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Favorite B/W eReader?

Carson Dyle

Carson Dyle

Diamond Member
There seem to be new eBook readers released almost monthly, so it's hard to keep abreast of what's available.

I'm looking for a black & white only eReader to be used only for book reading. I don't need 3G connectivity, and probably don't need wifi. Not sure if I want a backlight or not. I would like to be able to load and read free books and what have you, so document type compatibility is a concern.
 
Nook

Supports most of the common formats, it's reliable and has good battery life, and fairly comfortable to hold for long periods of time. Simple Touch with glowlight is the one to get.
 
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Been doing some research since posting last night. The Kindle Paperwhite looks to have the edge over the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight. Higher resolution screen, more even lighting, whiter page background. Plus, with Amazon Prime there's a free lending library of over 180,000 books.

I like the SD slot of the Nook for storage expansion, but for a pure book reader, I'm not sure how important it is. The Nook is also a little cheaper and includes a power adapter, but I'd be charging the reader on USB anyway.
 
Carson Dyle said:
Been doing some research since posting last night. The Kindle Paperwhite looks to have the edge over the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight. Higher resolution screen, more even lighting, whiter page background. Plus, with Amazon Prime there's a free lending library of over 180,000 books.

I like the SD slot of the Nook for storage expansion, but for a pure book reader, I'm not sure how important it is. The Nook is also a little cheaper and includes a power adapter, but I'd be charging the reader on USB anyway.
Click to expand...

Another Pro for the Nook is that it still has physical page turn buttons, which is nice.
 
I have the standard Kindle eReader that I bought last summer and I love it. I have been contemplating upgrading to the Paperwhite, but I really like the physical page turn buttons. Although in fairness, I used my Touchpad as an eReader before I bought the Kindle and it didn't have physical page turn buttons either, so I'd probably be OK.

If you're an Amazon Prime user, a Kindle eReader is a no brainer.
 
Carson Dyle said:
Been doing some research since posting last night. The Kindle Paperwhite looks to have the edge over the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight. Higher resolution screen, more even lighting, whiter page background. Plus, with Amazon Prime there's a free lending library of over 180,000 books.

I like the SD slot of the Nook for storage expansion, but for a pure book reader, I'm not sure how important it is. The Nook is also a little cheaper and includes a power adapter, but I'd be charging the reader on USB anyway.
Click to expand...

We have a Nook Simple Touch at home and really happy with it.

I haven't followed the latest, but my concern with Kindle was that it doesn't take .epub files natively. There are tons of international publications out there that are released as .epub and with the Kindle you have to convert them manually to be able to read it.
 
cronos said:
We have a Nook Simple Touch at home and really happy with it.

I haven't followed the latest, but my concern with Kindle was that it doesn't take .epub files natively. There are tons of international publications out there that are released as .epub and with the Kindle you have to convert them manually to be able to read it.
Click to expand...

I found an epub to mobi converter in about 30 seconds on Google and solved that problem with my Kindle.
 
TheStu said:
Another Pro for the Nook is that it still has physical page turn buttons, which is nice.
Click to expand...

I don't know why Amazon has moved away from this... I'd rather have the physical buttons than a touch screen. Which is actually why I still have a 2nd-gen Kindle keyboard. The thing is SLOW though...

Edit: Heh, we live in crazy times. I just realized I am complaining about my book's performance...
 
podspi said:
I don't know why Amazon has moved away from this... I'd rather have the physical buttons than a touch screen. Which is actually why I still have a 2nd-gen Kindle keyboard. The thing is SLOW though...

Edit: Heh, we live in crazy times. I just realized I am complaining about my book's performance...
Click to expand...

The touch screen is more useful for EVERYTHING else though. Just leave in the page turn buttons.
 
Yuriman said:
I found an epub to mobi converter in about 30 seconds on Google and solved that problem with my Kindle.
Click to expand...

It's not a matter of whether or not a converter is available (which there are, a lot of them).

It's still not native support, and there's zero reason for Amazon to not support epub (basically the most used ebook format in the world today) except for stubbornness. Like I said before, there are tons of international publications out there that are epub, some of them periodicals.

If it's just a matter of converting a file once in a while (which for a lot of Kindle fans, that may be the case) then maybe it's fine, but to me this is not acceptable.

I'm an Amazon fan too, Prime member and everything. This is probably the only thing I dislike about them.
 
TheStu said:
The touch screen is more useful for EVERYTHING else though. Just leave in the page turn buttons.
Click to expand...

Agree with this. Touch is great for highlighting, searches, etc. The keyboard nav is a real pain for this kind of thing. But I do prefer the physical page buttons.
 
Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight

I like the physical page turn buttons and the file compatibility. I've considered trying the Paperwhite, but I hear that the light is always on and not a toggle like on the Nook. It probably isn't much but it'll affect battery life a bit. Looking at the product page on amazon, they recommend putting the brightness at max in daylight which doesn't make any sense to me for an eink display. In my mind the backlight should be low or off in daylight unless its an LCD screen.
 
gorcorps said:
I like the physical page turn buttons and the file compatibility.
Click to expand...
Or either of the past two Sony PSR-T1 or PRS-T2.

Physical buttons, micro SDCard, headphone, and default epub support.

As with that Nook you can root either of them to install any Android ereader program of your choice to not be limited by any file incompatibility.
 
Just got a Kindle Paperwhite as a late Christmas gift. I kind of miss the physical page turn buttons, and dust on the screen bugs me, so I can't just kind of run my finger along the display to clear it anymore... But I've got to say, the front lighting really makes up for a lot of that and then some. I had a Kindle Keyboard with the official lighted case, and while it was certainly functional, it can't hope to compare to the PW.

With programs like Calibre, the lack of ePub support is trivial at best, and the one thing I love about how Amazon does things, is that there's just one big pool of space for storing books. It's not like the Nook where most of the onboard space is reserved for things bought from the B&N store. Can't really speak too much about any of the others, but I vaguely remember looking into them at some point in the past, and finding something similarly annoying compared to Amazon's rather simple and straightforward approach.
 
I got a Kobo-Glo for Christmas and I freaking love it. Of course I am in Canada, so having a Kobo makes more sense for me; not sure how different it is from the Kindle Paperwhite, but having the built-in light is amazing, so I would definitely say go for one with that.

KT
 
Carson Dyle said:
Why is that?
Click to expand...

epub/library support up here. The Kindles available in Canada do not support this yet as far as I know, so it was a no-brainer for me, plus I have had a Chapter's points card for years, so we get special discounts and deals all the time.

KT
 
KeithTalent said:
I got a Kobo-Glo for Christmas and I freaking love it. Of course I am in Canada, so having a Kobo makes more sense for me; not sure how different it is from the Kindle Paperwhite, but having the built-in light is amazing, so I would definitely say go for one with that.

KT
Click to expand...

Agree on the light. I have a Kindle Paperwhite and the light is a HUGE plus. Definitely pick a reader with a built in light.
 
gorcorps said:
Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight

I like the physical page turn buttons and the file compatibility. I've considered trying the Paperwhite, but I hear that the light is always on and not a toggle like on the Nook. It probably isn't much but it'll affect battery life a bit. Looking at the product page on amazon, they recommend putting the brightness at max in daylight which doesn't make any sense to me for an eink display. In my mind the backlight should be low or off in daylight unless its an LCD screen.
Click to expand...

The light is always on, but at the lowest brightness setting you can barely tell it's on. If you're in daylight the screen will look like any other non-lit ereader if you turn the brightness down.
 
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