Kindle Paperwhite 2015 vs. Nook GlowLight Plus vs. Kobo

[NickyWithNook]

If you live in the US and you borrow library e-books, I'd recommend the Kindle Paperwhite. It's very easy to get the library e-books sent via wifi to your Kindle. I love that. In fact, that is why I first bought a Kindle.

[tdonline]

For those in the know--how is PDF reading with PW3? I'm deciding between the NGP and PW3 and for awhile I was leaning towards the NGP. But this evening I saw a Youtube video demoing PDFs on the PW3 and I have to say the zooming and landscape features seem to make PDF reading on a standard size e-ink device palatable. It may be what tips me over to the PW3 side.

[some call me tim]

Originally Posted by NickyWithNook

If you live in the US and you borrow library e-books, I'd recommend the Kindle Paperwhite. It's very easy to get the library e-books sent via wifi to your Kindle. I love that. In fact, that is why I first bought a Kindle.

Amazon's integration of library books has really become a selling point for me too. In the early days of Kindle, I was adamantly anti-Amazon because they wouldn't work with ebooks from the library. They've changed their ways though, and checking out books from the library is just a matter of a few mouseclicks. I didn't think that the process of plugging in my reader, and transferring through ADE was that big a deal, but now that I can just do it all wirelessly, it really is so much better.

The last ereader I had was the NST with glowlight. It wasn't perfect, but I was pretty happy with it overall. I'd heard great things about the paperwhites, and had been curious about them, but I wanted to have physical page turn buttons. When the Voyage was announced, I immediately wanted it, but couldn't justify the cost. But, Santa was nice to me last year, and I got one for Christmas.

Man, what a huge step up. Comparing it to my old NST is almost like comparing a modern smartphone to a Blackberry. Sure, a lot of the core functionality is the same, but there's so much more to the experience now. If the page turn buttons aren't as big a hangup for you as they were for me, I think the PW will be your best bet. Since you're sideloading your books, it may be of little consequence to you, but B&N's recent change in policy for access to ebooks through them really makes it tough for me to advocate any of their devices.

[some call me tim]

Originally Posted by tdonline

For those in the know--how is PDF reading with PW3? I'm deciding between the NGP and PW3 and for awhile I was leaning towards the NGP. But this evening I saw a Youtube video demoing PDFs on the PW3 and I have to say the zooming and landscape features seem to make PDF reading on a standard size e-ink device palatable. It may be what tips me over to the PW3 side.

I just recently found out that you can send a pdf to your kindle via email, and if you type "convert" in the subject, Amazon will automatically convert it to .mobi (or something). I don't usually read pdfs on my devices, but I sent one to myself as an experiment, and it seemed to work great. Not sure how it would handle pictures and such though.

[realslfan]

I'm also in a similar boat. I currently have the Nook Tablet. It's been great, but there are a few reasons I'm looking for something new:

1) My current machine has had a glitch with skipping pages, and then it gets stuck in a page loop. It happens 2-3 times with every book that I read. I have to reset to get past this. Any new machine will help with this.

2) I'm an Amazon Prime member, and I saw several books I'm interested in that are available on Prime. I read several books a month and this could have a decent impact on how much I spend on books. For those with Kindle's and a Prime membership, do you read a lot of Prime titles? I'm not sure if Unlimited would be worthwhile or not.

3) I tried to load some library titles onto the Nook when I first got it, but the process just wasn't worth it. I understand that is a much easier process on the Kindle. However, I still wonder if I would end up doing this enough for this to be a deciding factor.

4) Although I use this mostly as a reader, I like the ability to jump on the web with my reader, and do fairly simple things...check email, check facebook, or twitter or browse an article or two. The Nook struggles to do that very effectively. When I first got it, I would use this frequently when travelling, but now I find my smartphone better for web browsing. Is the experimental browser on the Paperwhite going to be an upgrade for me or worse? I've thought about a Fire, but I assume the readability isn't great, and the Fire is probably overkill for what I am looking for.

I'm a bit confused, but thinking that the new Paperwhite may address most, if not all of these issues. Also, I'm not familiar with this refresh issue, which must be exclusive to e-ink readers. Am I going to find this frustrating, or is it not really an issue?

[barryem]

The e-ink Kindles do have a web browser but it's fairly useless. It'll get you to simple HTML web pages okay, at least most of them, but the vast majority of the web won't work on it. My guess is you couldn't use it for email at all although I haven't tried that.

I can use my Kobo's browser to get to Dropbox but the Kindle's browser won't even do that.

That said, the Kindles are superb ereaders. I have Kindles, Kobos and a Nook Glowlight Plus and the Kindles are far and away my favorites. I like the others just fine. They're perfectly adequate devices and very good for reading. But the Kindle is a lot better.

Barry

[dordale]

Originally Posted by realslfan

2) I'm an Amazon Prime member, and I saw several books I'm interested in that are available on Prime. I read several books a month and this could have a decent impact on how much I spend on books. For those with Kindle's and a Prime membership, do you read a lot of Prime titles? I'm not sure if Unlimited would be worthwhile or not.

Just want to make sure you realize that with the Amazon Prime lending library, you can only check out one book at a time and one book each month. So if you finish the book you had checked out on November 5th, you'll have to wait until December 1st to check out another book. With Kindle Unlimited you can have (I think) 10 books out at a time--and unlimited books in a month.

Originally Posted by realslfan

3) I tried to load some library titles onto the Nook when I first got it, but the process just wasn't worth it. I understand that is a much easier process on the Kindle. However, I still wonder if I would end up doing this enough for this to be a deciding factor.

This is only true if you are in the U.S. and your library has access to Overdrive ebooks. Overdrive is the most popular, but there are some competitors out there that don't support Kindle e-readers.

[realslfan]

Thanks for the clarification. I knew about the 1 book at a time which is not a problem, but wasn't aware of the 1 book per month restriction.

My library does use Overdrive - or at least it did a couple of years ago when I last used it.

[NickyWithNook]

Originally Posted by realslfan

Although I use this mostly as a reader, I like the ability to jump on the web with my reader, and do fairly simple things...check email, check facebook, or twitter or browse an article or two. The Nook struggles to do that very effectively. When I first got it, I would use this frequently when travelling, but now I find my smartphone better for web browsing. Is the experimental browser on the Paperwhite going to be an upgrade for me or worse? I've thought about a Fire, but I assume the readability isn't great, and the Fire is probably overkill for what I am looking for.

I had a Fire stolen not long ago, and it wasn't the new and less expensive Fire, but I found it to be very readable. I was not expecting that from a tablet, but it really wasn't bad. You might go to Best Buy or somewhere and take a look to see what you think, because that's a very subjective thing. But you might like it.