Archive for category Amazon Kindle Reviews

Top eReaders Compared

Posted by on Friday, 26 November, 2010

If you are looking for the eReader that is just right for you, or even the one that is just right for a gift, it can be a confusing proposition. The field of eReader’s is getting crowded with every major online eBook seller now having their own eBooks reading their own specific formats. The following is a breakdown that might help to compare some of the possible options for you

Nook Color

This e-reader has full access to the “android” network. Because of this there is a ton of functionality that make it far superior in many ways to all of the other choices, except the iPad. That is as much of a bad thing as a good. It has a ton of neat features. You can watch video’s, play games, surf online, and of course it is in color. You can do anything that you can do with your android, but on the larger screen of the Nook.

BUT… This e-reader is a little bulkier than the other eReaders. It has a far shorter battery life. Put simply, though not “bad” it is just not quite as good of an eBook reader.

For multi-purpose use, it defeats the other eReaders easily. The problem is that for multipurpose use you would have to then compare it to the iPad, which puts it to shame in every category but cost. So it is not quite as good of a book reader and not quite as good as the iPad. This is not to say that it is not a worthy compromise purchase, but for anyone with an iPad this reader is pointless, where the Kindle or Sony would still be nice additions to have.

Sony Reader

The biggest strength of the Sony Reader is that it uses standard ePub format. That is important because the books you buy are readable on many other formats. Unlike a kindle where the books you purchse must be read on a Kindle, books bought in ePub format may be read on many other devices. Battery life is far longer on the Sony E-reader than on the Nook Color, though not as long as on the newer versions of the Kindle 2. (8 hours for Nook Color, 14 Days for Sony, 30 Days for Kindle 2)

KOBO

Kobo is one of the new entries into the e-reader market. Kobo is a product from Borders meant to compete with all the other online bookstores for a share in the market. Kobo is late to the game, poorly advertised and has no real features that make it stand out. In many ways it is similar to the Kindle 2. When it was first released it was drastically lower than the kindle 2 in price, but now that Amazon has cut the price to lower than the Kobo, this reader has lost all its appeal. Unless new features are released avoid the Kobo.

iPad

The iPad is king of the tablets. The size makes it a little difficult for long term reading. The battery life is far shorter than Kindle and Sony for travel. But for all around capabilities nothing even comes remotely close. The Nook Color and its access to the android network is the only eReader that even makes an attempt to compete with the functionality of the iPad and it does not even begin to approach it.

Kindle 2

In some ways the kindle 2 is still the eReader to beat. If you desire functionality, it pales in comparison to the Nook Color, and is in a different universe from the iPad. But for PURE eBook reading it may be the best…but by a very narrow margin.

eReader Comparison

These eBook readers are still tough to compare. Many have good points. Click here for an more in depth Comparison between Nook Color and Kindle. For a more in depth review of ALL Ebook Readers, check out: eReader Comparison.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gene_T._Patterson

Category: Amazon Kindle 2, Amazon Kindle Reviews, eReaders, Kobo Reviews, Nook Color, Sony Reader   , , , , ,
Comments (0)

New Features For the Kindle 3rd Generation

Posted by on Friday, 27 August, 2010

The announcement for the Kindle 3 is now official, and no doubt orders for the new eReader are piling up by the thousands. For those of you who don’t know what a Kindle is; simply put, it’s an electronic book from Amazon which is about the height of a large novel and as slim as half a pencil. Is all the excitement for the Kindle 3 merited or is it just the same old device in a new graphite case? Let’s look at what Kindle 3 brings to the table and what Amazon decided to leave out. However, before we do that we need to put some focus on the eReader market and what Amazon is trying to achieve with the Kindle.

Yes Amazon – it’s a jungle out there

It’s no surprise to say that Amazon is facing a very different world compared to when it first released the Kindle. The competition for the eReader market is getting crowded at both the budget end and the high-end. Additionally, there has been a lot of talk about “kindle-killers’ which are looking to dethrone the Kindle king as the number one eReader. The Kobo eReader was released earlier this year, with a price tag significantly less than the Kindle at $149, and it will be news to nobody that Apple launched its attack into the eReader market with the media-rich iPad.

As well as a tough market, Amazon is faced with a strange situation where the implicit consumer demands are contradictory to the explicit demands. On the one hand, the unspoken implicit demands are telling Amazon that readers want an easy to use device that doesn’t distract from the reading experience. Something very “book-like.” On the other hand, the explicit demands are requesting a new state-of-the-art device with multi-media functionality, with touch screen technology, video viewing, etc…

How has Amazon responded to these challenges? Firstly, they weren’t tempted to create an eReader which does everything and distracts from its main task; namely reading. The Kindle 3 has kept its simple interface and is still very “book-like”. Secondly, Amazon has counter-attacked the budget eReaders entering into the market by launching two versions of the Kindle 3. These being, a Kindle with 3G Wifi ($189) and a Kindle with Wifi ($139). The Kindle 3G Wi-Fi device maintains the previous price tag of the Kindle 2 while adding a bunch of new functionality. The Kindle Wi-Fi undercuts a large majority of other eReaders on the market, while delivering a mature product which is backed up the Amazon book store with millions of titles to choose from.

Given the situation where Amazon finds itself, let’s look at what features they put into the Kindle 3 and what they decided to leave left out.

Kindle 3 – what they put in.

Amazon focused on improving the Kindle’s basic functionality, by letting the Kindle do what it does best: reading.

Amazon has improved on the readability of the device, which by all standards was already very good. They claim 50% better contrast than any other eReader, better readability under bright sunlight, and some new improved fonts to read your books with.

The physical device itself has also been improved. The size of the Kindle has been reduced while maintaining the same dimensions for the reading area. The battery life has also not been neglected. A simple charge can last up to one month.

The capacity for the Kindle 3 is now 3500 books which can be down loaded in under 60 seconds.

Wi-Fi is added to the 3G as a way of connecting with your Kindle so that you can browse the Amazon bookstore and the net with the new web-kit based browser.

Kindle 3 – what they left out

After the release of Apple’s iPad the expectations for the Kindle were sky-high. In a nut-shell people wanted an Amazon iPad. Now that some time has passed, the iPad is a slightly less attractive as a device for reading books. People are realizing it’s too heavy to hold for hours, and the display which is LCD is not easy on the eyes over long periods of time. Read the rest of this entry »

Category: Amazon Kindle Reviews  
Comments (0)

eReader Comparison

Posted by on Tuesday, 20 July, 2010

The three big players currently in the ereader market are: Amazon – With the Kindle, Barnes & Noble – with the Nook (pronounced like “book”) and Sony – with the Digital Reader. The Kindle and Sony Reader have various versions. The ones I will be talking about are Kindle 2 and Sony Reader Daily Edition. Here are the three features I would consider before buying an ereader:

Feature number one: Store size and file format
When it comes to ereaders you want to make sure you are going to have a large selection of titles to choose from. Amazon currently offers about 600,000 ebooks for download but you are limited to the Amazon book format (AZW). The Sony reader and Nook on the other hand support the ePub standard on top of the standard PDF. This basically means two things: 1) You can get your hand son ANY book on the internet with the ePub format, this includes Google’s 1,000,000 books. 2) If you ever want to buy a different reader all you have to do is make sure they support the ePub standard. Therefore, you will not lose any purchased books you’ve ever made.

Feature number two: Disk Size
I want to be able to hold as many books as possible. While the Nook and Kindle 2 each have a disk size of 1.6GB for user content (about 1500 books) the Sony Reader has a slightly larger disk holding 1.8GB for user content. With the Kindle 2 you are stuck with that disk size. The Nook and Sony reader support memory expansion with an SD card (sold separately however). Read the rest of this entry »

Category: Amazon Kindle Reviews, Sony Nook   , ,
Comments (0)