If you are planning to buy an ebook reader, what options are you considering for? May be Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony or something else. But don’t just decide by brands, there are other things to consider too while buying an ebook reader. So here are things you should consider while buying an ebook reader.
What is your budget?
It’s useless to consider products that are out of reach of your pockets. Also, you might spend a little or a lot. The current crop of devices spans from the $150 no-frills, e-ink-only, single-purpose device like the Kobo eReader, up to the multitalented Apple iPad, which does a lot more than just read ebooks.
Which Screen Type suits you?
Many models, like the Amazon Kindle, and Sony’s Readers, use a single monochrome, e-ink screen to display text. E-ink looks a lot like paper, and has the benefit of not being too hard on your eyes during long reading sessions. It’s also easy to see in direct sunlight. One thing you won’t see is color: E-ink is monochrome, but offers varying shades of gray to give images some depth. And just like with a good old hardcover, you’ll need light to read, since there’s no backlighting. But the benefit there is long battery life on e-ink-only devices. Also worth noting: It takes a second for an e-ink page to redraw itself, so there’s a short delay between page flips.
As far as screen size, the current sweet spot for e-ink displays is 6 inches. The Sony Reader Pocket Edition is the most compact, with a small 5-inch display, while the almost-unwieldy Kindle DX features a mammoth 9.7-inch e-ink screen. Apple’s tablet, the iPad, on the other hand, offers a big, almost-10-inch, full-color LCD for reading books. So decide first which screen comforts you most as it’s all about your eyes.
Which eBook Format suits you?
Right now, there’s no single universal ebook format. Ebooks are published in a variety of formats and each device has its own ebook store. But if you want to read free, public domain titles, your own documents or anything else outside of what’s available in the ebook store, that’s where it can become tricky. Just one example: Google offers more than a million free books in the popular free and open ePub format, many public libraries use ePub, too but the Kindle doesn’t support the format. Workarounds abound, and Kindle users can get much of this content elsewhere on the Web, but things will become much simpler when the industry settles on a single format standard.
Tags: amazon kindle, Apple iPad, battery life, color lcd, ebook reader, ebook store, Kobo