Ray Hendon
Second in the series
In the first article of this series I showed the rise of eReading over the last seven years and the effects this new innovation has had for both printed material and the hardware required to read it.
Missing from that analysis, however, was the more personal consequences of electronic reading. There are two consequences, in my view, that stand out. First, while it is well established that people who buy eReaders read more than the average person, is it now clear that buying an eReader further increase the amount of reading. Survey after survey has shown the same thing: people read more after they get an eReader.
The second consequence is also important. eReader owners can buy their books at lower costs than those who buy paper editions. All of the electronic book vendors sell their books at significantly lower prices than the paper editions. Current publications can sell from $9.99 to $15, while the bound editions can be $30 or $40—although less for paperbacks.
Another consequence is somewhat related to the first two: almost the entire Cannon of Western Literature can be had for free for those who own an eReader. The Gutenberg Project has taken upon itself to scan hundreds of thousands of books that are in the public domain. In the United States, this includes virtually all publications prior to 1922.
This means the entire body of Greek and Roman literature plus the vast writings in Europe through the Middle Ages, The Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment--all of of 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries are available at no cost to those who have an eReader.
This, to me is a priceless treasure, and commends electronic reading to the most stalwart traditionalist.
What eReader to Buy
If you decide to join the revolution of eReading, there are two decisions that immediately face you: What hardware do you choose as your primary eReading device, and what eReading apps do you like for reading on other devices? The choice of reading devices is the subject of this essay. The reading apps and other considerations will be covered in the next essay.
As for your choice of hardware, there are three categories of reading devices to choose from.
E-Ink Displays
E-Ink display readers are good for only one thing: reading digital content. They are not good as a tablet computer; they are much too slow and cumbersome for that task. But, they read electronic text especially well because the text displayed on their screen is so easy on the eyes. No other display can match the lack of eye strain these devices offer. Plus, they are small, light and easy to hold—easy to carry around. But, that is essentially all they do. Do not confuse a dedicated E-Ink screen device with a general purpose tablet.
Below are four of the most popular brands of E-Ink readers.
The Kindle Paperwhite 
is on the left and the Nook Simpletouch with Glowlight on the right.
Both of theses readers sell for about $120. Other models with fewer features are available from both vendors at around $70 to $80. On the less expensive models however, if you read at night you need a lamp to provide illumination.
The next pair is shown below. 
The Sony Reader at left and Kobo’s Glo Reader on the right. The Sony does not have internal lighting and sells for $129.99. The Kobo Glo has lighting and sells for $129.99, also. Kobo also sells a touch edition (without the internal lighting) for $99.99.
I cannot recommend either Sony or Kobo. Sony is too expensive for what it does, although the build quality is typical of Sony products. Kobo has a poor reputation for build quality and service after the sale, and their selection of books at their website is poor when compared with Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
All of the models shown use WiFi for downloading books, but 3G/4G models are available from Amazon at higher prices.
Tablets and Smartphones
Tablets are winning the battle of eReading. Their versatility and power offer a full computer experience for users who surf, email and who use some of the apps that do many, many things. They function more like a laptop without the weight and bulk of a keyboard.
They also do a great job with eReading. The screens are internally illuminated, making reading in a dark environment easy, and the font and layout control I equal to or better than the dedicated E-Ink readers. Colors are brilliant and well defined.
If you want to use a tablet as an eReader, that is easy to do and costs nothing extra. But not all tablets are created equal when it comes to eReading. In this task, a nine or twelve-inch screen is too much to carry around—to heavy and clumsy, and too heavy to hold for any length of time.
In my case, I prefer two tablets—an iPad for regular tablet work of surfing, email and research, and a smaller 7-inch tablet for eReading. If I had to have only one and I were buying one now, I would probably go for the iPad Mini with its 7.9-inch screen. It is small enough to hold in one hand, light enough not to become a burden, and has the surfing abilities almost equal to the larger screen devices. The iPad Mini sells for $330, but Walmart is discounting it now to $299.99. A new model with an enhanced screen is expected by October.
There are other options, however, and one’s personal preferences for look, feel and features are your best guidelines. If you are looking for a single-device solution, I recommend not going larger than the roughly 8-inch dimension. Anything larger will not be suitable for eReading for long reading sessions. Anything much smaller will be a burden for surfing the internet.
This intermediate dimension is gathering steam over the last few months. The smaller 7-inch tablets have always trailed the larger tablets in sales because of the severe limitations of the smaller screen, although they are far better for eReading. The middle sizes may be best for a single device. Otherwise, I would use a 7-incher for eReading and a larger screen for internet work. In my view Email on a 7-inch screen is fine, and both the Android and iOS devices have a robust email capability.
Below are pictures of some tablets to consider: The far left is Google’s Nexus 7, which runs under to Android operating system. It is considered by many to be one of the best 7-inch tablets at the $200 price point.
Next is the Kindle Fire HD, also a 7-inch screen. The Kindle Fire HD is “almost” a full featured 7-inch tablet, but now quite. This tablet is also priced at $200 and is a decent tablet in its own right, but it is designed to give the owner exceptionally easy access to Amazon’s movies, gadgets, eBooks, magazines and newspapers.
The iPad Mini is on the right end of the graphic. The sizes shown are
roughly accurate but not precise.
The tablet pictured at left is a new entry into the arena from Chinese manufacturer HiSense. It offer specs similar to the Nexus 7 but sells for about $50 less. It also has an even lower priced model that retails for $100, but the specs on that model are significantly reduced, especially on the processor and screen resolution.
The less expensive model will probably be okay for eReading, since its screen resolution is about the same as many of the E-Ink screens. But, surfing and email would be significantly slower than its full-featured brother.
To complete the tablet category, only a few more will be discussed. There are probably a hundred if not more models of the larger screen tablets. Operating systems run from Apple’s iOS for the iPad, Windows 8 for the Surface and Android systems from Samsung, Amazon, Asus, Acer, Lenovo and Dell, to name a few.
The pros and cons of these different models is too complex to consider in this article. It is sufficient to note that all of them can run all of the available eReader apps from the major suppliers, so the brand will not affect you ability to use the tablet effectively as an eReader.
Smartphones are another category that can be used for eReading.
All of the apps available for tablets, with few exceptions, are available for iOS, Android and Windows Phones. The problem, of course, is the small screen sizes. Most are round 4-inches, and I find this while you can read on them, the experience is definitely second best. I have used Android Smartphones with 4.5-inch screens and an iPhone for eReading, but if you have a tablet with you, that is the better option.
I haven’t used a Windows Phone for eReading, but the screen size controls the quality of the read more than any other specification—they all have good screen resolution. So I cannot recommend any particular smartphone over any other. The two top of the line phones, the Samsung Galaxy series and the iPhone series, generally have the highest screen resolutions, and that helps. But it still is not a way of eReading I would recommend for your primary use.
Laptops and Desktops
Laptops and desktops of all descriptions can run eReader software from all the major and minor vendors of eBooks. But neither of these devices is convenient as an eReader. I put the reader apps on my computers because there may be occasions when I need to press it into eReading duty. But this is becoming more rare.
However, it costs nothing but a little disk space to download the eReader software from you favorite vendor, and you may find it worthwhile to make your laptop a secondary reading source.
Since the software is virtually the same on all the laptops and desktops, there are no inherent advantages of any one brand over any other. Whichever brand and model you choose will work about the same as an eReader.
The next installment of this series will cover the specifics of the eReader apps available to computers, tablets and smartphones.
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