Intro

[karyan]

I've been using MobileRead Forums for some time now to troubleshoot various problems I've had with different e-book readers. It's been an amazing source and I thought I should finally register, if only to say how much I appreciate the expertise of your members. (Right now I working on building a custom dictionary of technical jargon, thanks to some of the postings I've read here.)

I currently own a Kindle and a Kobo ereader and help my sister with her two ereaders (a Sony and an Android-based reader) and try to get her latest toy, a Blackberry Playbook, to behave.

I *love* having a portable library and so far the Kindle is definitely my favourite e-book reader. Probably my biggest outstanding issue is that so many of the professional documents I read are, out of necessity, in PDF format. Converting to a free-flowing text format just doesn't work - messes up the information layout - and zooming in and out is a clumsy solution. On the plus side, Amazon's customer service has been awesome - including the speedy replacement of my first Kindle when it meet it's untimely end.

[neilmarr]

Good to have your company, Karyan. Quite a range of devices at your finger-tips there. Happy e-reading and very best wishes. Neil

[jbcohen]

I am interested in your oppinion since you have a few readers: what is your oppinion of the differences between the Kobo, Kobo and Sony readers? Which readers do better at what? Which reader is your goto reader, and why? Why have you bought several readers not just one? What about the blackberry playbook interests you enough to buy one?

[Valmore Daniels]

Welcome to MR

[karyan]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I am interested in your oppinion since you have a few readers: what is your oppinion of the differences between the Kobo, Kobo and Sony readers? Which readers do better at what? Which reader is your goto reader, and why? Why have you bought several readers not just one? What about the blackberry playbook interests you enough to buy one?

The Blackberry Playbook is actually my sister's. While I am tempted to get some type of tablet device - if only for a larger screen to handle the PDFs - I found the Blackberry Playbook quite limited at this point in time - both in terms of available applications and connection options.

In fairness, I think reader preference is quite personal and also based on amount of exposure. Since I use the Kindle more than any of the other devices, it gets an automatic advantage.

One big difference between the Kindle and Kobo is that the Kindle has it's own mini keyboard and navigation buttons - instead of the touch screen options for the Kobo (at least the model I have, although this is not true for all models). While I don't think I have particularly large fingers, I find it very frustrating trying to hit the on-screen keys accurately.

Also, because my reading is divided between fiction (personal) and non-fiction (professional) - I tend to do a lot of note-taking and highlighting in the documents I read. Kindle facilitates this very well. Also, the Kindle is much better with handling content from non-Amazon sources. The Kobo is rather temperamental about recognizing documents not purchased from its own bookstore. Finally, I've recently used the Kindle's text-to-speech option to help me catch mistakes in a paper I wrote. Since I was on the road at the time, I didn't have the option of printing a copy for proof-reading.

One disadvantage of the Kindle is that, at this time, it isn't able to borrow books from my local public library system. The Sony and, I believe, the Kobo are able to do this.

[joycedb]

Hello and welcome, Karyan. Interesting to hear what you like and don't like about each device. Thanks for letting us know.

Joyce

[MickeyC]

Hi karyan and welcome to MobileRead

[GeoffC]

May I offer you a warm welcome to Mobileread Forums.



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