8+ Readers in comparison

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by JerseyBiker

It's the silicon covers. Go to the following link. Look for the review tab. Read the reviews and you'll see what I mean.

http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/Sili...?cds2Pid=30254

~eddie

Ah okay, I thought so. I've decided for a combination of skins and covers for some readers.
Both Kindles still perfectly fit into their Amazon covers and the skins look great.
For nook, I'm using the case logic hardcover from my Sony 900. Works with skin as well of course.
A silicon cover would have more protection. But I'm not really worried. The skin protects against scratches and the cover is enough for transportation.
With the skins, I don't have the problems about hairs and pet fur.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by huda

Hi Mgmueller,

Great thread. Thanks for all the info. I found this thread as I was planning to buy my first device. From your ranking, I've finally come down with 2 options Nook or Neo. (I was actually considering Cool-er but I thought since you, who probably have pretty much all device under the sun does not own one, I'm not gonna risk it. BTW why don't you have the Cool-er?)

I have a few questions that I hope you could help me with:

The bebook neo, I read from HarryT it has a "most recently read" page feature, does nook have this?

What I am actually looking for is "most recently read books". From what I gathered most device just sort by alphabetical order. I read multiple books at a time and often forget which ones I'm reading and I don't want to scroll through hundreds of book to go to the one I am reading. Any device that has this function?

Bookmarking, I’ve seen devices that has 3-4 steps just to bookmark? How is it in Neo and Nook? I just want to do it at a click of a button, something simple akin to the MS Reader, which I am using now to read ebooks.

For your .lit books, which device do you use? Bebook is the only one I know that can read that format and since you don't normally use this coz it's ugly (which is I most certainly agree with) do you convert the books? Which format looks best for lit after converting?

Concerning the Cool-er: Sorry for my frank response - didn't very much like what I read and saw in reviews.

nook does have a feature "reading now" for the very last book.
Not very much, as I usually read 3 to X books in parallel.
But: I sort (the B&N books in my library) by "most recent". Before opened for the very first time, it's sorting by the download time. After having opened it, the respective title moves to today's date. So I always see my most recent purchases and reads. Not perfect, I'd love to keep my books sorted by the date of purchase.
But as nook doesn't (yet?) have folder support (*), the idea is deleting (=archiving) the read books.
The solution is very workable for me.

(*) You can "softroot" nook (="hacking" the Android OS). Then you can add folder support and other features.

Bookmarking is very easy on Neo of course (touchscreen). In general, Neo is very efficient. You have a touchscreen and a fully blown jogdial solution. You simply tap the stylus for adding a bookmark or push the 5-way-button once to the top for increasing font size.
On nook, it's a bit less efficient, but good enough. You use the touchscreen, jump to the menu "bookmark" and add your bookmark.

I've stripped lots of my .lit files from DRM and have them on BeBook One. But as you say: I'm rarely using it because "it's ugly".
I use "calibre" for conversion. Usually I convert all books into ePUB and Mobipocket. With these 2 formats, I can cover the vast majority of my readers. .lit is a very good format for conversion, acceptable results on both target formats.

Concerning your 2 momentary favorites:
Your choice is very interesting, because nook and Neo are very different. I'd perfectly understand deciding between Neo and iRex 800 or nook and Kindle 2 for example.
In general, my differentiation between Neo and nook:
nook ist the "perfect" casual reader. It looks great. 6" for casual reads is absolutely fine. The touchscreen is a looker and fun to use. I love WiFi and 3G to browse the B&N bookstore while on the road. I almost exclusively use nook for the B&N books. For sideloading books from 3rd party sources, in my opinion there are better solutions in the market. For example I prefer iRex 800 for that (huge libraries way better can be sorted in folder view on iRex 800, than on nook's "flat" structure).
BeBook Neo to me still is a mixed package. Its featureset is impressive and for its price it's benchmark. But I haven't found the right niche, yet. For casual reads, I prefer nook. For "professional" documents, I still miss some features on iRex 800, but I trust in the firmware update due in 4 weeks.

If you give a few examples of typical usage you plan (3G important or not, downloading books while on the road, annotation capability, touchscreen interface or not, ...), I can give you my personal recommendation.
Without knowing your criterias, my "blind" recommendations always will be (for now): Sony 900, iRex 800, Kindle 2, nook, BeBook Neo, Cybook Opus (no specific order).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by huda

The bebook neo, I read from HarryT it has a "most recently read" page feature, does nook have this?

What I am actually looking for is "most recently read books". From what I gathered most device just sort by alphabetical order. I read multiple books at a time and often forget which ones I'm reading and I don't want to scroll through hundreds of book to go to the one I am reading. Any device that has this function?

Yes, the Neo does. That's what I was talking about when I mentioned "recently read": books, not pages!

Many devices have a similar function, including Pocketbook and the various Jinke clones.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by huda

What I am actually looking for is "most recently read books". From what I gathered most device just sort by alphabetical order.

On the Kindle you can choose to sort by Author, Title or Date... date being last read date... so the one you last read is at the top, then next to last next, etc.

I think the Sony has a similar Recently Read or sort by date option...

So, I think most readers actually do provide this option.

BOb

[JanieB]

I've used "UsUnlocked.com". They ask for ca. 10% commission.

I've never seen that website before. I've heard of forwarding services, but this sounds even better. Unfortunately though, that brings the price up beyond my budget. I'll also have to deal with taxes and customs, which makes the price even higher.

I think I'm going to go with the Kindle 2. CAD$ is at a par with the US$ right now, they'll ship it directly to me, so this seems like a good time to buy. I just want to read some books, not have to pack a bunch of them while traveling, and not have to buy more bookshelves to store everything I read. All the rest of the bells and whistles might or might not be used.

Thanks for the help!

[frozennorth]

Got this from amazon website about shipping kindle to Canada:

Your international shipment is subject to customs duties, import taxes and other fees levied by the destination country. We will show you these fees upon checkout.

Also I read somewhere on this forum that B&N does ship the Nook to Canada. So if you prefer the nook I would check into this a bit more.

Amazon does charge a premium of $2 I think for any book downloaded in Canada. With the nook supporting epub you have more stores to choose from without having to convert and paying extra for each book because you don't live in the US.

Also check how they ship the order and find out if the brokerage fee is included. And if it's not included find out from the courier how much it is.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by JanieB

I've never seen that website before. I've heard of forwarding services, but this sounds even better. Unfortunately though, that brings the price up beyond my budget. I'll also have to deal with taxes and customs, which makes the price even higher.

I think I'm going to go with the Kindle 2. CAD$ is at a par with the US$ right now, they'll ship it directly to me, so this seems like a good time to buy. I just want to read some books, not have to pack a bunch of them while traveling, and not have to buy more bookshelves to store everything I read. All the rest of the bells and whistles might or might not be used.

Thanks for the help!

As a rule of thumb:
For me, in Germany, the original US price in $ leads to about the same amount in € after commission for the 3rd party, transportation, sometimes sales taxes in the US, taxes and customs in Germany.
I don't purchase in the US to save money. But some units simply aren't available here (Sony 900 still is US only, although working perfectly fine elsewhere - with the exception of 3G of course). In other cases I want to be early adopter and release in Germany sometimes takes one year longer.

[huda]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Concerning your 2 momentary favorites:
Your choice is very interesting, because nook and Neo are very different. I'd perfectly understand deciding between Neo and iRex 800 or nook and Kindle 2 for example.
In general, my differentiation between Neo and nook:
nook ist the "perfect" casual reader. It looks great. 6" for casual reads is absolutely fine. The touchscreen is a looker and fun to use. I love WiFi and 3G to browse the B&N bookstore while on the road. I almost exclusively use nook for the B&N books. For sideloading books from 3rd party sources, in my opinion there are better solutions in the market. For example I prefer iRex 800 for that (huge libraries way better can be sorted in folder view on iRex 800, than on nook's "flat" structure).
BeBook Neo to me still is a mixed package. Its featureset is impressive and for its price it's benchmark. But I haven't found the right niche, yet. For casual reads, I prefer nook. For "professional" documents, I still miss some features on iRex 800, but I trust in the firmware update due in 4 weeks.

If you give a few examples of typical usage you plan (3G important or not, downloading books while on the road, annotation capability, touchscreen interface or not, ...), I can give you my personal recommendation.
Without knowing your criterias, my "blind" recommendations always will be (for now): Sony 900, iRex 800, Kindle 2, nook, BeBook Neo, Cybook Opus (no specific order).

I’m considering Nook solely because it’s pretty. I figured even if it is annoying occasionally, I can still look at it and smile because it’s pretty. 

Neo, I can live with the design and I heard the features are great.

I have an irrational dislike for Kindle, so no Kindle.

I want it for reading fiction books, format mostly lits, some pdfs and htmls. Dictionary is nice to have but not a must. Ease of use, bookmarking, recently read etc. No crashing, sudden reboots, etc.

I’m looking at 6” device, paperback size. Sony and Irex are bit too big for me I think.

3G, wifi, annotation and other feature not really important. I will mostly be downloading books to my laptop and then to the device.

Another question, do any of the device comes with a wall charger, coz most of them I see only comes with a usb which you need to stick to your computer to charge.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by huda

Another question, do any of the device comes with a wall charger, coz most of them I see only comes with a usb which you need to stick to your computer to charge.

Or use a USB wall charger.

[HarryT]

Yes, most book readers will charge via a USB wall charger. A few (most notably the Sony devices) won't. Sony readers can be charged, however, using any PSP wall charger.

[peaceridge]

I've replaced my Sony 700. I am an extremely fast reader. The screen was small enough that it seemed like all I did was flip pages - it really slowed down my reading. So, when I looked for a new ereader, size was very important (but, it still had to fit into my favorite pocket book )

I ended up choosing the Irex 800sg and have not been disappointed. The Nook, while cute, did not have any more reading space than my 700 and the Sony 900 didn't have much more, just a few lines. I think the 700 is the same size as the Nook. I just compared my (soon to be sold) 700 to the Irex 800sg. In their cases, the Irex is 1 inch longer and 1 inch wider and less then 1/4 inch taller, but with a much larger reading surface.

I also didn't care whether the reader had wifi, dictionary, etc - I just wanted to read books.

Hope I've helped.

Originally Posted by huda

I’m considering Nook solely because it’s pretty. I figured even if it is annoying occasionally, I can still look at it and smile because it’s pretty. 

Neo, I can live with the design and I heard the features are great.

I have an irrational dislike for Kindle, so no Kindle.

I want it for reading fiction books, format mostly lits, some pdfs and htmls. Dictionary is nice to have but not a must. Ease of use, bookmarking, recently read etc. No crashing, sudden reboots, etc.

I’m looking at 6” device, paperback size. Sony and Irex are bit too big for me I think.

3G, wifi, annotation and other feature not really important. I will mostly be downloading books to my laptop and then to the device.

Another question, do any of the device comes with a wall charger, coz most of them I see only comes with a usb which you need to stick to your computer to charge.

[JanieB]

Also I read somewhere on this forum that B&N does ship the Nook to Canada. So if you prefer the nook I would check into this a bit more.
Amazon does charge a premium of $2 I think for any book downloaded in Canada. With the nook supporting epub you have more stores to choose from without having to convert and paying extra for each book because you don't live in the US.
Also check how they ship the order and find out if the brokerage fee is included. And if it's not included find out from the courier how much it is.

Every time I think I've made up my mind, I hear something else that makes me doubt my decision!

I thought I had read about Canadians being charged 1.99 for every wireless download, but I read the TOS on Amazon yesterday, and my understanding is that US customers are charged for downloading wirelessly when outside the country, but international customers are not charged. I may be misunderstanding it though. Either way, I don't mind hooking up to a computer for downloads.

Amazon shipping does include customs/duties in their checkout. It's "estimated" though; hopefully it won't cost more than that, or at least not much more. I haven't checked B&N yet.

The lack of epub on the Kindle worries me. It's the only reason I haven't decided 100% in favour of it. I read somewhere (here?) that epub is going to be the industry standard. But then...do I believe that just because "some guy" on the internet said so? I also haven't found out if there's a way to convert epub to something the Kindle can read. There's still so much research for me to do....but I just want to buy a new toy, not research it to death!

So now my thinking is -
Sony 900/Nook - Neither available outside the US (but still obtainable, if I don't mind jumping through some hoops) - supports epub, great reviews, Nook has wifi, Sony is a bit more expensive, more availability of free/cheap content?

Kindle 2 - Easily obtainable, warranty/support included, books from Amazon are a bit cheaper, Amazon store has thousands of books available.

The one thing I've taken away from my research is that everyone is happy with their first reader. No matter what I choose, I'm sure I'll love it.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by JanieB

The one thing I've taken away from my research is that everyone is happy with their first reader. No matter what I choose, I'm sure I'll love it.

I'm sure you're right - we seem to expend so much energy in deciding what we should buy that by the time we get it we are so emotionally invested in it that we are ready to kill should anyone even suggest that some other reader might be better than ours. I've only had an ereader for about a month and I really like it - but I'm sure I would have liked another one equally well if, when it came to the point of making a decision, I had chosen differently. So long as you don't buy a piece of cr*p - and it's pretty obvious what they are and they don't seem to be on your list - then best thing to do is just go for it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JanieB

I thought I had read about Canadians being charged 1.99 for every wireless download, but I read the TOS on Amazon yesterday, and my understanding is that US customers are charged for downloading wirelessly when outside the country, but international customers are not charged. I may be misunderstanding it though.

You are misunderstanding it. The cost of all books is US$2 higher for customers outside the US. There's no "download fee" - it's included in the basic price of the book itself.

[JanieB]

OMG, you're right! How did I miss that before?? I compared price of books on Sony vs Amazon, but I must not have been signed on to Amazon at the time. I think I read about the additional $1.99 fee when it first became available here, but then they dropped the fee. They must have just bundled that fee into the price of the books.

I read somewhere that Amazon was having troubles working out a deal with the local cell phone providers/networks. I guess in order to keep the "free" whispernet, they have to recoup their costs somehow.