Buying an ereader: Kindle, nook or Sony Pocket Reader

[pslasher]

Hey everyone! I’m probably going to be buying an ereader for Christmas and have narrowed it down to the nook, Kindle or Sony Pocket Reader. But I keep debating over them and thought I’d see what the users have to say.

Amothea says that the Sony Pocket Reader supports collections and has excellent sorting abilities:
My Supernatural collection has

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Given Amazon's constant tendency to yank stuff out of a user's online archive, I'd definitely vote against the Kindle, even if your primary usage isn't for Amazon content. However price-wise, it's hard to argue against the Kindle and Nook. We recently looked at the Sony pocket and I'd say one plus is its size in terms of portability compared to the other two. Although we got the Daily Edition, its weight is noticeably lighter than the Nook, and it has a larger screen than the Kindle. So one thing I'd suggest is to think of how and when you plan to use the reader. Holding a heavier reader in the hand can get tiring after a while, but if you're likely to be reading in brief bursts or sitting up at a table, this probably won't be a problem

[pslasher]

Oh wow, I came back to a ton of comments!

I do remember hearing about Amazon pulling that book and I didn't like that one bit. Has it been done since?

Weight is a factor for me. At times I read for very long stretches and I think the nook is a little heavier than I would prefer - points to the Kindle for that.

One of the commenters below said the Kindle can be treated as a hard drive, so that's good to know.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes and no. In that first instance Amazon was sued for removing content from both the Kindles themselves as well as the online archive (where you can redownload the content you've purchased). As a result of losing the lawsuit they have stated they will not remove items directly from the Kindle in the future.

They have, however, removed items from online archives since, the latest being just a few weeks ago.

Yes, weight is a factor for me too, and in other reviews I've seen people mention hand-size as a factor for what reader they were most comfortable using. So I think it's a factor to consider, as is memory/expansion abilities if you plan to store a lot of stuff on it as opposed to reading and deleting (which is what I tend to do).

[pslasher]

Well it's good that they won't be deleting from Kindles, but it still sucks that they would delete from the online archive. I don't think that's right at all.

I did get a Kindle and it's extremely light - I've read for hours with it so far and it doesn't get tiring.

[poisontaster]

The Nook does indeed have the ability to create shelves like the Nook Color; it was part of their last software update. Sadly, afaik, you can't sort within the shelves, you just have to page through the collection until you find what you want, which can be daunting if you have a large collection

[pslasher]

That's great to know about the shelves! It's too bad that you can't sort within the shelves yet, that would be handy.

That seems to be kind of short-sighted of B&N. I thought they were supposed to be linked with the Google archive which has millions of books? Plus the free books on Friday sounded cool? I did notice the significant difference in price compared to Amazon, and that makes me lean to amazon a bit.

That's good to know that B&N has good support for the nook. Thanks for commenting!

[taylorgibbs]

In reverse order of Freebies, Sony has far by the least, then Nook, and Kindle has the most.

[nessaancalime]

I use Kindle 2, and it doesn't display the Calibre tags. Possibly Kindle 3 does. Kindle organise in collections and has a good search function enabling you to find content fairly easily

[nessaancalime]

I got curious, and checked, and no, you can't download from the Kindle webbrowser, it just hasn't got that feature. Actually I would not assume you can download to the Nook with their inbuilt browser either, as they don't say so and these browsers are made specially for the devices.

[nessaancalime]

You're right, from the Gutenberg project it works! Thanks for the tip, that is so much easier than via PC.
The other site I tried with fanfic e-books didn't works, but maybe I did it wrong. I just have to test and see what works.

[haikitteh]

I have a Kindle and while I love it, I'm not sure that it would suit you from your list of criteria.

Like the sorting/collections - Kindle's collections are very simplistic. You can re-order your items within a collection by Most Recent First, Title, or Author, but that's it. Though I use Calibre frequently, and my books have some tags, I've never seen the tags show up anywhere on the kindle device. I suspect that they don't, or I would have seen them somewhere.

You can browse the web on a kindle, but it's not a very nimble system. It's webkit based, and still very slow-loading. It's nothing like a smartphone or ipad or Nook Color, which mimic the experience of browsing on a laptop/desktop.

What the K3 has going for it is how light it is. You can read with it in one hand easily, for hours. And the long battery life.

[pslasher]

I did wind up getting a Kindle and I love it. The light weight and battery life were really big selling points for me, and are what made me choose it.

The sorting features work well enough for me. I just wanted to make sure that it did have some sorting features.

The web isn't as nimble as an iPhone, but it still does what I want. I'm able to check the AO3 and LJ to read from the Kindle. Maybe Amazon will develop it further if people express an interest in it.

Thanks for commenting! :)

[sineala]

You can create collections on the Kindle and sort within them by Author, Title, or Most Recent, or if you prefer you can sort your entire device this way.

Unless Calibre has changed something recently, it can see your Kindle tags but not manipulate them directly -- any tagging has to be done on the Kindle itself. Which isn't that bad, really. But, yes, you can tag ebooks you've uploaded to your Kindle just like you can tag bought books.

Yes, you can browse the web on the Kindle.

Just to expand upon something yourlibrarian said, the Kindle also lets you treat the reader as a hard drive. You plug it in via USB, it shows up as looking just like any other drive, you drag books into the "documents" folder.

[pslasher]

Thanks for your comment, it was accurate and helpful! :)