I wanna buy an E-Reader

RickHoughton

I'm looking to buy an e-reader, but there's so many around, I haven't a clue which one to get. Can anyone offer any guidance for me please. I'd prefer one that takes multiple formats, with enough space for 100+ books
Thanks in advance for any help

sillygoose

2 types really,

1. tablet sort where the display is like a normal laptop/phone display - that is lit up.
Advantage - easy to see in poor light, some very cheap but smaller ones.
Disadvantage - hard to see in bright light, short battery life and lots of recharging.

2. digital ink sort. (Amazon Kindle, Sony etc) These have a display that only needs power briefly to change the screen, not to maintain it as it is. They are reflective like ordinary paper but don't give off any light.
Advantage - lighter to hold, easy to read in good light - very long battery life.
disadvantage - not so good in poor light like in bed unless you have a decent lamp. not much good at showing anything other than books.

Personally I am a big fan of the amazon Kindle, its well designed, good value, lighter than a book, holds a lot, has a great display (type 2 digital ink), has easy access to huge amazon book catalogue including many free ones. easy to put your own documents on in pdf format. Just come back from holiday, my wife charged her kindle before going and after 2 weeks of solid daily use it was still only half down on the battery.
There are two types of kindle, they both have wifi and once connected to your home wifi can download books etc in seconds, backed up on amazon. The 3G one has a mobile phone data link in it so can get books when your out and about but its really not necessary in a device like this, load it with vast amount of books before you go via wifi. Has a simple web browser.

As it read pdf's you can easily install a pdf virtual printer on your PC (plenty of free ones like THIS so you can print from any program, website etc into a pdf document. You can them just plug a kindle into your PC via its USB cable and copy the pdf over (like onto a memory stick). Sometimes you have to fiddle with the display settings a bit to get it to display nicely but thats easy via the Aa key.

Foggster

Sillygoose just about sums it up with regards the kindle. :beer:

I would highly recommend getting a cover with a light, although they are pricey. You can also get a small clip on light which work quite well.

Lugh_Chronain

Refurbished Amazon Kindle can be purchased for £79.99 on Amazon.

You could also have got a new one for £101 with using a discount code from Tesco Direct but unfortunately it's out of stock.