Nearly all of these apps allow you to sync your position in a book across devices, so if you read up to, say, page on your phone, you can pick up on that same page on your tablet or reader, and vice versa. All of the apps are free, and -- since each bookstore offers a wide selection of free books -- you can freely experiment with any and all of the apps that work with your respective hardware. Start by asking yourself what you're really looking for. Do you just want to read books?
How about magazines and newspapers? What about browsing the Web? Want to add multimedia to the mix -- music, audiobooks, or video? Are you a Netflix junkie? Do you need Flash support? E-mail and messaging? They come closest to duplicating the experience of reading a book, and, while they have some online features, you won't be distracted while reading by a stream of incoming e-mails, tweets, or Facebook messages. Stepping up in size and price, you'll find the 7.
At the full-size around 10 inches high-end, the iPad dominates, but plenty of Android competitors exist for those who would like to steer clear of Apple. Yes, plenty of those folks exist. Even if you plan to never leave home with your e-book reader, you should consider its size before buying one. Since you hold the device in front of you whenever you read from it, weight and size are critical issues.
The smallest and lightest dedicated e-book readers that we can recommend is the entry-level Kindle. Unlike the step-up Kindle Paperwhite model, the baseline Kindle includes neither a touch screen nor a built-in light. However, the trade-off is that you get the lightest mainstream e-book reader currently on the market -- just under 6 ounces. If you're willing to eschew Amazon's advantages -- unparalleled e-book catalog, the benefits of Prime membership -- you could also consider the tiny 4.
Touch-screen models all weigh a tad more. Even with cases, all of these 6-inch e-ink models are light enough to hold for extended reading sessions without tiring. With their color screens and beefier batteries, the 7-inch tablets are heavier than their e-ink counterparts. Most impressively, even with a larger 7. The 7-inch Nook HD weighs To put those weights into perspective: the 9.
The Retina iPad is a tad heavier, at 1. That's why many people pick up a 7-inch tablet and say, "This is heavier than I expected. Remember, all e-book readers let you adjust the font size of the content you're reading, so even a small screen can display much larger type than you're used to seeing in a book, magazine, or newspaper. In other words, a smaller screen does not mean you need to sacrifice text readability.
However, small screens often make magazine and PDFs look cramped, since those publications are generally designed with large print sizes in mind. Beyond screen size, weight is often a bigger issue. Unlike a laptop, which sits on a table or in your lap while in use, you'll be actively holding these readers or tablets aloft. During long reading sessions -- say, more than 45 minutes or so -- many users will find their fingers and arms becoming strained.
Finally, remember that if you add a case or a screen cover to your reader or tablet of choice, it's going to add some weight as well. E-ink: As close as you'll get to a printed page Dedicated e-book readers, such as the Nook, Kindle, Kobo, and Sony Reader, use an e-ink screen.
However, e-ink screens have some drawbacks: they're black and white, and the pages don't refresh as quickly as those on an LCD do. However, they do an excellent job of reproducing the look of printed paper. Also, you can read e-ink readers in direct sunlight, which is something you can't do on an LCD screen a fact Amazon is keen to point out in its advertising.
Previously, the biggest drawback for e-ink screens was that they were not self-illuminating unlike LCDs, which are backlit by definition. But that's now changed with the release of the Simple Touch with GlowLight , Kindle Paperwhite, and Kobo Glo, all of which use side-lighting technology to illuminate the e-ink screen for reading in dark environments.
They cost more than their nonlighted counterparts, but the added value for reading in dark environments such as the bedroom is often well worth it. It's also worth noting that nearly all of these screens are supplied by a single company: E Ink.
While some of the newer models have slightly higher resolution, the screens largely offer the same performance across multiple vendors. Many users of e-ink readers dislike the refresh flashing that occurs between page turns.
While those flashes still exist, user settings now give the option to have them happen once every five to six page turns, rather than every time a page is refreshed. Also, page turns on the latest e-ink screens are notably faster than on previous years' models. The other big advantage of e-ink readers is battery life, which is measured in weeks, not hours.
Instead of using a reading app on a phone or tablet that will cut into the battery life you might need for other tasks, you can read as long as you'd like on an e-ink reader, and keep the phone ready for phone calls, email, or web browsing instead.
But those advantages have trade-offs. The reflective screens on LCD tablets make it hard to read in bright light, and many people find that the backlight tires their eyes over long reading sessions. High-res tablets such as the iPad's 2,x1,pixel Retina Display and the 2,x1,pixel display of the Nexus 10 are the best-looking LCD screens out there, and arguably provide the best experience for reading text on a backlit screen.
Analysts confidently predicted that millennials would embrace ebooks with open arms and abandon print books, that ebook sales would keep rising to take up more and more market share, that the price of ebooks would continue to fall, and that publishing would be forever changed. Instead, at the other end of the decade, ebook sales seem to have stabilized at around 20 percent of total book sales, with print sales making up the remaining 80 percent.
The people who are actually buying ebooks? Mostly boomers. They can make the font bigger. They also cost more than everyone predicted they would — and consistently, they cost more than their print equivalents.
So what happened? How did the apparently inevitable ebook revolution fail to come to pass? The Department of Justice accused Apple and the publishers of colluding to fix ebook prices against Amazon, and although the DOJ won its case in court, the pricing model that Apple and the publishers created together would continue to dominate the industry, creating unintended ripple effects.
The case of US v. Apple encapsulates the dysfunction of the last decade of publishing. What happened to the ebook in the s is the story of the contraction of American publishing. But for Amazon, this price point was an apparent no-brainer. The first generation Kindle was expensive, and value conscious customers needed some incentive to buy into it.
And while this point is often glossed over, Amazon was actually following a precedent set by publishers in its pricing model. In her opinion for US v. But by , publishers had changed their minds. Printing and binding and shipping — the costs that ebooks eliminated — accounted for only two dollars of the cost of a hardcover, publishers argued.
Before we delve further into the weeds here, a quick primer on how book prices are set. Then it will sell the book to resellers and distributors for a discount off that suggested list price. But once Amazon owns the book, it has the right to set whatever price it would like for consumers. Under the wholesale model, Amazon is free to decide to sell the book to readers for as little as a single dollar if it chooses to.
Until , ebooks were sold through the wholesale model too. Amazon negotiates different discounts for itself at different times from different publishers, sometimes around 40 percent, but at other times higher and at other times lower. But we do know that Amazon was making very, very little money off ebook sales in , and was in fact probably losing money on most of them.
But publishers were terrified of what would happen once Amazon had established itself as the only game in town, ebook-wise. Would Amazon keep pushing prices ever further down? And once publishers had nowhere else to sell their ebooks, would Amazon start demanding lower and lower discounts from them to subsidize those low prices?
Perhaps the most popular eReader today is the Amazon Kindle. This device was touted not just as an eReader, but as a tablet and a media player, too. Kobo introduced their eReader in and marketed it initially as an inexpensive alternative to the Kindle. In Rakuten acquired a controlling stake in Kobo, Inc. Today, there are four variations of the Kobo eReader to choose from. In addition to being a media player and computer, the iPad supports Kindle, Nook and Kobo apps and can access any book those individual ecosystems support.
Tips and How-Tos November 09,
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