Im looking to buy an e-reader, something not overly pricey. I did my own research but what I thought would be an easy 10 min search turned into an hour of digging. There are so many options, Im curious to hear any suggestions from people who own them. You guys helped my get the Sansa+ which I love, maybe i'll get lucky twice. Im not too picky, but Id like to know if its worth paying more vs taking the cheaper product. Thanks for any help.
Personally, I've owned three Kindle keyboard models and all have broken screens under fairly regular use. To be fair, the first break was covered under the 1 year warranty and the exchange was possibly the most painless exchange I've ever experienced, but then the replacement broke and then the one I bought after that broke. I was done. Kindles are great units, but I'd recommend staying away from them for one big reason - they use .mobi, Amazon's proprietary format, and not .epub. Mobi is a prolific file format, but you can get epubs of just about anything, and much of it tree. In truth, my recommendation is to get a cheap, small, light Android tablet instead of an ebook reader. Unless you want to read in bright sunlight frequently and need a really long battery life, it's a much more versatile option. Nice text to speech options on any text in Android as well.
I owned a Kindle Paperwhite for a few months and enjoyed it though I got sick of reading about once every 30 minutes. The display was looking at a calculator. I found myself going back to reading normal books. But then I saw a friend reading on his Ipad Mini, I asked him to show me all about the Ebooks app, and was thoroughly impressed. I bought one and I've been using it constantly for 6 months now. Probably already read 70 or 80 books on it. Check out some videos on YouTube about how easy it is to use and how customizable it is.
In this case, I'd recommend going Android over an iPad mini. Biggest difference is the text to speech. With an Android, you can grab coolreader and have any epub file read to you through a set of headphones if you ever want to mix it up from straight reading. I do this working all the time, when I have to use my hands, or on the bus. Oh, and, you can get such an Android tablet for under $100, while an iPad mini is several times that. The OP did mention cost was an issue.
My Ipad mini was a mere $200, but that was around the holidays. Still, with a little bargain hunting I'm sure being able to find a 1st gen Ipad Mini for around the same price isn't unlikely.
Why spend the time to bargain hunt when you can walk into pretty much any semi-decent consumer electronics store and find several different Android devices for that price point that are just as capable (or close enough that you won't really notice the difference)? Especially if you're mainly looking for the basic functions of a tablet (reading, internet, games). If you need something that you can only do on an iPad (Amplitube and iRig, the Digitech iStomp, a particular app that has no Android version or an equivalent alternative), by all means bargain hunt. If not, you'll likely find an Android device perfectly suitable for your needs at a reasonable price a lot faster.
I think the Kindle is the best bang for your buck. Check out cowboom.com, they have tablet flash sales pretty often. I got a Kindle fire HD for only $40
Sheesh, when I said bargain hunt I mean just a few clicks on a mouse on a few websites. When I suggested he look up a YouTube vid to see the app and overall Ipad Mini, it was for him to see if it's worth the extra money. Yeah, you can get a cheap as hell Ebook reader with a shit display and battery life, or you can decide if the extra money is worth it for an Ebook reader you're going to use for years to come. He's asking for opinions, I gave mine. Oh, it differs from yours? Get over it.
Sheesh, when I said bargain hunt I mean just a few clicks on a mouse on a few websites. When I suggested he look up a YouTube vid to see the app and overall Ipad Mini, it was for him to see if it's worth the extra money. Yeah, you can get a cheap as hell Ebook reader with a shit display and battery life, or you can decide if the extra money is worth it for an Ebook reader you're going to use for years to come. He's asking for opinions, I gave mine. Oh, it differs from yours? Get over it.
And again, you can get an Android tablet that is more functional in this capacity for under $100 - not "$200 on a holiday." What's more, that won't be a several year old machine like the first gen iPad mini. I believe iOS is good for a lot of things - but after years of dealing with an iPhone and an iPod touch (same OS as iPad mini) and also having an Android tablet, the Android tablet is the superior for e-reading. It can do everything the iPad does in this area and read any book aloud to you - as in, not just audiobooks, but literally use a speech synthesizer to read books to you that were never put into audiobook format. The Ivona text to speech - free, as Google owns it - sounds pretty damned good too. While this feature isn't for everyone, the fact that the Android tablet is cheaper to begin with makes it the better choice.
I have a Sony, paid about $130 for it in Australia, which would probably be around $100 in the US. And that was about 4 years ago. I've enjoyed it - it doesn't have a lighting system like computers have, it's made to look like paper so that it doesn't cause you to be awake at night while reading it or strain your eyes too much. Great battery life, charge it maybe once every three weeks, if that, can download the most popular formats, connects to the internet, easy to navigate.
Wow! I've been reading the same second gen keyboard kindle for the past 4 years with no problems. I've even dropped it a few times. Good advice about using a tablet instead just because of more flexibility. Only thing is, I use my kindle outdoors a lot, either on vacation or reading on my patio so the kindle display is perfect for that.
Yeah, it may just be a me thing. Thing is, I oftentimes had it in a backpack while working - in a case - and listened to its text to speech function. If they didn't keep breaking on me, I would probably still be using them. If the fellow is quite happy to use the one book providing service and not download so many books from odd sources online, the keyboard kindle is a sweet unit. These days I do favour tablets though, and with how cheap a basic Android tablet is, it's tough to argue this. While I use Windows tablets for almost everything else, I still use an Android for book reading.
Buy a reasonably priced Android tablet. Download the "Google Play Books" app. Visit the piratebay. Profit.
