E Book Readers

[Lameduck]

Can anybody help me make a choice on an e-book reader?
I would be grateful if those that have had experience
would be gracious enough to share their sentiments and recommendations.

[smilodon]

Amazon Kindle. For the best reading experience go for the £70.00 e-ink version. This is just an e-book reader though with no ability to do colour magazines, films, games etc. They have a new version out called paper white, which as far as I can tell just makes the background more white. The bog standard Kindle is a light grey.

What I love about the Kindle is that it's cheap to buy, the battery lasts for weeks, there's a huge library of titles, it's fantastically portable, there's no back light so I can read for hours if I want with no eye strain and it can be read in direct sunlight.
What I don't love is that Amazon use a proprietary file format so you can't read your books on other E-readers, the Kindle won't read some other formats and while the Kindle is great for reading in daylight it's not back lit so like a paperback reading in bed will require a light to illuminate the page.

As an E-book reader it's near perfect but that's all it is. It's not a tablet and doesn't try to be. For £70 though it's hard to beat IMHO.

[Nassuada]

I'll support the Kindle. About a year ago I bought the Kindle keyboard and it's fantastic - and the battery does last around 2 months, depending on use ofc The keyboard version is a little more expensive but I think it was the only one available at the time. I still buy books as a physical thing but for classic novels it's really good - picked up the complete Sherlock Holmes collection for around 86p. Brilliant. New books are retail price but they usually come down in price over time as kindle editions.

[OldBloke]

Kindle user too and more than happy with most of it. I've ordered the Paperwhite version as it is front lit meaning I can read in bed with no other light source needed.

[Blunt]

Kindle for me too
Turn off wi-fi for longer battery life, turn it on when you need to buy another book.
If they could only make it smell like a book it would be perfect.

[Tutonic]

Another very happy Kindle user here.

Sent from my Galaxy S3 LTE.

[JanuZ]

I just use an Ipad with Kindle App and that works fine. Just have to remember to turn down the backlight to make long reading seasons possible, it being easier on the eyes and batteri lasts longer.

[smilodon]

Another nice feature that might be useful is 'whisper sync'. This lets you store your progress in any given book online with Amazon and this can be synced silently to any other device you have the Amazon Kindle software on i.e. smartphone, tablet, desktop. I can read a chapter on my Kindle and then later pick up where I am on my phone for a few pages. When I go back to the Kindle it knows I've read some pages on my phone and moves the page accordingly. Everything stays in sync. Not much use if you just use a single Kindle device though.

[Doorman]

How many times can an E book be dropped onto the floor when the reader falls asleep? :flirty: (no carpets, wooden floor)

[smilodon]

Shove it in a mock leather case and quite a few I'd guess. or tie it round your neck with a b it of string, works for me

[Lameduck]

Thanks chaps for all your answers.:thumbsup: Decided on the the Kindle Paperwhite.
Checked price on Amazon.com and discovered price to be $119  (£74)
Price on Amazon.co.uk  is £109. :sideways:I'm now awaiting an explanation for the £25 price difference.
Cant see why I should pay a third more.
Oh, delivery mid December. :blink:
Just had a reply, they state that the .com price does not include a sales tax, whereas the uk
price includes VAT.
When did VAT rate go to 33%?

[OldBloke]

... Oh, delivery mid December. :blink:

Mine is now quoted as ...

DELIVERY ESTIMATE Thursday 15 Nov 2012 - Saturday 17 Nov 2012

If it's a pile-o-crap it gives you time to cancel yours

[Lameduck]

If it's a pile-o-crap it gives you time to cancel yours

Thanks Oldie! :worship:

[TeaLeaf]

I'll be honest and say I'm intruiged by the Nook.   It's major selling points are that it is not an Amazon-only environment and that it is cheaper than the Kindle.   B&N are huge in the US, so there is some muscle behind it.  The fact that it supports a variety of formats seems a winner to me.

NOOK Tablet will support the following file formats:

-eBooks: ePub (B&N DRM, Adobe DRM, and non-DRM files), PDF, CBZ
-Other documents: PDF, TXT
-Microsoft Office documents: DOC, DOCM, DOCX, XLS, XLSM, XLX, PPT, PPS, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, PPTX
-Music: MP3, MP4, WAV, AAC, MIDI, OGG, 3GP, AMR
-Videos: MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, MKV, WEBM, H.264 (Baseline/Main/High profile) up to 1920x1080, MPEG-4 Simple/Advanced Simple profile up to 1920x1080, & H.263 (please see additional information in the Video Files question)
-Pictures/Images: JPEG (JPG), GIF, PNG, BMP

I'll be buying an e-reader some time in Q1 2013, so I'm watching the Nook closely, along with the Sony e-reader which I also like.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Support-NOOK-Tablet/379003185

[T-Bag]

I'll be honest and say I'm intruiged by the Nook.   It's major selling points are that it is not an Amazon-only environment and that it is cheaper than the Kindle.   B&N are huge in the US, so there is some muscle behind it.  The fact that it supports a variety of formats seems a winner to me.



I'll be buying an e-reader some time in Q1 2013, so I'm watching the Nook closely, along with the Sony e-reader which I also like.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Support-NOOK-Tablet/379003185

I've been interested in the nook readers for a while, but haven't been able to get a hands on to test it.

I would want to use an e-reader as a PDF reader for science papers so it would have to handle them nicely and not be confused by equations and symbols (not optimistic, but I'd be incredibly tempted if it did). Other than that I'd probably use it for existing electronic reference book collection I've built up most are exceptionally expensive ( example) in paperback and have no electronic version (not that I'd be able to afford them if they did).
Has anyone used a nook for browsing non-standard content like this? I doubt I'd buy much if anything from the respective stores so Amazon/B&N selection and price matter less to me than general purpose PDF reading capabilities.