I’ve finally had the chance to debate iPad and Kindle between myself really. I probably spent about a week with an iPad (it wasn’t mine), and I now own a Kindle, so obviously I made my decision as to which device I would like, but for heaven’s sake, why did I choose a Kindle over an iPad?
Truth be told, I didn’t. I debated between the two devices taking a number of factors into account, and how much I really value each aspect of each device. When I ended up borrowing the iPad, I found that I was primarily using it as an e-reader. The Apple iBooks app was quite nice and it had the store built into it. Heck, I started getting into comic books with the iPad as well and quite enjoyed that, but since I spent about 95% of my time on it as as e-reader, I would use that as the basis of my decision.
As an e-reader, here is a list of factors I considered when getting the kindle over the iPad:
- The weight of the iPad started to feel cumbersome after long sessions of reading, or even reading in bed. Not necessarily in size, but weight. The size was nice, but I did get a 6″ Kindle and am just as fine with that.
- The battery, while not a major concern because the iPad had a surprisingly long battery life, but for the amount I used it, if I forgot to put it on the charger overnight, I would have the battery fail part way through the day.
- The ecosystem. This was one of my main decision drivers, primarily because of the cloud aspect of the device that makes it simple and intuitive to acquire books. More on that later
- The e-ink display allows for a nicer reading experience. Like reading a book without the book.
The decision was made much easier for me when I decided to get a Kindle now, then grab an iPad when finances allow me to. I had to have a good e-reader, and the Kindle has delivered that for me. If I had to choose between one or the other, I would probably still be debating which device I would like, but enough about why I picked the Kindle over iPad, lets talk more about the Kindle device itself.
The Display
There is one very distinct feature that makes an e-reader what it is. The display. Unlike typical portable electronic devices which use backlit LCD technology, the Kindle and other e-readers in its class use an e-ink technology. This technology has its advantages and drawbacks, but when the primary market for these devices is people that read books, your competing technology is paper itself.
I’ll start off by saying that having finally experienced e-ink, it is a fantastic way to read e-books. If the competing format of the display is paper, then paper still has it beat in terms of contrast ratio, but the screen itself is still a treat to read, and very easy on the eyes. To justify my comment on paper winning, you can get nice white paper with rich black text. The screen on the Kindle is more of a dull grey, as it is with most e-readers. The screen is partially textured, but primarily it looks to be that way to reduce potential glare.
The e-ink display of the Kindle e-reader
Another advantage of the e-ink screen, since it does mimic paper so well, is that it can be read very easily in bright sunlight, a scenario that LCD screens have issues with, although Apple has done a decent job on their iPhone and iPad devices to mitigate some of the issues, but the viewing quality still degrades quite significantly when viewing in bright sunlight. Not the case on Kindle. The flip side however is that the Kindle is more difficult to read in the dark since it isn’t back lit. Sony does offer screen lighting. It isn’t back lit, but there are LEDs along the side of the screen. From what I’ve read, the lighting isn’t exactly the best on the eyes. To read the Kindle properly in the dark, you will need a reading light of some sort, just like you would with a normal book.
There is a noticeable drawback to the e-ink display though, and that has to do with refresh rate. Typical displays refresh at 60 frames per second usually. When flipping pages in a book, it can take about half a second to load and refresh the screen. This isn’t that big of a deal given that this is an e-book reader, but it is a drawback that limits the uses of e-ink technology to pretty much just e-readers.
If you are deciding between e-readers, the Kindle will be similar to pretty much any other e-reader. Other may only differ in resolution. However, the main thing that might put yourself on the fence is deciding between e-ink versus LCD. Both have positives and negatives, but I think the decision is going to end up coming down to personal preferences and usage patterns.
Overall, I give the display high marks because of its crisp quality and readability, even though it is limited to 16 shades of grey. It does what it does very well and it is hard to ask for more. There is still room for improvement in the technology though, given the number of books and magazines that can be image and chart heavy, a colour display would be great. In general though, I do find the display very pleasing to read with.
Connectivity and the Amazon Ecosystem
Connectivity is where I see the Kindle beating out every other device on the market, including the iPad. Simple and straight forward reason. Free worldwide 3G. While there is a drawback of not supporting WiFi, it doesn’t really matter in this case. Knowing that I can take my Kindle with me to Japan, and still be able to purchase books, browse Wikipedia and sync up my notes, highlights and book progress with Amazon, that to me was a major value proposition.
The Kindle also has USB support. When the device is plugged in via USB, Kindle is seen as a mass storage device. This is nothing special to really write home about, but it does allow you to load music and personal documents onto the Kindle. Since it has PDF support, you can load documents on the go. There are drawbacks to PDF support though, which I will go over a little later.
The ecosystem for any device is absolutely important. It is why I was advocating iPod when everyone was complaining about lack of features or cost per GB of storage. The iPod and how it interacted with iTunes for music management I consider the sole reason for the success of the device and plays a major role in how people interact with their music. The same thing applies to e-books. In this case, I think Amazon was able to get this one right, but they take it an extra step further by doing 2 things.
- Amazon included worldwide 3G support in their Kindle device
- They made their business in the content and distribution and not the device
The reason point 2 actually matters is because they have versions of their software for Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad and Blackberry. These 2 points aren’t mutually exclusive either. Imagine for a sec that you do use multiple devices for reading your Kindle e-books. You own a Kindle, and you are at a Starbucks reading a book on it. The position and markup will automatically sync with the Amazon cloud. You get back home and decide to read it on your computer while listening to music. If your computer doesn’t have the book on it, it is as simple as looking in the archive to download books you own. Once it is downloaded, you are given the option to sync to the last read page, and all of your markup remains intact.
Another situation where the Amazon ecosystem shines is in periodicals like magazines and newspapers. In my case, I subscribe to the Calgary Herald. When I get up in the morning, I already have the days paper ready to read. When I’m on Amazon’s Kindle store, I can purchase a book and have it delivered directly to my Kindle, as long as it is in a 3G service area. Using the 3G, I can also browse the Amazon store on the Kindle, purchase books, add books to wish lists, read reviews and write reviews. Similar to the Apple iBooks store on the iPad, but doesn’t look as pretty, has a much bigger selection, and books can be purchased over free 3G wireless.
As you can see, I really like this ecosystem, so I don’t have much for bad things to say about it. It is well executed and the only compromise is no WiFi support. Not too bad. The ecosystem is replicated across all devices that support the Kindle app, minus the worldwide 3G, so I would try and keep that in mind when reading my opinion since free worldwide 3G might not matter in your situation. Most people tend to generally be within WiFi areas anyways unless they are on the go, so the 3G support may be an advantage when you are out and about. For me, I am one of those people, but to me, the peace of mind of knowing that I don’t have to worry about where and/or how I’m connected is comforting. I just have to worry if a cellular provider has service where I am.
Usability
I’ve managed to go on about what the screen looks like to how it connects to things, which isn’t necessarily a small part of the Kindle experience, but at this point, you might be wondering how the thing actually works. Fret no longer. One thing I will mention off the bat is that it is NOT a touchscreen device. I mention that mainly because I’ve shown it to family and friends, and they start putting their grimy fingerprints all over the screen. Now, the lack of touchscreen capabilities I see as neither a good or a bad thing. It just is. In one very distinct case, I see it as a good thing, primarily because you don’t have to worry as much about fingerprints on the screen, which is a serious issue with other portable devices like the iPad and iPhone. When using an e-reader, smudges and fingerprints can get a little in the way, but you sacrifice a bit on capability.
Navigation buttons on the left side of the Kindle
Without the touchscreen however, Amazon managed to do a few things that make up for it in navigation capabilities. On both sides of the display, you have a pair of buttons. On both sides, the large buttons are for “Next Page”, which may seem counter intuitive since typically, you might expect the button on the left be for previous page. I found myself accidentally hitting the “Next Page” button on the left to go to the previous page, but as the usual tradeoff is, I also found that sometimes I would be reading the Kindle while holding it with my left hand, then the button was more convenient, however, the “Prev Page” button is small, and only on the left side.
On the right side of the screen however, instead of a “Prev Page” button, you have a “Home” button. The location of the button is actually quite convenient, but it seems kind of odd that the “Prev Page” button would be on one side and not the other. It isn’t a big deal though since I found that I barely use the “Prev Page” button unless I accidentally hit the “Next Page” button before I finished reading the page. The “Home” button, like on an iPhone, takes you to the home screen where you can find all your books and documents, and sort them by the most recently read, name or author.
General navigation buttons on the right side of the keyboard
Other items for navigation do include the 5 point joystick, the “Menu” and “Back” buttons. The “Back” button you may end up finding to be fairly handy. In my case, I’ve had situations while reading a book that I wanted to quickly look at the table of contents. The “Back” button made it easy enough for me to go back in the book where I left off. Other situations where it came in handy is reading the newspaper. Since there is an article view where you can quickly browse through headlines, the “Back” button makes it easy to get back to that view in a single button push after reading your article.
The joystick is really a way to compensate for the lack of touchscreen capabilities, but it works out pretty good. When navigating words in a book, it goes line by line and word by word instead of letter by letter. The joystick will also allow you to bookmark, highlight and position where you want to make notes. The comparison I would make is using Kindle for iPad, you end up touching the screen to do highlights, however, if you are like me and don’t exactly have slender finders, it can take a little bit to nail down the right words to highlight or take notes on. This is where I personally don’t mind the lack of touchscreen.
On the Kindle itself however, it you have a cursor on a word, the dictionary definition of that word will appear automatically at the bottom, and you can bring up the full entry by pressing the return key on the keyboard. I found this to be a valuable feature on a number of occasions, especially when I came across the word “drosophila” on a number of occasions. If you did expand the dictionary, you can just press back to go back to where you left off.
The keyboard on the bottom of the Kindle
The keyboard brings up an interesting debate, especially if you were to look at comparing the iPad and Kindle. I know Apple goes on about having more screen, but I came across an interesting issue that I didn’t have with the Kindle. When reading books in bed, the blanket covered the bottom part of the iPad screen, while on the Kindle, it covered part of the keyboard, leaving the entire screen still viewable. It may not matter to some, but to me, that is one of the little things I noticed. The keyboard itself isn’t that bad, but it is far from perfect. Then again, it is difficult to really improve on it. You may find that typing with your thumbs will be common. While some may be used to doing that on their Blackberries and iPhones, you do have more space that your thumb needs to move around. It could be much worse though. I’m pointing at both the iPad and Kindle DX, which due to their wide sizes, holding the device and typing can be very cumbersome.
The “Menu” button is really self explanatory. Some of the contents of the menu depend on what you are doing, but you can get access to the Amazon store, as well as music and web capabilities. The web is rather limited, and doesn’t look too great, but the odd quick jaunt to Wikipedia to reference things is certainly welcome. I have been able to use the mobile version of Twitter on it, but even that is somewhat limited just due to the general capabilities of the device. Most of m web browsing I would rather do on an iPad or computer. If you were on the go and the Kindle was the only device you had to do web browsing, then at least it is there, but I don’t recommend using it as your browser of choice. I rarely even touch it.
Format Support
To this point, I have personally played around with the standard AZW (Amazon Whispernet) format and PDFs. I haven’t yet tried to do music on the device o any other formats. Having said that, there is some limitations as to what you can do with the Kindle in terms of file format support.
E-Books: Support for e-books is limited to Amazon (AZW) and unprotected Mobipocket (MOBI or PRC) files. There is no support for ePub which is fast becoming a standard, and a standard in which there is native support for in Adobe InDesign. The iBooks application on the iPad supports the ePub format natively, so if you have an iPad, you just use iBooks, which is arguably a nicer e-book app on the iPad than the Kindle app in terms of reading experience. A workaround to this issue however, is to run the ePub file through the MobiPocket Creator, and convert it to a MOBI file, which can then be read into the Kindle. This could be a deal breaker for some, but admittedly, the Amazon store has one of the largest selection of e-books on the market, so it depends on how you look at this as a potential issue.
Music: MP3. That is it. It wasn’t a deal breaker for me since I’ve never used the device to listen to music yet, but since I use iTunes, I am in a bit of a predicament that is two-fold. First off, not supporting AAC (or any other format for that matter) means that I can’t listen to most of my music since I rip my music in a higher quality AAC format. The other issue is that much of my music from the iTunes store is still DRM protected, meaning only Apple devices will play it. That isn’t to say I couldn’t just convert them, but the hassle of doing that is just that… hassle. If your music library is mostly MP3 anyways, then this shouldn’t be an issue, so your mileage may vary.
Audiobooks: This aspect of the device had impressed me. It supports Audible audiobooks, although I was curious about it since AA files are typically DRM protected. You end up having to activate your Kindle device through Audible using your account information before playing any of your purchased audiobooks. The screen gives you information about the book including the cover, then a playback head that gives you the option to skip forward or backward 30 seconds, or skip to another section of the book. The only issue I have with audiobooks is that you can’t speed up the speech.
Personal Docs: The Kindle supports PDF natively, but it isn’t without its issues. When loading a PDF, you don’t get the ability to zoom in on the PDF, which can leave most documents with nearly unreadably small text. Any other documents will have to go through a conversion process, which is done through Amazon by emailing a document to yourname@kindle.com or yourname@free.kindle.com with the subject “Convert” and the document attached. If you did free.kindle.com, you will get an email with the download link so you can put it on your Kindle next time you have it attached to the USB. If you didn’t, the document will be sent straight to the Kindle wirelessly, however, this is only supported in some countries. Canada isn’t one of them. You can do this with PDFs as well, and since best effort is put in to converting the PDF to text, there may be formatting issues, but you will be able to increase the text size. The only way to have bigger text when reading PDFs is to change the device to landscape mode, which is awkward to use.
Final Thoughts
The Kindle is truly a fantastic device for what it does, but it isn’t without its issues. In many cases, some of these issues can be simply overlooked because all you really want to use it for is reading books, which it does a great job at. The global wireless coverage is a feature that I’m not sure many, if any other e-reader will be able to duplicate, especially with it being free. It is small enough to fit in the inside of my suit jacket or any other outdoor jacket I may have and the battery does last a while.
If you are looking for an e-reader, the Kindle is highly recommended. It compares well to other e-readers and choices may end up coming down to personal preference. If you are looking to get it instead of an iPad, I would say only do so if you plan to use the iPad for e-book reading only. I found the Kindle to be simply a better device for general e-reading, for the 4 reasons I stated at the beginning of this article. In my case, the decision became easy when I decided that at some point, I would like to own both, but since I used the iPad for mostly e-reading, I’ll start with the Kindle.
I didn’t cover everything there is to cover about the Kindle 2, but you can read more about the device and purchase it directly from Amazon.
