With today’s report from Amazon.com that for the past 3 months eBook sales have surpassed books made from dead trees, I thought it time to NOOK yall.
First let’s get the iPad out of the way. I bought one for $499 wanting an eReader that was back-lit so I could read in the dark with out disturbing anyone next to me in bed. It turned out to be just too big to horse around in bed and I returned it.
There are basically four choices: the Amazon’s Kindle at $189, the Sony at $169, the Barnes and Noble Nook at $159, and Border’s KOBO at $149.
What they all have in common is they are about the same size, similar features, work at the same speed, have e-ink technology, present PDF and ePub formats, have the same memory, last about a week before needing a charge, have WiFi and need a third party light to read in the dark.
The KOBO is so new I have not tried it and it is the only one without WiFi, books are purchased via your computer and added to the KOBO thru a USB connection.
I had very short experiences with both the Kindle and the Sony. I returned both because the software made it very hard to get the hundreds of eBooks I have on my computer into their eReaders.
I LOVE MY NOOK!
The Nook has had a price drop of $100, it now can be bought at Barnes and Noble for $159. Look for an additional $50 coupon deal which may still be going on.
That price is for the WiFi model. The WiFi and 3G model is $199. If you have a computer and or WiFi available when you want to buy a book, 3G is not necessary. It only works free to the store.
The Nook connects by WiFi to the Internet with a basic browser which is stinky at present. WiFi does come in handy to buy an eBook without having to own or mess around with a computer.
The real selling point for me was when I plugged the Nook into my computer’s USB port. Unlike all the others, the computer went DING and there it was. The Nook listed as an external drive! Drag and Drop my eBooks or PDF files right into the Nook easy as pie. No forced connection to a store. I believe the KOBO does the same.
Unlike back-lit eReaders, e-ink readers can be used in the direct Sun. But that ability is countered by having no built in light for reading in the dark. To make matters worse, all the third party attachable lights are crap that use those highly expensive dime sized key batteries. They last about 15 hours which is usually less than a week.
Enter the new kid on the block, The Octovo! It is $29.95 and free shipping at Amazon. It uses an AA battery that lasts 20 hours which is more than a week. I especially like the swing out design. I have found that after I fall asleep and roll over on the reader, the swing arm needs only close a tiny bit to turn itself off. At the time of this review Octovo had only the Kindle version available. I bought it anyway and found it a no brainer on where to super glue it to the back of the Nook. The glare angle defeat works perfectly and as the attachment part and the light are separate pieces, when the Nook version does arrive just that part should be available.
If you do enough book reading, $200 in hardware and about $10 a book is a fair deal. Not only will you save a tree, but after only a few weeks you will never want to be a tree killer again.