Kindle and Kobo

[barryem]

I do care about typography when I'm thinking about typography. When I'm reading a novel I'm almost never thinking about typography. I don't think I really have an opinion about hyphenation.

I think my little comparison of devices taught me again the lesson I've learned from watching movies and TV shows. I don't own a TV and I haven't for nearly a decade. I have a desktop computer with a 23" screen I can watch TV shows and movies on and I have a 15" laptop I can watch them on and various tablets ranging from 6" to 10". When I have a few of these in front of me and I'm thinking about them it becomes obvious that as long as the quality of the video is up to it a larger screen is better.

Once the show or the movie begins I'm no longer looking at screens. I'm living in the world of the story and it's all around me. The size of the screen is infinite. Screen size ceases to matter. I've known this for quite a while.

I think I've just learned that it's the same with ereaders. The size and quality of the text and of the screen matters when I compare them and when I think about them. I'm almost never thinking about them when I'm reading and they cease to matter.

Of course I realize that I'm affected by things I'm not aware of so it's not impossible that an ereader could be unpleasant to me. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Purely subjectively, I'm finding I don't have any real preferences.

I've been reading today on my Kobo Aura. Of all my ereaders it's the one with the worse screen and the poorest quality text but it feels right in my hand, with or without it's cover. So when I began reading this morning I picked it up without even thinking about it. Tomorrow I might use it again although I'm starting to wonder if I'm neglecting my Voyage.

Speaking of the Voyage, I was excited when I got it. It seemed like the perfect compromise of screen, clarity of text, size and feel in my hand. But now I'm beginning to wonder if any or all of that is worth the high price I paid for it. It's easily 10 times the ereader that the Aura is but here I am reading on the Aura.

I haven't decided to return it but I have been thinking about that a bit. I'm not fond of returning things without a very good reason and the reason I'm tempted in this case has nothing to do with the device itself or with Amazon. I just don't know what I want to do yet.

Barry