Re: the discussion on 'brand loyalty'...I'm loyal to myself and my wallet. If a brand isn't working for me, in the future I will make a different choice.
I ended up with Apple quite by chance, actually. A couple of years ago, I very much wanted a Blackberry as a smartphone. DH and I went with LG's instead. His was a Windows smartphone, and had its good points, but in many respects not so user friendly. Mine was a dumbphone. Anyway, I stray off topic...
As you can see, my first reader was a Sony with no wifi. Which I loved at the time, but when I heard of the Vox, I wanted that and once you get used to the convenience of acquiring books without having to be physically tethered to a PC, it's hard to go back.
The Vox...well, it was OK for a while, I put up with its shortcomings. I did what I could to make it work and at the time I enjoyed it. I did use it a lot. I have an opinion on the whole issue of the Kobo Vox and its unfortunate end ...let's just say that I won't be buying Kobo hardware again, although I do purchase ebooks from Kobo if the price is right. I did a data wipe on the Vox today and it has been put in storage.
I wouldn't have gone to Apple, but we happened to receive an iPad2 as a bonus gift from a company from whom we had made some purchases. And wow, I took to that right away. I have really come to enjoy it. I use it every day and it just
works. The Vox, by comparison slow and buggy and awkward, got left behind and the iPad became my main reader. Once in a while I would resurrect the Sony, like if we were on a camping trip and I wanted to read outside. But using the Sony takes some prep work to get the reading list up to date. And of course I can't read my Kindle books on it. But iPad gets hot in the sun, not a good thing. iPad even got slipped into my purse and came along with me many places, but it's heavy. I wished it had the portability of the Vox...and then the Mini came along.
And the same company gave us one of those. At the same time, we were in need of phones, and by this time I was quite used to the Apple platform and I find it easy to work with. So this household went all Apple, other than the Windows laptops. We chose the iPhone 5 due to availability and we've heard they are a little more durable than the 5s or 5c. (And the Vox taught me not to jump at the newest thing.) Our phones see some rough usage.
So I've been happily setting up the Mini, and I love the feel and lightness of it and
that is going to be my portable/'slip into my purse' reader.
As for those of you who have chosen Android products, Windows products... We all have a choice, we all make choices based on personal preferences and the process by which we come to make our choices may vary. I suppose one could say I was led to it by clever marketing on the part of Apple--no doubt large companies make bulk purchases of these Apple products at a huge discount (I don't know that, though) and Apple products are given away to people like me who otherwise may not necessarily have chosen that brand. In our case, it worked for Apple. That being said, if the product that had been given to me had not functioned to my liking, I would not have been making future purchases of the brand. Coulda gone either way.
Anyway, for me, these devices are tools, and whatever is easy, enjoyable, user friendly, and kept supported and up to date, that's what I'll go with.
Edited to add: Of course quality is key, as well.
