E-Readers Now, E-Readers Forever!

Abstract While a tablet is a sort of "magic window" that becomes whatever you want via apps, the e-reader is a device almost entirely dedicated to a single function, that of reading long-form text. E-readers such as the Kindle and the Nook do this job very, very well and deserve their own attention, separate from their do-anything tablet brethren. [FIGURE 3.1 OMITTED] In 2010, e-readers using E Ink screen technology were at the height of their hype, and there were dozens of models in the production pipeline. The big three that I focused on in 2010 are still the industry leaders: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Sony. That order is also their U.S. market share, with Amazon and its various Kindle models being the leaders among the general public for e-reader adoption. (1) Barnes and Noble and the Nook family are holding on and appear to be a clear second place as far as sales go. The Sony Reader line is a distant, distant third, and anyone else that's still competing in the market (Kobo and a few others) are distantly behind them. In my previous "Gadgets and Gizmos" report, I went into detail about how E Ink works and the pros and cons of that generation of e-readers. Most of the pros and cons stay the same, but the lineup is quite different. Most different of all are the prices. In early 2010, you could expect to pay more than $200 for any model of e-reader, while now you can purchase a Kindle from Amazon for $79. A Nook will run you just $20 more, at $99. (2) Here's a quick summary of the e-readers I would recommend now, in early 2012. [FIGURE 3.2 OMITTED] Amazon Kindle The Amazon Kindle, the base model of Kindle (figure 3.1), operates with mechanical buttons for page turning and doesn't include a keyboard, instead relying on a five-way switch and an on-screen keyboard that you must click through in order to type. However, if you don't do a lot of note taking while reading and you buy most books online and have them delivered to your Kindle, this is by far the cheapest way to get into the Amazon ecosystem at $79 (with ads) or $109 (without ads). (3) Amazon Kindle Touch and Barnes and Noble Nook Touch Amazon's Kindle Touch (figure 3.2) and Barnes and Noble's Nook Touch are such nearly identical pieces of hardware that the only real decision is which ecosystem you prefer. Both use the same screen and the same technology to make the screen respond to touch; around the bezel of the screen are a series of infrared sensors that are activated when something physical interrupts the beam. Since this isn't reliant on capacitive touch in the same way that the typical tablet screen is (where the screen relies on sensing an electrical sign caused by the capacitance of your skin), you can use this form of touchscreen with gloves, with a stylus, or really anything that can touch the screen. This is good and bad, since anything touching the screen (a sleeve, a blanket, etc.) can cause the page of the book you're reading to turn. There is no physical keyboard for either, but the touch-based keyboard is responsive and easy to use. The keyboard just appears when you need it and disappears when you don't. It's certainly not as fast as a physical keyboard, but some of this is just a result of the lag of the E Ink screen updates. These screens are enormously better than the models of Kindle and Nook from 2010 in nearly every way, but E Ink simply isn't capable of the instantaneous response you get from an LCD screen. With the Kindle Touch, there are a few decisions to be made as to the right model for your needs. There are, in effect, four distinct types of Kindle Touch (see table 3.1). The choices come down to how the device connects to the Internet and Amazon's "Special Offers," better known as "advertisements." On the Kindles with advertisements, there are ads delivered by Amazon in the place of a screensaver and to the lower part of the screen when you are browsing the home screen. …