Summary of ereaders - with recommendations
August 24th, 2009 by Paul Biba
Chamber Four has a good round-up of current ereaders (though he leaves out the Kindles for some reason). What makes this post unusual, however, is that the author, Nick Vreeland, gives his own personal opinion of each one, and I must say that I agree pretty much with his opinions. Here are a couple:
Sony Reader PRS-300, $199
Quick verdict: Best device for the casual novel reader, no question about it. No ship date has been released.
Cool-er eReader, $249
Quick verdict: At $50 more than the PRS-300, the Cool-er is only worth it if you really want a green ereader or really want a 6″ screen.
Why no Kindle? The author may be biased against the Kindle. From the FAQ page: (Italics mine.)
Not bad but a bit Sony-centric.
Somehow he manages to fit in the Astak 6″ EZ-reader with a (new to me) Wal-Mart link but doesn’t know about the hyped-to-the-gills Astak 5″ model with TTS, 16GB SDHC support and a zillion supported formats at the same price as the feature-lean Sony 300?
Dunno, but if I were in the market for a Sony reader these days I’ll be jumping all over the reduced-priced 505s not lusting after the 300.
I have a Cybook Gen 3. I know what I love about it, and I know what I hate about it. I know what are the issues when using it daily to read on.
What I don’t know is HOW OTHER READERS COMPARE. For example, the page turning/loading is slow. It could be the fastest in all of e-inkdom, or it could be the slowest . . . I don’t know. To me, the cybook gen 3 still looks best, on paper, for my needs. But because I have so little faith in the company making it, I won’t buy another product from them again. What will I replace my Gen 3 with when the time comes, I want to get the best one for my needs.
I would LOVE to read some honest reviews from people who have owned and READ DAILY for at least FOUR MONTHS on a reader. There is a lot you learn when USING the reader compared to reading the online propaganda about a reader, or reading a review from someone who just opened the box.
Yes, but he gets his facts wrong. Kindler owners can buy from Fictionwise and any site that sells non-DRM Mobi. Also, iPhone/iTouch users can buy Kindle books using a free Kindle app.
Christine: There is a thread on mobileread by mgmueller who now has 9 readers. See
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49817
One of the biggest problems with this article is that it tends to equate DRM with any contemporary ebooks. For example it claims that the Jetbook can’t read any contemporary books because they currently lack any support for DRM — it ignores the thousands of DRM free titles offered by Fictionwise, Baen and some other stores and publishers.
That being said, I do tend to agree that a $200 PRS-300 is going to make it very hard to choose any other ebook reader that is currently out there except perhaps for the Kindle (and that is as much for how easy Amazon makes buying books as anything else).
–
Bill
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the link. I didn’t include Kindles because this post was about newer ereaders. I suppose the Kindle DX is newer, but I don’t think it’s flying under anybody’s radar.
You can find summaries of the Kindles, and a couple other older ereaders, on our static ereader comparison page at: http://chamberfour.com/ereader-comparison/
And that’s a good point about the Astak 5-inch. I’ll add it to our comparison.
Thanks
Nico
Bill-
That’s a good point about DRM. I didn’t mean to exclude DRM-free ebooks, I hate DRM and I think it’s great that there are a lot of authors and publishers making DRM-free ebooks.
My intention was more to point out that jetBook doesn’t have DRM support, which definitely hamstrings your reading options if you buy one.
Nico
Also worth noting is that the Opus has all-new firmware with features not found on the Cybook, like folder-based view (which is something all the hanlins offer) and microSDHC support up to 16GB, plus autorotation sensing. The price may be a tad high when compared to a barebones expansionless entry-level reader but not everybody is looking to bottom feed; as the ebook reader market expands there will be room for premium-priced high-feature devices as well as entry-level gadgets.
Diversity is good.
@ Alan - Thanks for the link, but the first line in the first post is: “I’m more about “collecting” readers, than actually reading ebooks.”
If I didn’t regularly spend time READING with my Cybook, I wouldn’t know that the act of using it causes the files to become corrupted so that every couple of weeks I have to delete and re-add or even reformat. This is a big problem with this reader, and one the company ignores. I wouldn’t know that if I read for longer than about an hour, it will not save my place or my bookmarks (also ignored by the company), so I have to remember to reboot often or pay the price of very slowly finding my place one page at a time.
I want to know if all the other readers are doing things like this or not, and only someone who has USED the reader regularly for a significant period of time can know, and only HONEST people will tell.
I would like to have a reader that isn’t always causing problems, if there is one, and if it offers the good features that I like about my Gen 3.
We all could be doing each other the favor of helping find the better readers if those of us who use the readers regularly would give honest appraisals of them. AND we’d help improve the quality of readers on the market if word got around about the better and worst performers.
Felix-
I agree that there’s room. I’d love a high-feature ereader. But the Opus isn’t it just because it costs more. Folders are a feature in Sony Readers, too, and I don’t feel like paying $80 (plus $30 for shipping to the US) for autorotation.
Are there any other features that justify the price tag?
Nico
Christine: could you list the features you like and can’t do without? You shouldn’t need one person with 9 readers; just nine honest persons with different readers. As long as you can tell the brand loyalists from the honest folks you should be able to hone in on a reader that meets your primary needs. But you might have to give up on a feature or two that you like but can do without…
Don’t really think there is a perfect reader out there; not just yet…
Value is in the eye of the beholder; one person’s bargain is another’s boondoggle. Gotta be careful with those judgments, though.
Given that autoration is an ergonomic feature on the opus–it lets you hold it from the right side or the left, not just the bottom, its vakue is purely subjective. There are probably a fair amount of left-handed readers who just might find that feature compelling enough to sway them.
Me, I’m intrigued by the Astak 5″ model because it has a jog dial on the right as well as paging buttons on the left; that can come in handy.
On my BeBook, one thing I found out early is that I happen to find it more confortable to slide the reader upside down in its case so I can hold it with my left hand and slip the fingers between the covers and keep my thumb on the paging button. I thought it was odd but in posting it on a bebook forum I discovered others that did the same thing. (yay! I’m not a freak, just excentric!)
For *me* side-mounted paging buttons are an ergonomic must, for others a miss.
Hence my warning about writing off features, above.
Ergonomics are a very private thing…
@ Felix - I think I’m going to post a review on my blog and invite others to do the same. Hopefully some people will respond.