E-book Readers

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E-book Readers are the portable devices that have the capacity to contain hundreds of books which can be found on line.  Many of these are out of copyright and many are free

So, what is the point of an e-book? Portability is an obvious advantage especially for avid readers. Delivery is instantaneous. Some books are charged but usually cost a half or a thirds of buying them in a shop. But since Amazon popularised the Kindle several other reader devices have appeared. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

October 2011 The new Kindle is smaller and lighter than the first one.  It comes in two styles.  The basic one is £89 and the 3G version (with keyboard) is £149 There are no further charges unless you download books from Amazon.

For a video of the new 3G version see HERE

The Kindle. This is Amazon's own baby.  So, with the 3G model, you could download a book or the latest newspaper while sitting on a beach (even if you were marooned on a desert island !). I was even able to get my Gmail wire-free at no extra cost. With the cheaper model, without a mouse, the little 'pad' made it difficult.  It does have an on-screen keyboard but even the latest Kindle 3 is still not 'touch screen as of April 2011. Amazingly the Kindle has a reasonable Text to Speech, so would be usable by the blind and partially sighted. All versions are capable of connecting to your PC either wirelessly or by USB. They can be recharged with the supplied charger or via USB.

Kindle books are exclusive to Amazon and are not readable by any of the other devices, although you can download Kindle software to your PC,  free, so can download books to read there. The Kindle is also able to read PDF files, which extends their range considerably Charges vary according to the book or whether you wish to subscribe to a magazine or newspaper.  Although  you can download a sample before purchase, Amazon make it (too) easy to accept and pay for a book with your Amazon account. One click too many and you will be emailed as to what you just paid ! It arrives set up for your Amazon account and ready to go. Amazon carries over 500,000 titles in the UK store.  

The Kindle is easy to use, with few controls.  Just press buttons on either side of the device to turn the pages back or forth. The font can be made larger. The e-ink method used is light on power, so the battery might last you a few days on the desert island. It is a mono screen with grey lettering on a whitish screen. It is capable of mono graphics.

The other contenders for the e-book market are......

Sony Reader PRS-350 (£119.97 Tesco Direct. MUCH more elsewhere). 2gb memory - no expansion; Aluminium; 5" glare free mono screen; e-ink. and not wireless. Only 1200 titles at Sony so far. Touch screen, so you can turn the page without wetting your finger !

Apple iPad. Wireless facility, some connect to the mobile phone facility. Apples iBookstore stocks 150,000.

Elonex has brought out one (the 500EB) for £70 which is full colour and, in addition to books can display photographs and videos and even plays music files via headphones. It has 2Gb memory but (unlike the Kindle) this can be increased using an SD card.  It does NOT use e-ink, which means it displays more rapidly but takes a great deal more power - lasting around 6 hours, as opposed to the Sony and Kindle readers, which will last for days. Charging and downloading is via a USB cable to your PC.  It does not connect wirelessly. A million free books can be downloaded from the Elonex site.

Free books can be downloaded to these devices - or to your PC from Amazon, www.manybooks.net, Elonex.com, Gutenburg, Bookdepository (co.uk). free-ebooks.net and several other places. 

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