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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Whilst Tablets are winning the competition to become the ebook reading device of choice for most people, there are  still several ways in which the humble dedicated ereader is still the best device there is for reading for the elderly or people with eye problems.

All such ereaders – The Kobos, Sonys, Kindles and so on – are great for reading text with, and for those of us whose eye-sight is not all that it might be, they have several great advantages over their backlit and rather glaring competition, the Tablet.

Currently, the latest ereader from Kobo, the Kobo Aura HD seems to me to be the best ereader so far for all with eye problems.  It offers an amazing range of possibilities in this area, having 10 different font styles, a grand total of 24 font sizes – this means the size of the letters on the screen – and it can also adjust the sharpness of the letters on the page, and how bold (dark) the letters are.  Further it has the highest resolution of all such hand-held reading devices (an amazing 1440 x 1080 pixels with a resolution of 265 dots per inch, which is slightly better than the much vaunted retina display of the current iPad), so reading with this ereader is almost as good as reading an expensively published paper book.. beautifully sharp letters (see photo).

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So, here we have an ereader with an even higher resolution than the iPad Retina display (265 ppi against 264) on a smaller screen.  Having had a good snuffle around this newest ereader on the market, it would seem that what Kobo have produced here is an ereader that in most respects is somewhat better than most other ereaders up till now.

As you will see from the promo video that Kobo have made to accompany the launch of this new ereader, in most respects it is pretty much the same as all the other dedicated ereaders out there, simply slightly better in all respects, and as such it represents the top of the range of the current crop of dedicated ereaders I suppose.

However, it is and remains, simply a dedicated ereader, that in spite of the addition of a “web-browser” (which like all such web-browsers on ereaders is effectively unusable),  needs to be judged in that light.   It is monochrome, mute (no built in speakers or jack socket), no 3G connectivity and is obviously no use for showing videos.

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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.

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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