iPad vs Sony Reader

[scottjl]

Take it up with Apple that they didn't include an elvish font.

[AprilHare]

Originally Posted by scottjl

Take it up with Apple that they didn't include an elvish font.

Hell yeah!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AprilHare

Hell yeah!

Actually, it's Apple's fault iBook does not do embedded fonts.

[scaryjones]

The iPad is only available in the US at this time. The US has one official language, English. English has one character set. Apple met their obligations to include this character set in the US available iPad.

The US doesn't have an official language.

[AdamGott]

I have both (a 505 and an iPad) and after a few days of reading on the iPad I can offer a quick opinion:

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. I like the backlit iPad screen a bit better but for me it is still more comfortable to read on my 505. The iPad is a bit heavy and I can't decide how much I like reading from the LCD screen. I am a light reader (no more than a half an hour to an hour on most days).

I like being able to buy from the Kindle store directly to my iPad (even if I did accidentally purchase a $5.50 book last night!) and I hate having to use iTunes to copy stuff to my iPad (making my main Ubuntu machine virtually worthless with my iPad).

Color is nice for books that support it (Alice In Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh are the only two that I have tried so far).

Battery life is pretty darn good for the iPad (10 hours rated and I am getting at least that much so far) but not nearly as good as my Sony. Of course being a light reader it hasn't been an issue for me with the iPad yet.

I have not yet tried converting the unread portion of my library to use on my iPad (using Calibre) so I can't comment on that.

I am not an Apple or Sony fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, in fact this is the first Apple product that I have owned so I think that my opinions are fairly unbiased.

I do love the fact that I can do so much more with my iPad - read comics (in color and full screen), surf the web, watch netflix (and other movies), and in general I think that it is worth the extra money over an ereader. I sacrifice a little and gain a lot.

[pshrynk]

I had my hands on an iPad for about half an hour on Launch Day. It was sort of heavy compared to my Kindle 2, but I liked the reading on it. I'm leaning toward getting one with 3G because:

1) I can browse, buy and read Kindle books on it
2) I can browse, buy and read B&N books on it
3) I can browse, buy and read eReader books on it
4) etc
5) I can surf the web
6) I can listen to music
7) I can watch movies (and buy them)
8) I really like my Touch, and this seems to be a souped up version of that

So, when I get the iPad, I might end up putting my Kindle on the bench, at least for a while.

[FourOhFour]

My kindle has been benched. The iPad does everything the kindle does, but better... Except direct sun. My current plan is to keep the kindle in case I want it to use outdoors... Though honestly, by the time I want to use it the battery will be dead and by the time it is charged I won't want to use it.

Oh, and I can type forum posts on it, which if I tried on the kindle Id want to pull my hair out by the time I'm done.

[pshrynk]

I was actually posting to MR while fiddling with the iPad demo model. It works great! Yvan tells me that I will have to wait until mid May to get a 3G model, since all the first runs are spoke for. Bummer!

[acastillo]

To answer the poster's original question:
"I am a long time fan of eInk and I was wondering: what does the casual user think of the difference between what the iPad offers in terms of quality of display compared to a good eInk display for good old plain eBooks?"

I am now the proud owner of a PRS-505 and iPad, so I think I can give my opinion as to the comparison of the displays. TO ME, I prefer the eInk display for clarity and ease of reading a printed word, paragraph, etc.

But for me, the quality of display is but one factor that determines my ease of reading a document.

Even though I have to sometimes dim the backlight of the iPad to be able to comfortable read something, I have been tremendously pleased with the ease of reading PDF documents on the iPad.
The zoom feature (pinching your fingers) is wonderful. I can flip through pages and get the general idea of the document and can then zoom in to read carefully.

The app that I have most used on my iPad is called ReaddleDocs and lets me pull documents from my computer (by wifi), email attachments or from Google Docs. I can also bookmark spots in the PDF's with the same app. It also reads doc and docx files.

So I will keep my Sony PRS 505 for casual reading (and book rentals from the library), but the iPad will be for business.