[macminer]

So, after all the futile waiting for new promised tablets/pads from Asus I decided to buy a Kindle 3. What pushed me to make this decision? Mainly interest in pearl e-ink screen and the wireless possibilities. After about 2 weeks of usage I think I know enough to say how it compares to my Jetbook and why it won't replace the JB completely.

1. Portability: as I said some time before, JB is really pocketable. K3 - hardly. OK, I've got several jackets with pockets big enough for K3, but this is not a general rule K3 will fit into a pocket.

2. Screen size and quality: here K3 wins hands down. The new pearl e-ink screen is really so readable, even at the smallest font size that JB's LCD compares rather poorly. K3 can fit in much more text (at smallest type size) than JB and it is still readable for me (and I have already read three books at this font size, which means I find it quite comfortable).

3. Format support: JB is much superior in this respect. I can put on it practically any format I am using (well, apart from Isilo, but who else is using that?), while with Kindle I have to convert to Mobi the books I have in HTML, ePub etc.

4. PDF support: both JB (firmware 0.35e) and K3 (3.03) show well-formatted PDFs decently. If the PDF is not reflowable (like sheet music, where there's no point in reflowing), then K3 is a bit better - just because of the screen size. I have some sheet music which is still readable on K3, but not really so on JB. On the other hand, if the PDF is formatted for a small screen or is reflowable, then JB's handling is better.

5. Speed: K3 is generally way faster than JB: wake-up is faster, opening a book is faster, choosing different menus is faster, going to a different book is faster. On the other hand, JB is faster with page turns. The e-ink lag is not uncomfortable for me, but it is there, while JB's page turns are nearly immediate.

6. Connectivity: WiFi and 3G support in K3 is outstanding! 3G actually works in my country (Poland) and I can browse any website, even some that I couldn't browse with my palmtops (because of xhtml and complex javascript). The possibility to immediately check a book or author on Amazon's site is very useful for me, although buying is all too easy - if you're an impulse buyer, beware! All this is lacking in JB, and it's probably the main reason why I also bought Kindle.

7. Expandability: K3 isn't expandable. This is a big minus. But having both JB and K3 makes this a no-problem for me.

8. Dictionaries: JB has many included in the price. They are more than adequate and they work fine. With K3 - there's only one dictionary (Oxford or New American Oxford). However, you can use any Mobipocket dictionary if it has no DRM (or if you've removed the DRM). Since I have invested my money in quite a few Mobipocket dictionaries (and can also create one from a public domain database) I find K3 support for dictionaries workable. But, obviously, this means either a lot of extra money to spend or a lot of additional work to do before you can enjoy reading a book in a foreign language. What's worse, many of the dictionaries available on Amazon's site are useless. You won't find, for example, a good German-English dictionary. The only option would be to buy a dictionary on mobipocket.com, remove the DRM and put in on your Kindle as your personal book. So, in a nutshell, using dictionaries with K3 is a bit of a pain in the neck.

9. Annotations/highlights: that's the final issue that helped me make my decision about buying a Kindle. Sadly, JB has no support for annotations and even if they added this in the next firmware, it wouldn't make much sense without a proper keyboard or touch screen. As I read much more non-fiction books than fiction, I really missed the opportunity of making annotations or highlighting the passages I wanted to remember. On the other hand, if your main use of an e-reader is reading fiction, then probably this issue doesn't exist for you.

One final point: having both K3 and JB I still don't really have a device which could read technical/academic PDFs! Kindle DX would perhaps be OK, if this was just about the size, but it's also about the color. So I am still looking eagerly into the promised land of tablets, which, hopefully, won't cost me a fortune, will be light enough to carry around, will last long on batteries, will have a real PDF support and all the functions that all my old PDA-s had!