E-readers

Hottest topic among readers and writers these days is undoubtedly the e-reader. (Once you get past the never-ending discussion of plot points, agents, self-publish or not, etc.)

It is becoming increasingly clear that the majority of people refer to e-readers as Kindles. But Kindle is like Hoover or Biro. It's a trade name. The Kindle is only one of a number of e-readers on the market and, in spite of its well-known name, it has some serious drawbacks.

For a start, it is tied in directly to Amazon. Although you can pick them up in places like Curry's, Kindles will read only a kind of file that Amazon produces, and pdfs. That means that every other bookshop could be closed to you if you go along that route.

The Kindle comes with all sorts of extras like 3G (so you can use it to browse the web) and an MP3 player, but if you're a purist like me and you just want to read books on it, those things are a bit irrelevant.

It lacks something rather important though - it does not have a touch screen. So you have to navigate around it by pushing buttons. This is not a particularly natural thing for a book reader to do and it can seriously detract from the experience of reading from a machine.

So what did I buy?
I talked to the assistant in my local Waterstone's store. He went through the options on the types they stock and let me play with some demonstration models so I could see what they were like. I've ended up with a Sony PRS350. It's smaller than the original Sony 650 but I find its 5 inch screen perfectly adequate for what I need. There are options on print size so I could boost it up to very large if I needed to and I have a choice of landscape or portrait for the layout.

One of the best bits for me is the touch screen, because you actually 'turn' the pages as you read. You can do it with the little pointy stick that they provide or there are even buttons to press if you insist, but there's nothing quite like the feel of sweeping a finger across the screen and watching it change - just like a real book does.

It's light, fits in my pocket and I can also buy ebooks from almost every bookstore except Amazon. It also has a cute little design point where the case is shaped to look like it has a hardback spine. Neat!

Other models
There's the BeBook. It's around the same price as the others (They all retail for between £110 and 150 ish) and I can see that some people would think it's a good choice. It has an external SD card slot so you can boost its memory to 4GB. That's about equal to a small library so you really don't need it. I thought it looked a bit clunky too, if that sort of thing matters to you.

Asda brought out a very cheap reader earlier this year but it had a back-lit screen, which many people found caused headaches and was difficult to use in bright light.

What do you need to consider?
If you decide to buy an e-reader you might like to ask a few pertinent questions.
What's the battery life like?
I'm told my Sony will let me do 10,000 page turns but it won't. Though I can easily read a couple of novels without a recharge.
What files will it read?
There is a neat little program called Calibre that can be downloaded off the net and used to convert most file types these days, but the bigger the range the easier it will be to use. The conversions aren't always perfect and you will get typos.
What does it cost?
Basically, are you paying for things like 3G and MP3 that you won't need.
What sort of screen does it have?
The word you want to hear is e-ink. It's easy to read in sunlight and shouldn't give you a headache.
Print size zoom options?
Make sure you can see the screen easily.
Memory size?
Frankly, even the smallest available will carry 100-plus books without trouble.
Touch screen?
I'd say it's a must. Kindle users probably disagree.
Does it have anything pre-loaded?
The Sony came with about 300 classics, which will probably last me a very long time!

I would say don't buy anything until you've had chance to play around with a couple of different kinds. If your friends have one, take a look at it and try reading with it. I've not looked back since I bought my Sony

09/08/2011