I also am curious ... library support? Do you mean for downloading library supplied e-books? Which I know my library has been mentioning for a while. I just haven't paid any attention until now.
Technology wise they are all pretty close, though the new Kindle refreshes faster now. The Nook of course has the secondary color screen for navigation. But overall the technology behind the various readers is pretty much the same.
When it comes to e-Ink devices the most important consideration is not the device themselves, but the catalog behind them and pricing.
Though the Nook has some features such as the ability to lend a book to another Nook user.
Barnes & Noble and Amazon are pretty close on pricing and the number of titles available. In fact I think there is some price-fixing going on among the publishers since most books cost exactly the same among the various distributors. The Nook also supports the ePub format which Project Gutenberg now supports and as an open source format ePub is a growing format to use. The Kindle does not support ePub, though you can use Stanza or Calibre to easily convert other formats to Kindle format.
When it comes to reading publicly available text such as ePub and other formats the reader you choose doesn't much matter.
One thing to remember is that if you buy ebooks you get them with Digital Rights Management Encoding and so a ebook you buy on one device can't be used on another. So pretty much if you are considering buying ebooks you will be wedded to that device for the future. Unfortunately book publishers have not yet learned the lesson the music industry finally did when it went to non-DRMed MP3s.
I myself don't use any e-Ink devices since I pretty much do all my reading on my iPad. Though I mostly buy eBooks from Amazon to download. I figured Amazon will be around for awhile so I don't have to worry about access to my books. Though I must admit that as soon as I download a new book I remove the copy protection from it. This way I can read Kindle books in my favorite eBook app which is iBooks on the iPad. But the copy protection the Nook uses has also been cracked.
Ivy did a comparison of all three here:
ReplyDeletehttp://kehinde.com/blog/?p=1255
Interesting post, Philangelus, but I'm not sure what you mean by library support.
ReplyDeleteI also am curious ... library support? Do you mean for downloading library supplied e-books? Which I know my library has been mentioning for a while. I just haven't paid any attention until now.
ReplyDeleteTechnology wise they are all pretty close, though the new Kindle refreshes faster now. The Nook of course has the secondary color screen for navigation. But overall the technology behind the various readers is pretty much the same.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to e-Ink devices the most important consideration is not the device themselves, but the catalog behind them and pricing.
Though the Nook has some features such as the ability to lend a book to another Nook user.
Barnes & Noble and Amazon are pretty close on pricing and the number of titles available. In fact I think there is some price-fixing going on among the publishers since most books cost exactly the same among the various distributors. The Nook also supports the ePub format which Project Gutenberg now supports and as an open source format ePub is a growing format to use. The Kindle does not support ePub, though you can use Stanza or Calibre to easily convert other formats to Kindle format.
When it comes to reading publicly available text such as ePub and other formats the reader you choose doesn't much matter.
One thing to remember is that if you buy ebooks you get them with Digital Rights Management Encoding and so a ebook you buy on one device can't be used on another. So pretty much if you are considering buying ebooks you will be wedded to that device for the future. Unfortunately book publishers have not yet learned the lesson the music industry finally did when it went to non-DRMed MP3s.
I myself don't use any e-Ink devices since I pretty much do all my reading on my iPad. Though I mostly buy eBooks from Amazon to download. I figured Amazon will be around for awhile so I don't have to worry about access to my books. Though I must admit that as soon as I download a new book I remove the copy protection from it. This way I can read Kindle books in my favorite eBook app which is iBooks on the iPad. But the copy protection the Nook uses has also been cracked.
Here's a very thorough comparison of several e-readers, though the Kindle in the video is not the latest generation:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxkCELCrQ_A
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteKindle books can be read in iBooks? I thought they required the Kindle app?
I did a Nook review.
ReplyDeleteThanks, everyone!
ReplyDelete