[Kumabjorn]

I got my first e-Reader, a Kindle 2 a little more than three years ago, and my latest tablet yesterday. I thought I'd share what I have experienced over these years, maybe it can help someone considering buying a device, maybe others will chime in with their own thoughts.

My first purchase was a Kindle 2nd generation. It had 3G and that was waay cool back in 2010. I didn't have it more than a few weeks, just after I received it Amazon released the 3rd generation, it came in grey, was smaller, had a better screen and was a lot cheaper. I had just joined this community, all excited to learn more about these e-Readers. The first thing I learned was that Amazon has a no questions asked 30 day return policy, hence I got a new Kindle and some money to buy books with.

As far as I was concerned it had only one drawback, something that few owners would even consider. There weren't any books available in Japanese for it. So when I went to Japan the year after, I wanted to find an e-Reader that would handle books in Japanese. My choice was a Sony PRS-350 silver grey. Loaded it up with books while in Japan and brought it back to Sweden with me. What I learned was that the screen was very, very sensitive. It broke in the bag on the airplane. So if you have one of those devices and you plan on flying, be sure to have it protected and keep it with you at all times.

I was back in Japan again six months later, and you have to give kudos to Japanese service, they exchanged it for a new device. I was so heppy I bought a Sony T-1, because it had WiFi and would connect to the Sony Book Store in Japan even if I was in Sweden. It was now possible for me to buy Japanese books while still in Sweden. Joy of joys. The T-1 also came with built in dictionaries (no Japanese - English though, but the other way and Japanese - Japanese are available) so when I encountered difficult words or difficult Kanji I could look them up instantly.

In the meantime Amazon had started developing Kindle applications, I downloaded one for Windows and suddenly annotations were a lot easier than on the Kindle. Unfortunately, they didn't sync up in the beginning, this is less of a problem now, but it still malfunctions or has severe delays at times.

Amazon also developed an app for that new phone OS known as Android. Well, I tried it on an HTC Desire, and yes I could read on the bus. It was actually kind of cool to use my phone as a book reader, I noticed the people around me trying to steal a glance over my shoulder, and although the Desire was by no means a bad device, the screen was small and the constant page changes depleted the battery. While truly cool, in reality it was underwhelming and underpowered.

Then they started coming out with tablets. I got m grubby little hands on a ViewSonic (I don't think they are even in the market anymore). Now this was useful. Reading in bed without any lights on, letting it play music in the background while Mitch Rapp was shooting terrorists in the Middle East. Life was good. But, after a while you begin to realize that it was a bit on the heavy side. I switched between left and right hand a lot. Like very 10 minutes or less, especially after 30 - 40 minutes of reading.

The Desire got a little long in the tooth and I was offered a Galaxy Note at a price that was difficult to refuse. This device is actually a very, very good e-Reader. It is small enough that it doesn't require any form of adapted holding, even in small hands you can squeeze it in between your thumb and the rest of the fingers, you can even get around the screen and tap forward a page. The Kindle app, and ePub apps are now sophisticated enough that syncing and annotations are a hitch. Screen resolution is also so good that I can use reasonably small fonts and get in a lot of text in such a small form factor.

My next device was actually two. A Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and a Kindle 4th generation (NT). The Kindle has the same screen as the 3rd generation but the smaller form factor and the clever page forward buttons makes it a much more comfortable e-Reader, however, the lack of keyboard makes it a PITA for annotations. Personally, I think Amazon went a bit too far in compromises to get to the smaller form factor. A pull out keyboard, at least as an option for a more expensive device, would have been nice. The Tab 2 7.0 was pretty much the perfect e-Reader for bedside reading. The screen, even with today's standard, still stands up well enough that your eyes don't get tired, and it is very light and can be held with one hand. A somewhat smaller bezel and I could perceivably tap forward, now it is more of an adventure.

Then I got a Galaxy Note 10.1 a large size tablet. Well, obviously this is way too big for comfortable reading in portrait mode. But in landscape it isn't all that bad since the Kindle app now supports side by side pages. It is very much like reading a hard cover book and it has a giant battery so you never have to worry about charging it. Even if the battery is at 8% you can keep on reading for hours. Where it really shines though is for academic reading. When you need to annotate, send info to other apps, write down some thoughts or look up some reference, it is extremely versatile. Sure, the Adobe Reader app for Android is still lagging behind its Windows counterpart but it seems to be slowly getting there.

Finally I now have a Galaxy Note 8.0, this one is just a tad large for my tiny hands, I wish the bezel was half its present width on both sides, but for people with more normal hand sizes I imagine it won't be a problem. The Note 8, having a bigger screen, with the exception of the Note 10.1, is very comfortable to read on. It has a Reading Mode that seems to dim the light to a more pleasant tone and introduces some sort of font smoothing. This too will probably be used a lot for academic reading, primarily for Japanese books, they are usually published in a smaller size than Western pocket books, so after scanning something it comes out pretty much in real size on the Note 8. On the Note 10.1 it comes out enlarged and the fonts become sort of raggedy.

Why so many devices? Personally I would like to blame mgmueller, but I do know that I can only blame my self and my blatant case of devicecitis.