I can imagine that many of you who are contemplating leaping into the world of ebooks are very confused by all the arguments and counter arguments out there as to the comparative virtues of ereaders or Tablets for reading ebooks with, and might appreciate a sort of comparison between the two gadgets for this specific purpose.  So I shall do my best here to give an unbiased look at the two systems.

The first thing you have to do though is to decide exactly what it is you wish to do with such a device.  As with any other tool, before deciding on which to buy you need to know what it is you want it for.

So to get us started, I shall give a quick rundown of what each type of device is good for:-

With a Tablet you can do the following, when you use it as an ereader.

• Read magazines which use a lot of colour.
• Read interactive ebooks.
• Read ebooks that use videos and sound.
• Read ebooks that have a lot of complex illustrations. Comics for example.
• Read Coffee Table ebooks.
• Read novels.
• Make notes and highlight parts of the text.
• Change the type and size of the letters on the page

With a dedicated ereader you may do the following.

• Read novels.
• Make notes and highlight the text.
• Change the type and size of the letters on the page.

You would be forgiven if you took from the above lists the inescapable conclusion that a Tablet is absolutely the better of the two types of device, but there is actually more to it when you really look at the two types of gadget.   As always there are other things to consider before making a decision.

I have listed the main benefits of a Tablet as an ereader, and happily ignored all their other abilities, since in reality a Tablet is actually nothing less than a highly portable computer, and is obviously capable of doing almost everything that you would normally do with a regular computer, and this of course is one of their main strengths.  As opposed to the humble – and much cheaper – dedicated ereader, which can really only be used to read novels and text based ebooks with, and not much more.  But it does do that relatively simple task perfectly.

An ereader is a device that is designed to do one thing only, and to do that one thing as well as the technology allows, whereas a tablet is a sort of universal tool, capable of doing many things very well, but perhaps slightly less well than a dedicated device can.

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It has become fashionable in Blogging circles to decry Sony ereaders as  irrelevant, backward looking and pointless gadgets.  This is a pity as in fact the Sony ereaders are perfectly good, even splendid devices, and in my far from humble opinion are actually better than a lot of their competitors on a number of fronts.

There is also a growing assumption that there is actually only one ereader out there, and that is the Kindle, which is to ignore the many perfectly good ereaders made all over the world by no end of manufacturers .

Anyhow, to my central thesis, which is that Sony have been making, and still are making remarkably good ereaders.   They are open to the charge of always being a bit behind the rest of the flock in technical development, but when they get there they do it very well.

So what is so wonderful about Sony ereaders?

Well, a small list might be the best approach to this:-

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What are the main ereaders available just now?   Well perhaps this table produced by the good folk at Publishing Trends might help you a wee bit.

They have concentrated on the few better known makers of ereaders and tablets here, ignoring all the European and Asian makers for some reason, so no mention of BeBook,  Bookeen, Hanvon and all of them, so it is obviously aimed at readers in the USA rather than the entire world, but nevertheless it does give a quick view of the main ereaders fromm the main players in this field.

To see the table in all its full sized glory, click on this link, and the PDF file will load on a separate window for you.  Enjoy it, and I hope it is something of a help to you.

Ereader comparison table.

Source:  With thanks to Publishing Tends.

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Was this any help to you, or is it too simplistic to really help?  Do let me know, so I can improve matters when I get myself together enough to produce one myself.

A pleasant surprise is in store for all you Europeans very shortly, as Amazon have announced that their newest – and best – ereader will be available in a whole slew of European countries over the next two months.

As of now you can pre-order your shiny new Paper White ereader with front light from their various local sites in Europe (details and links below).

This is much earlier than we all expected, as normally they take much longer before releasing their newer models outside the USA, preferring to first get as many sold in the USA as possible before letting the rest of us buy the latest model Kindles.

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Following in the recent footsteps of the Nook Ereader, Kobo have just launched their first ereader with a built in front light – So no more hassles with wobbly clip-on reading lights with this ereader, from now on you will have the light on the screen where you need it, and never again have to adjust your reading light.

As with the equally recently launched Kindle with built in reading light, this is about the only thing that is really new about this latest offering from Kobo, but it is a serious step forward, and really does increase the ease of reading with your ereader.

Sony did this years ago… But…….

Curiously enough, Sony had an ereader about 4 years ago with a reasonably efficient built-in front lighting system, but for some reason they discontinued this and since then have done nothing in this direction… Silly of them I feel.

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The whole ereader world is in a state of excitement with the announcements from both Amazon and Kobo of their newest ereaders.

I need a bit of time to find out more about both of these new ranges of ereading devices, but one thing is clear, following the lead of Nook, they have both launched ereaders with possibly the only remaining real improvement possible, front lit screens.

This is truly bad news for all those companies who produce a wide range of clip-on reading lights for ereaders, since reading an ereader in the dark or in bed is impossible without some such gadget stuck on your ereader.. and this is now a thing of the past, happily.

Many of us were deeply impressed by the reading comfort that Nook gave us with their Nook Glowlight ereader (aside from the persistent tales of how easy it was to scratch the screen of that one) and how much nicer it was to use than an ereader with a clip-on light.

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