Michelle Cain, DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife goes wild in the…
Lisa gets the grand tour of IMS with Q95's Laura Steele! Plus …
Advertisement
Curl Up with a Good E-Book
Is it time to get an e-book reader?
Updated: Monday, 08 Aug 2011, 11:34 AM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 05 Jul 2011, 10:20 AM EDT
Let’s face it, paper anything is pretty much obsolete. Now that major publishing houses are getting into the act, books are no different.
E-readers came into the public consciousness a few years ago when Amazon introduced the original Kindle. E-readers are electronic tablets that use a technique called e-ink to duplicate the look of words printed on paper. The technology has evolved the last few years so that even in direct sunlight one could be excused for thinking they were actually reading ink off a processed tree. The technology is flicker free, meaning that the need to constantly refresh the screen as in a laptop or tablet is removed. Even though in most cases computer screen flicker is fast enough to not be visible to the human eye, this high-speed flicker is one of the leading causes of headaches caused by excessive use of technology. Removing this hidden annoyance was critical to the adoption of e-readers and today’s e-ink technology addresses this problem admirably.
Even with me being an admitted gadget freak, up until a few weeks ago, I had no interest in e-Readers. For one, I like the look and feel of real books. Secondly, the last thing I needed lying around the house was one more stand-alone gadget to support, troubleshoot, and charge. I decided in the interest of ‘science’ I would take a look at what all the hub-bub was about!
Don't forget, we are giving away Kobo eReaders all this week on Indy Style ! Tune in to win!
For this segment, I acquired the latest versions of the Amazon Kindle , Barnes and Noble Nook , and Kobo eReader ( Sony also makes a well liked e-reader, but a review copy was not available in time for this segment). All three use the latest e-ink technology and have wi-fi built in so that you can download books directly to the e-reader.
Kobo eReader Touch
The next generation of the Kobo E-Reader features a pure touch screen and a super simple interface. This was the easiest unit to get up and running and does not feature many of the bells and whistles that on an e-reader seem to just get in the way of your reading enjoyment. The reader comes in many different color schemes and the Kobo bookstore offers a rewards program add to an overall top notch experience. Students may not enjoy the Kobo if they use it for textbooks or learning texts as there is no ability to search the current book and the highlighting and bookmarking is simply not as powerful as other readers.
Price: $139.99
Pros: Slick, polished, and simple.
Cons: Bookmarking, highlighting, and search limitations. Touch screen was not as responsive as I’d like.
Bookstore Size: Over 2.3 million titles (includes public domain books)
Readable Book Formats: EPUB, PDF and MOBI
Barnes and Noble Nook Touch
This was my favorite e-reader, but did not actually run away with the title. I liked the feel of the reader in my hands and the soft touch buttons made it easy to hold in one hand and turn the page at the same time. It was slightly more difficult to setup than the Kobo, but not so much so that it would dissuade me from recommending it to more technology challenged friends. Social media integration into the unit makes what it to share what you are reading with your friends. The physical soft touch page turn buttons at times were hard to find and press, but since this is a touch unit, you can simply tap the screen to go to the next page.
Price: $139.99
Pros: Slick tactile feel, sharp display, excellent store experience, social interaction with Facebook and Twitter. Excellent mark up, search, and dictionary capabilities.
Cons: Slightly more difficult to setup than the Kobo eReader, buttons were harder to press than the Kindle
Bookstore Size: Over 2 million titles (includes public domain books)
Readable Document Formats: EPUB, PDF
Amazon Kindle
The ad-supported unit of the Kindle is the most affordable e-reader I reviewed. The unit’s physical keyboard was responsive and books loaded quickly. While this unit is ad supported, the advertising provided was in now way obtrusive or detracted from the book reading experience. The lack of touch screen makes markup and sharing of passages more difficult than it should be. I did not find the display as sharp as the Nook or Kobo. Due to the fact that the Kindle does not use EPUB formatted books but rather a proprietary file format, library support for lending and free book downloads are not as prevalent as I would like.
Price: $114 (ad supported)
Pros: Price, physical keyboard, largest bookstore (non public domain)
Cons: Lack of library lending for Kindle formatted books, confusing to use the keyboard to markup text, lack of EPUB support.
Bookstore Size: 900,000+ titles (does not include public domain books)
Readable Document Formats: AZW, PDF, MOBI
I have used all three of these book readers extensively over the long holiday weekend.
The verdict?
It’s a matter of personal choice.
All three readers use the same
technology and roughly perform the same. Personally I I gravitated towards the Nook for two simple reasons – the size and the fact that it did have physical buttons for turning the page, which I found is the easiest way to read a book while holding it with one hand. My family leaned towards the Amazon Kindle due to the lower (ad supported) price and keyboard. Indy Style’s Tracy Horner is infatuated with the feel of the quilted back on the Kobo e-Reader while my wife enjoyed the Kobo e-Reader as well due to the simplicity.
So go to the store, try out all three (as well as other popular readers that I didn’t look at like the Sony e-reader) and find the one that you like best.
As an added note, if you want to start reading e-books but don’t want to invest in a standalone device, most e-book stores (including Sony, Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble) have apps available for most tablet devices (iPad, Android) and smart phones!
Just remember, choose a reader that you like and will use because when you start to build a collection of paid content the books that you purchase will be locked into that reader due to proprietary DRM.
Wait –what is this DRM of which I speak? DRM stands for digital rights management and it is built into most books you purchase. Each book store has its own proprietary DRM meaning you cannot transfer a book you have purchased from one manufacturers device to another (ie. a book purchased from Amazon to a Kobo and vice versa). Publishing houses have required the e-book stores to include this protection to keep piracy at bay and while it can be annoying to a legitimate purchaser, there is no (legal) way around it.
Now would be a great time to touch on the softer side of the e-book equation, because after all, what good does it do to have this fantastic new e-reader if you can’t get any books on it?
Well, rest easy, all major e-bookstores share most of the same titles and always have most if not all of the New York Times best sellers available. The bookstores also offer a great selection of classics and promotional books for free. The promotional books usually rotate, while the classics are usually always made available in their unabridged form for free due to their lack of copyright (book written before 1923 generally have been allowed to have their copyright expire).
Other options exist for free or low cost reading material thanks to volunteer projects like Project Gutenberg , which strives to digitize and archive all culturally relevant books.
Many libraries are also getting into practice of loaning e-books and digital audio books. Most libraries, including the Indianapolis Public Library are powered by a e-book loaning service called OverDrive. You can check to see if your local library participates by clicking here . (Note that the service is not very Kindle friendly)
As I stated in my opening paragraph, I didn’t think I would like an e-reader because I like the feel of having a real dead tree in my hand. And true to form I didn’t like reading magazines or newspapers on either device, but much to my amazement, I truly did enjoy reading books on all three devices. All three e-readers we have looked at above are super simple to operate, have fantastic battery life, and are great entry points into the world of e-books.
Don't forget, we are giving away Kobo eReaders all this week on Indy Style ! Tune in to win!
As always, we want to hear from you! If you have any questions about anything relating to today’s technology, feel free to Tweet us, post in the comments below, on the Taming Technology Facebook page or on our website ! We may even answer your question on air in the upcoming weeks!
Next week: Gadget Overload! - Every time we turn around a supposedly life changing gadget is being pitched to us. In today’s Taming Technology, Rob picks out five gadgets that actually perform as advertised – that is playing the role technology is s
C Robert Dillon is the digital developer at WISH-TV in Indianapolis and serves as a technology consultant and on-air contributor to WISH as well as the technology expert and host of the Taming Technology segment on Indy Style. Opinions presented are those of the author and not necessarily of LIN Media, WISH-TV, or Indy Style.
You can keep up with Rob on Twitter , Facebook , or Google+ .
Email This
Print This
View Story on a Single PageAdvertisement
Advertisement