Tiffany Jewellery How to Buy an Ebook Reader - How

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How to Buy an Ebook Reader
Whether traditional print is on its deathbed is debatable, but like it or not, the ebook revolution is well under way. Amazon released its first Kindle almost three years ago,Tiffany Earings, and in the past year, the segment has exploded using a rush of ebook readers. With more new devices, technology advances, and ways to get content on the horizon, there's no sign of it stopping any time soon.

After a rash of price slashing from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony, ebook readers are finally becoming an affordable option for the masses. But before you settle on a single device, you have some decisions to make. Here's what to consider when you're shopping for an ebook reader:

What Screen Type and How Big?
Since your eyes will spend a lot of time glued to the display of your ebook reader, the screen is important. Many models, like the Amazon Kindle,Tiffany Earrings, and Sony's Readers, use a single monochrome, e-ink screen to display text. E-ink looks a lot like paper, and has the benefit of not being too hard on your eyes during long reading sessions. It's also easy to see in direct sunlight. One thing you won't see is color: E-ink is monochrome, but offers varying shades of gray to give images some depth. And just like using a good old hardcover, you'll need light to read, since there's no backlighting. But the benefit there is long battery life on e-ink-only devices. Also worth noting: It takes a second for an e-ink page to redraw itself, so there's a short delay between page flips.

As far as screen size,Tiffany And Co, the current sweet spot for e-ink displays is 6 inches. The Sony Reader Pocket Edition is the most compact, using a small 5-inch display, while the almost-unwieldy Kindle DX features a mammoth 9.7-inch e-ink screen.

Apple's tablet, the iPad, on the other hand, offers a big, almost-10-inch, full-color LCD for reading books. The iBooks app looks great on the bright, sharp, colorful screen. The Pandigital Novel and the Sharper Image Literati also feature color displays. But for reading in the long term, it remains to be seen how color screens will stack up against e-ink displays.

Devices like the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Spring Design Alex eReader offer two screens, a larger e-ink one for reading, plus a smaller touch-screen,Tiffany Kette, color LCD below. The Alex eReader runs Android on its second screen, so you can surf the Web, watch video, and more. A true hybrid device, albeit a clunky one, the Entourage Edge folds like a laptop and features two big side-by-side screens, one e-ink, one color; the latter, like the Alex eReader,Tiffany Necklace iCade, the almost-ultimate gaming accessory for your iPad (upda, runs Android, giving the device some tablet-like capabilities.

Do You Need Wireless Downloads?
Being able to browse and buy books over the air, from virtually anywhere, undoubtedly helped to boost the Kindle to bestseller status. Other devices,Tiffany Necklaces, like the Nook 3G + Wi-Fi and Sony's Reader Daily Edition integrate cellular modems, so you always have new books at your fingertips. But some recently released devices, like the $149 Nook Wi-Fi, and the $139 Wi-Fi-only Kindle forgo always-on connectivity, so you'll need to be near a wireless network to download books. With Borders' $129 Kobo eReader and Sony's Pocket Edition there's no wireless connectivity, so you have to sideload books via computer or SD card.

What About the eBooks?
This is where it gets a bit complicated. Right now, there's no single universal ebook format. Ebooks are published in a variety of formats and each and every device has its own ebook store. But if you want to read free, public domain titles, your own documents or anything else outside of what's available in the ebook store, that's where it can become tricky. Just one example: Google offers more than a million free books in the popular free and open ePub format—many public libraries use ePub, too—but the Kindle doesn't support the format. Workarounds abound, and Kindle users can get much of this content elsewhere on the Web, but things will become much simpler when the industry settles on a single format standard. (For an in-depth comparison of supported formats across various ebook readers, check out Wikipedia.)

Not all ebook stores are created equal. Book selection and numbers of titles varies from store to store. As for price, that isn't universal either. At this writing we priced Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in four different stores; prices ranged from $7.15 to $11.40. Also, some stores,Cheap Tiffany Jewellery, like Barnes & Noble and Amazon sell newspapers and magazines, but not all do. If you can, take a stroll through the online bookstore for the reader you're considering before you commit. Also, if you plan on reading library ebooks, check to see what format your local library uses, and make sure your reader supports it.

Finally, How Much Do You Want to Spend?
If you're in the market for an ebook reader, you can spend a little or a lot. The current crop of devices spans from the $129 no-frills, e-ink-only, single-purpose device like the Kobo eReader, up to the multitalented Apple iPad ($499-$829), which does a lot more than just read ebooks.

For the latest reviews, check out our eBook Reader Product Guide.