Tablet & Ereader Reviews

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).

Feature number three: Battery Life
Since we want to replace the “real” books we want do not want to be limited to a nearby outlet as much as possible. The Nook only supports 10 days of battery life, the Kindle supports 14 days and the Sony reader supports a whapping 18 days. Keep in mind that these numbers are when the wireless is turned off. But this gives you an idea of the longest lasting device.

I’ve listed here the main features and specs to look out for when buying an ebook reader. The fact is the best return for your money is the Kindle 2. It costs about $150 less than the Sony Reader and between you and me has all the features you’ll ever need. Find out prices and see what other consumers are saying about this awesome device. Show me the Kindle 2.