A Buyer’s Guide to eReaders
The market is now flooded with ereaders. This is something like every electronic company has its own MP3 player with the exception that there is no universal ebook format across devices like MP3 players have a common MP3 format. This frustrates buyers! Many ereaders are still in the pipeline, and you probably don’t have any idea what you’re buying now is worth tomorrow.
However, after B&N dropped the price of 3G Nook to $199 and announced a new wifi-only Nook at $149 the ereader market got some heavy shake resulting Amazon’s decision to drop Kindle 2 price to $189 next day. Now there is a lot of uncertainty about the release of Que and Skiff reader. The competitive pressure among big players in the market is turning out to be an impossibility for other companies who already have eInk devices to survive long. It si ruling out any new eInk-based ereaders in the market in future.
Here I preapre a table based on certain features that are important and essential for an ereader. These are:
- Screan size
- Internal memory (Mem in the table)
- External memory support (SD in the table)
- Connectivity (wireless)
- Touch screen
- Supported ebook formats
- Whether PDF can be opened
- Dictionary support
- Hightlighting, note-taking
- Text-to-speech (TTS) support
- Social connectivity (facebook, twitter and so on)
- Price
I have decided not to cover iPad, iPhone or any similar kind of devices with LCD and TFT screen since they are not dedicated ebook reader. When choosing an ereader you should ask yourself first: Am I casual reader or a serious reader?
If you’re a casual reader than you can choose iPad, iPhone/iPodtouch or similar devices if you can afford it. You can also consider PanDigital Novel as an iPad alternative at $200. The PanDigital Novel is not out yet (though Kohls and JCPenny once started selling the device. There are reports that it has been withdrawn from the market due to some software issues). You would be able to buy ebooks B&N on the device.
If you’re a serious reader, then you must have to look at what kind of features are important to you when deciding to buy a dedicated ereader.
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In the Following table I have organized the available eInk based ereaders based on the features I have mentioned above. The top hearder text of each column in the table is clickable. When you click one (for example, “Screen inch”) the ereaders will be sorted by the size of the screen. By doing so for your favorite features you can finally find your desired ereader.
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| eReader | Screen inch |
Mem GB |
SD | Wireless | Touch | Format | Dict | High light |
Note | TTS | Web | Social | price US$ |
|
Kindle 2 |
6 | 2 | No | 3G | No | azw tpz txt mobi |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 189 Buy |
Kindle DX |
9.7 | 2 | No | 3G | No | azw tpz txt mobi |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 379 Buy |
Nook 3G |
6 | 2 | Yes | 3G | Yes | ePub pbd |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No (Lend Me) |
199 Buy |
| Nook Wifi |
6 | 2 | Yes | Wifi | Yes | ePub pbd |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No (Lend Me) |
149 Buy |
| Sony PRS300
|
5 | 0.5 | Yes | No | No | ePub BBeb rtf lrf txt |
Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 150 Buy |
| Sony Touch PRS600  amazon.com/images/I/31L20aLjqaL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" width="44" height="44" /> |
6 | 0.5 | Yes | No | Yes Stylus |
ePub BBeb rtf lrf txt |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | 170 Buy |
| Sony Daily PRS900 amazon.com/images/I/21pBgQOB33L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" width="53" height="53" /> |
7 | 1.6 | Yes | 3G | Yes Stylus |
ePub BBeb rtf lrf txt |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | 300 Buy |
Kobo |
6 | 1 | Yes | No | No | ePub txt |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No | 189 Buy |
Alex |
6 | 2 | Yes | Wifi | Yes | ePub html |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | 399 Buy |
| Cybook Gen3  |
6 | 1 | Yes | No | No | ePub txt |
Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 189 Buy |
| Cybook Opus  |
6 | 1 | Yes | No | No | ePub txt |
Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 189 Buy |
| Boox 60 amazon.com/images/I/3161%2BrKmHPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" width="48" height="48" /> |
6 | 1 | Yes | No | No | ePub txt |
Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 189 Buy |
| Pocket Book 360 amazon.com/images/I/21egegyqveL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" width="54" height="54" /> |
5 | 0.5 | Yes | No | No | ePub txt mobi doc chm html fb2 djvu |
Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | 240 Buy |
| Pocket Book 301 amazon.com/images/I/312JnInIzJL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" width="61" height="61" /> |
6 | 0.5 | Yes | No | No | ePub txt mobi doc chm html fb2 djvu |
Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | 275 Buy |
| Pocket Book 302 amazon.com/images/I/31pDuVBaxEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" width="52" height="52" /> |
6 | 0.5 | Yes | Wifi Blutooth |
Yes Stylus |
ePub txt mobi doc chm html fb2 djvu |
Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | 340 Buy |
Cool-er |
6 | 1 | Yes | No | No | ePub fb2 txt rtf html prc |
Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | 189 Buy |
| Samsung E6  |
6 | 2 | Yes | Wifi Blotooth |
Yes Stylus |
ePub txt |
Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No (Lend Me) |
299 Buy |
Apple iPad Mini MD532LL/A (32GB, Wi-Fi, White)
by Apple 
(494) Buy new: $429.00 $417.99 41 used & new from $360.00
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (16GB, Deep Grey)
by Samsung (788) Buy new: $499.99 Click to see price 56 used & new from $335.00
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (16GB, White)
by Samsung (788) Buy new: $499.99 Click to see price 40 used & new from $333.93
