With the success of the Amazon.com Kindle eReader, and eBooks in general, there are now predictably dozens of eReader competitors and Kindle knock-offs. If you’d like to explore your options beyond the Kindle before deciding on one to purchase, read through this guide on what factors and features you should pay attention to. There are excellent alternatives to the Kindle, and once you’ve narrowed down your requirements, you’ll be better equipped to make an informed choice and reduce your confusion.
Size and Weight
This is probably the most important feature to focus on: what’s the size of the screen (and hence the reader) and what’s the weight? The average size for most readers is approximately 7″ (inches) diagonally. But screen size varies from 6″ to as much as 10″ or more. Screen size is also highly correlated with the weight of the reader. If you imagine that you’d like to hold the reader with one hand, you’ll probably want to stay under 9oz (about 250g). The 10″ readers can weigh in at twice that amount of even more.
Display
There are a number of factors under this category, including whether you’d to have a touchscreen (or touch screen), and a color or black & white screen. Currently, the dominant technology used to create an image closest resembling a book’s printed pages is e-Ink, and it is primarily grayscale although a color version is slowly starting to show up in some products.
Most eReaders do not have touchscreens. Think of it this way: do you feel a need to touch the pages of your books in order to scroll the text? Not likely, and as such most eReaders are designed with simple and large forward and back buttons. However, consider this: if you think of the Apple iPad as a type of eReader, the touchscreen is an integral and powerful component to its interface.
Network Access
Network access is another significant factor for many people, although we’re quickly moving to the point where at least WiFi (wireless networking) capability is an expected feature. If you’d rather not have to connect your eReader to a computer every time you wanted to update the books on it, then you need network connectivity, Wi-Fi at a minimum and quite possibly 3G (4G in the not-so-distant future) as well.
Battery Life
The battery life is another important feature particularly if you travel a lot. With Wi-Fi turned off, most devices have anywhere from 10 days to 1 month of standard book reading and standby time. Pay attention to the specs provided by the manufacturer and assume it’s closer to 75% of what they state.
Storage
I don’t feel that this is quite that important of a factor. Even devices with a relatively low 2GB of storage can hold somewhere around 2000 eBooks. If you can purchase and read that many books before it’s time to upgrade or buy a new device, then you fall into a very unique category!
Search
Considering how many books these small devices can hold, even when you approach a few dozen books, you’ll want the ability to quickly search for titles and/or authors. And you’ll also want the ability to search through books, particularly educational and reference once.
Highlighting and Annotation
If you do use your eReader to store and read educational and reference books, then you may definitely want the ability to highlight and annotate the content.
Formats Supported and eBooks Available for the eReader
As with any newly developing technology, there are multiple and sometimes competing formats including ePub, Mobi, PDF, APK and more. Another lesser factor is what the eBook marketplace is like for the device. However, these are not show-stoppers, as there are ways to convert between the various eBook formats. What really matters is how much of a convenience factor you’d like. But for the most part, vendors put in the effort to infuse their eReaders with multiple format support.
A related issue is that of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Some eReaders and the markets that you must sometimes purchase from enforce DRM on the eBooks which typically means it’s either difficult or impossible to copy those books to other devices you own or to replace them for free should you lose the eReader.
Security
Do think about the security on the eReader and that of the books on it as you could be the victim of your device being stolen. The larger vendors such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble store your book subscriptions, so you would be able to recover your books should your device be stolen, but this isn’t the case with all devices.
Cost
Naturally you’ll want to consider the price of the device. Ereaders have come down tremendously in price over the past few years and products like the Kindle and Nook which sit at the top of the heap, are relatively cheap. For example, the Kindle WiFi, Kindle WiFi +3G and Nook are all under currently under US$200. So you should not pay much more for an eReader unless it greatly exceeds the capabilities found in those devices.
Conclusion
Don’t feel overwhelmed with this seemingly long list of criteria. Some you may not care about; for example, storage. Just write down what your minimum requirements are, and eliminate any products that don’t meet them. Pick your eReader and look forward to curling up with your favorite thousand books in the palm of your hand.
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