I love books therefore I was really intrigued by the slew of ebook readers that came out on CES this past week. However, since I'm a slow reader, they have to be really worth it for my to consider buying one.
My interest in them got piqued when on a trip to a mall a while ago I saw a kiosk were they were selling Sony Ereaders. Until then I hadn't seen an E-ink display for a good length of time. I was impressed and started to do a bit more research. At first there were only three good contenders, the Kindle, the Nook, and the Sony Touch reader. However, after CES I got a bit lost (so many new shiny readers... which to choose?), but thanks to a Gizmodo article I'm back on track on which ones I'm interested in.
Here's a list of the ones I feel fit me and are actually viable gadgets. How does one of them fit me more than others? First the price can't be too exorbitant, then it has to fit would fit in my reading experience of looking up stuff in the internet about what I'm reading. And in terms of product viability: It means I'm not going to count prototypes or new technologies that are not commercially viable yet.
1. The Entourage Edge
I know the roundup called it dead on arrival, but hear me out. The technology for a LCD/E-ink is still just enough away for a product like this one to be practical. Having both types of screen on the product seem like a good mid-point while waiting for such technology.
The Entourage Edge is essentially a two screen netbook/reader combo. On one of the screens you have an E-ink display for reading ebooks and on the other you have an LCD that acts a computer which lets you browse the web. Plus the content from one screen can interact with the other, for example you can move an image from the E-ink side to the LCD to watch it in color. With features like this I can accept its $500 price tag. However the one area it might fail is on its size/weight. It doesn't look to big to me (when compared to a laptop) but I'll have to grab it with my own hands until i know for sure if its too large or heavy for reading.
2. nook
My second favorite reader is still the nook. I tried it out at a Barnes & Noble and I loved it. The size is just right. The prize seems reasonable. The text look gorgeous. However, the time it took to load a single ebook was just horribly long. The page turns weren't too much of a bother to me, but waiting almost a minute to start reading is too much. I've heard that this is something they can fix on a software update, they're already on version 1.1, so my hope is still up that the reading experience will get better.
3. Alex reader - Sony Touch - Kindle.
In third place we have a three way tossup. First comes the Spring Design Alex Reader, Its very similar to the Nook however the bottom LCD screen can be used to browse the web and use android apps. In essence it would make it a smaller, lighter version of the entourage edge. However it's seems to be more expensive than the Nook (cheaper than the Edge though) and it will, hopefully, be on sale on February. Second comes the Sony touch, it has the right prize, the right size and I don't mind that it doesn't have 3G. But, I feel that the screen has too much glare for reading. That leave me with the Kindle, again good prize and it seems to be loved by everyone (most gifted product at Amazon during the holidays). Still, I can't seem to get over the fact that so much of the device is devoted to a keyboard and you don't have touchscreen technology on it to navigate.
Well, for me this is all wishful thinking. The products might be interesting but I'll have to be able to afford one of these before I get too serious. Wait a minute, I'm already too serious, I wrote an entire post about them!
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