though). I haven't had much experience with the nook, but I had no desire for the random LCD screen at the bottom.

Although the kindle doesn't support many formats, I use Calibre to convert all of the stuff I read. Calibre allows me to add ISBN Numbers, Covers Pictures, full information on authors and even mini reviews and ratings. The conversion only takes about 30 seconds to 1 min per book which isn't that bad at all.

If you have any more questions just let me know.


Edit:
Although I keep WiFi off, I've read about 6 books and have had my Kindle since just after christmas and haven't charged the battery yet. It's close to needing one, but not quite yet.

Also, the page turn speed is amazingly fast in comparison to the old 505 versions, and the big page turn buttons on the sides are nice.

If you do go to B&N stores a bit you can read any book for free for up to an hour per day while on their wifi. Which is pretty sweet if you actually use it (they do have a ton of ebooks).

Apparently the new Kindle can be read outside with no issues. That can be a big factor depending on your needs. Most people blow it off, but then they're pissed when its a nice day to go read out on their deck.

Stuff I posted back in April...

The uninformed believe the kindle to be the best. It's actually one of the worst of it's breed.

It's drm'd to all hell and gone. It is one of the last readers that do not support the open epub format, so you are limited to books purchased from the amazon store for it's native format. It can also (now that the ipad and nook are threatening it) read pdf format, but still refuses to allow users access to the huge library of epub books which is quickly becoming a standard. Sony even announced recently that they are dropping their proprietary format for epub as the native format of their readers (even though they already allowed users to read epubs). Even doc and pdfs are converted via a service to the amazon AZW format FOR A FEE (prior to a recent firmware update for pdf files).

Ultimately nearly all readers are epaper 6" screens. Sony has a smaller 5" and there are a few large scale readers as well, but they are the minority. So it has to be the software and hardware that differentiate them. Kindles feel a bit flimsy to me. They just seem like they are capable of snapping in half pretty easily. It doesn't have a memory slot so you are limited only to it's internal memory and transferring books over usb or it's 3G connection (no wifi either). It's not a touchscreen (I'll touch on that, no pun intended, later) so while you can annotate books, you have to do it with the keyboard which also eliminates the ability to draw, sketch, etc notes or pictures in those annotations. And the software.... well... it allows Amazon to remotely remove your books when it feels like it (as it did with Animal Farm or 1984 or whatever it was last year).

Someone mentioned audio books... Almost all ebook readers (kindle included) include the ability to play mp3 files. Some even do text to speech so you load an ebook into it and it will read it to you (though it does sound like Stephen Hawking killing a cat sometimes). Kindle DOES actually have the text to speech feature that a lot of others do not. So points to amazon for that, though I don't use that functionality, nor having heard it would I.

I mentioned touch screens... epaper has a relatively high dpi (around 180 or so) but there is no backlight. So the contrast it has comes mostly from the light it receives from it's surroundings. This is good. Between the high dpi and good lighting it really does look a lot like reading a paperback novel. The "paper" is slightly off-white, getting closer to white the more light is shined on it. In full sunlight, if you dont' get a glare from the screen, it looks phenomenal. However... most of us will be reading with good lighting but not perfect. So the contrast will be a BIT lower. Now I said all that to mention, again, touchscreens. I love them. But they do add some "overhead" to the contrast and dull it a bit. Enough that it is noticable going from a non-touch screen epaper machine to one that has a touch screen. They are still perfectly readable but the contrast just isn't quite as high. Personally, I'll take the ability to swipe my finger across the screen (which is surprisingly smudge and finger print resistant) to change pages and use menus instead of hardware buttons. And the ability to add highlights, dogears, diagrams and drawings in annotations is nice as well. One other small downside to touch screens. Just having the touchscreen uses a bit more power. So the battery life of a touch screen unit is less than one without. Without a touchscreen battery life on an epaper machine is measured not in hours but in page turns as the only real time that epaper requires power is when it's being modified.

My personal recommendation on an ereader... and I've owned more than a few... and used a lot more than that...

Sony eReader Daily Edition PRS900. It costs about 100 dollars more than it's primary competitors, but it's got a 7" screen compared to most others' 6" screen. It's a touch screen. It has 3G through AT&T for free access to the sony store. The battery is user replaceable (most aren't). It has a 600x1024 resolution (most are 600x800). It supports epub and pdf natively. The sony readers are RUGGED. While I still baby all my electronics, I wouldn't worry if I dropped my sony reader. They are tough and feel like it when you are handling them. $400 dollars.

If you want to stay in the same range as the Kindle2, then the Sony eReader Touch PRS600. As from it's name it's also a touch screen in the 6" range. 600x800 resolution (same as kindle2). Supports epub and pdf natively. Again... it's rugged. $300 dollars.

Both of the Sony's have slots for BOTH memory stick pro duo and SDHC up to 32GB. If you can fill a 32 gig memory card full of books you'll never... EVER... run out of reading material. Most books are in the hundreds of kilobytes range.

If you want something other than epaper... and I read far more on this than I do anything else right now... The Archos 5 tablet. 5" touch screen LCD with full color range. Runs Android. 800x480 (full dvd quality video). With add-ons you can buy you can even turn it into a DVR. It's not nearly as open as I would have hoped based on it running android, but it's still highly versatile and the battery life, while nowhere near as lengthy as an epaper device, is somewhere around 5-6 hours depending on what you are doing (this is based on reading ebooks with the backlight at about half). Slot for micro SD allows it to expand as well. $300 dollars.

Those are retail numbers too. You can find the PRS600 for much less than 300 dollars if you get it online and even less used.

From round xmas time 2010...

I consider myself somewhat of an expert at this... Having owned 3 Sony readers, Nook, Kindle, and having used an e-reader on android on two different phones, a tablet, and having done so on an iphone and ipad.

BEST OF THE BUNCH... Sony Daily Edition. Bar none. It allows you all the great features of a touch pad including taking notes, highlighting, etc using your finger or a stylus, with e-ink which is the best way to read books. You will pay more for it though. But the Sony readers are QUALITY. They are rugged and have metal frames and housings whereas the nook and kindle are both plastic. Also, the sony's take full SD cards AND sony memory sticks (and can use both at the same time so they are expandable BEYOND the others).

Downsides to the sony's? Difficult to impossible to replace the battery if it goes south.

ALMOST ALL E-INK READERS BATTERY LIFE IS THE SAME. It's measured in page turns, not in hours or days. It uses no power once the page is displayed. It's a static image that doesn't need power to show. The only thing that decreases battery life is if you turn on wifi, 3g, etc. The sony touch also uses a bit of power for the touch screen.

I'm currently using a nook (not the color one), but I'll probably go back to the sony touch before too long.

My recommendation? Sony Daily Edition. (though the PRS600 and PRS650 are also touch screens... just slightly smaller.)

Since the first post I sold the Archos5, and really there are a LOT of android powered color tablets out there now including the Nook Color. Nothing with an LCD screen is going to look good in the sunlight though.

If you want color and want to read in sunlight... wait for something with PixelQI or another color e-ink solution. There's a tablet coming out called the Adam that looks great in that regard.

Anything running android will have a version of Aldiko available to it in one way, shape, or form, and there's no better reader for android that's general purpose. Kindle and Nook apps are available, but I prefer Aldiko by far.

I've got a 10 inch tegra 2 android tablet and it's GREAT for reading comics (pages fit perfectly and are not too small to read comfortably), but I like the nook for day to day reading of books. I'm eyeballing the nook color because it seems like a good compromise between the 10" tablet and the nook. AND it's basically a heavily modified android tablet. A little rooting... A little haxing... And it would do nicely as such. We'll see if I can justify another 250 dollar reader.

Thanks for the tips so far guys.

Oh hey, how can I tell if a book is available in electronic form and which device it can be read on?

I've looked at the B&N website and Amazon website and I see 'nook' versions and stuff... but I'm thinking to myself... 'this e-book must be able to be viewed on other e-readers, not just the nook'...?

Don't forget the sony store too...

But just check if they have an epub version available. If so, it can be read on literally any reader except the kindle line. Kindles use their own format (AZW) and Nooks use epub natively. The Sony's used .mobi originally but I believe I remember them having switched to epub as their native format now.

Basically, I've always said to stay away from kindles. They try to lock you into their world and don't allow for easy use of non amazon formatted ebooks. Which is a shame because the DX is a really nice piece of hardware.

Someone mentioned Caliber as well. It's invaluable as a library manager on your PC and allows conversion between many formats.

I might also recommend Jutoh as a piece of software you should buy (Caliber is free) if you plan on MAKING any ebooks. It's by far the easiest epub creation tool out there and well worth the money. I regularly go snag fan fiction from various websites and compile it into an epub to drop on my readers. It also compiles to other formats, but really... epub is all you need.

Thanks Kanati, that's very helpful.

I'm in that kindle world Kanati mentioned and I like it