9 ms·

Marco's eReader Roundup (Kindle 4, Kindle Touch, Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Touch)

72 points by martingordon 15y ago

duck 15y ago
On the Kindles, the ads aren’t intrusive, and if you get an ad model and change your mind later, you can just pay the difference and get the ads removed. So it’s not much of a risk to just get the ads. This is the first time I have heard this... you would think they would market that ability more.
- jad 15y ago
  > you would think they would market that ability more Maybe Amazon thinks that if it is obvious, no one will pay up front to have ads removed, and getting more money at the time of purchase is more valuable than future ad revenue.
  - bmuon 15y ago
    Everything on the web points to the opposite. Ads in the long run are always more profitable. Besides, nothing guarantees that the quality of the ads will stay the same. When I bought my Kindle 4 I reasoned they looked well now because the service is pretty new, but we'll start seeing all the abhorring ads we see on the web soon enough.
    - jsnell 15y ago
      I would be stunned if the lifetime advertising revenue from a Kindle unit was higher than the price to turn the ads off. Isn't it much more likely to be purely a market segmentation thing? Sell the cheap version to the extremely price-sensitive, but get an extra $30 from those who don't really care about the price.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Kindle is dangerously close to having too many models. Customers are becoming confused. I was at a Best Buy and I overheard a couple looking at a Kindle. This Best Buy seemed to only have the Special Offers models. The couple was asking for the ad-free version, and the employee wasn't giving them a sure answer. He thought that after you buy the Special Offers version it would ask you if you wanted to remove them for the addition $30. I'm a super nerd and even I don't know if that is true (I suspect not). There are a couple of problems here: Amazon is allowing retailers to carry part of the line. Radio Shack has even fewer choices (mine didn't have the Touch at all). But worse, they have too many choices, and the retailers aren't able to (or are failing at) educate their employees on the devices. That couple I saw is going to be pissed if they take the device home and aren't able to remove the ads. On the flip side, it encourages people to just buy from Amazon.com where you know what you're getting.
  - duck 15y ago
    Unrelated to the Kindle, but regarding too many models - I wanted to get a new Dremel tool last week and looked online, but for the life of me I can't figure out what the difference is between all of them and their site is terrible at comparing models. Because of that I stopped looking for one and just realized why when I read your comment.
joebadmo 15y ago
As a 3rd gen Kindle owner, I don't really see how this product/experience could be meaningfully improved until color, full-motion, hybrid reflective/backlit screens (like Pixel Qi and Mirasol) are good and cheap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_modulator_display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_modulator_displ...
- tikhonj 15y ago
  I agree. I'm sure you could get some improvement over the Kindle 3, but it's already as good, if not better, for reading novels than a paper book. Any improvements in that direction would be, at best, marginal. However, there is one thing that could really be improved: typography. The default setup is not particularly good for English text--manageable but subpar--and is even worse for Russian. It's still readable, but they do not wrap long words with a hyphen leading to an annoyingly ragged margin. If they fixed the typography, the experience would be even better. I know this because I took several of my books and reformatted them using LaTeX (I had way too much time on my hands :)), which does wrap words and generally produces a much better-looking result. The LaTeX books were significantly easier to read than the Kindle ones--I think they were even a little better than what I expect of most paperbacks. However, they also take up more space and take more effort to make. So, since my only issue can be fixed by changing the ebook format, and isn't much of an issue at that, I think its safe to say getting an ereader now would be a good bet.
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    I totally agree with you on the typography, though at this point I've gotten used to it. Could you elaborate a bit on your reformatting? Does typesetting it in LaTeX make each page a fixed width? Do I understand correctly, then, that you wouldn't really be able to resize the text? It's a bit crazy to me that algorithmic typesetting isn't a lot farther along than it seems to be. Hyphenation doesn't seem like that hard of a problem. Am I wrong? I guess the demand just isn't really there?
    - 15y ago
dprice1 15y ago
I wish the review (or the accompanying ecosystem review) had considered the freedom/openness of each device. To me that seems like the #1 concern I would have with a reader for content I value over the long run. It has seemed to me that the Kindle is the device with the most lock-in whereas the Kobo has the least (it uses Adobe's DRM scheme, which at least has a tool which lets you move your content from device to device). I'm less sure about the Nook. Second, it has never really been completely clear to me what would happen to my content were one of these companies to go out of business. Any thoughts? Finally, since the review mentions periodicals, I think it would be great to review the periodical retention policies of the devices. I have a friend who has a Kindle and complains bitterly about its periodical retention scheme-- about how it always wants to age out (and remove) old issues of a magazine (which you have to tediously disable issue by issue), and how, once gone, you can never regain access to periodicals you once had. Want to re-read that New Yorker from last year on the upgraded Kindle you just got for Xmas? You can't... [Posting as a non-ereader owner who keeps trying to figure out which one to get; I have used my phone as a client with Kindle and Kobo stores]
- tikhonj 15y ago
  I recently got a Kindle 3. I actually won it rather than buying it, so I didn't do much research into alternate options, so I only really know how the Kindle works. You can just buy ebooks outside of the Amazon store and load them onto your Kindle. Calibre is a perfect program for this--it helps manage your collection and converts the files for you. It's very good at converting epub to mobi--which makes sense; the formats are related--and is pretty good with other formats. Pdf is more difficult, but it does do a decent job sometimes. Other times it's a complete mess. Thanks to Calibre, you are not really tied to Amazon for getting ebooks. If you do opt to use Amazon, you might have some issues, but I don't know because I haven't bothered. I also have no idea about periodicals because I don't read any. I basically use my Kindle to read random science fiction novels when I have free time. The real advantage of the Kindle isn't in the market (as far as I'm concerned) but in the convenience and form factor. I've actually found it easier to read than a paperback, and it lets me carry a decent collection of books around easily. I suspect other ereaders are similar in that regard.
swanson 15y ago
Can anyone comment on the page turn speed of the non-touch Kindle4 vs the Kindle3? I picked up a Kindle Touch thinking that the refresh speed would be better than the 3rd gen model, but, like Marco, I didn't really find it to be the case.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  I took a very brief look at the Touch and 4 (ads version) while breezing by them in a Target (I know -- and they had some Sony's and Kobo's as well; these things are really going mainstream). Anyway, after spending a few seconds with them, my impression was that page turn on the Touch and 4 were about the same. If so, you could use your Touch experience as a basis for comparison. EDIT: Reading his article, now. Apparently, I didn't spend enough time with them to form an accurate observation: The Kobo Touch is the slowest at page-turns, followed closely by the Kindle Touch. In fact, my old Kindle 2 turns pages slightly faster than the Kindle Touch. I’ll come back to that in a minute.
emilepetrone 15y ago
I own the Kindle 4 (non touch screen) and it is great. Works exactly as advertised. As far as I'm concerned, that is all I need.
lpolovets 15y ago
I'm surprised to say this, but I like the Kindle ads. I have an ad-free Kindle and I got the ad-supported version for my wife (she was on the fence about getting a Kindle at all, and knowing it was cheaper compelled her to finally get it). The ads are pretty great! As the blog post says, they are unobtrusive and only displayed when the Kindle is off. More importantly, though, they are sometimes useful. The first few ads that I ended up clicking on were "$5 off any Amazon purchase" and "Buy any one of these 100 bestselling business eBooks for $1." Yes, there are ads that have nothing to do with Amazon or books, but the fact that I occasionally see an ad that makes me go "Wow, I will use this!" is pretty unexpected and pleasant. If my Kindle 3 ever breaks, I plan to replace it with the ad-supported version.
- metajack 15y ago
  I like them too. I buy something via the ads about once a month. In fact, I bought the Kindle with ads just for one of the ads which was a few hundred dollars off a TV. The Kindle was essentially free.
- WalterBright 15y ago
  I bought the Kindle DX and was actually disappointed that it didn't serve ads. Instead, it puts ugly pictures of dead authors as the screensaver.
  - SWengineer 15y ago
    I bought the DX for the large screen so I can read programming books and pdfs on e ink. I like some of the artwork, esp the one of the fish. I think the kindle 4 smaller devices have more contemporary screen savers.
    - smhinsey 15y ago
      I didn't anticipate how much I would come to prefer my DX to everything else. I do wish that screensaver (that isn't quite the right term) was at least somewhat customizable though.
ComputerGuru 15y ago
I have a Kindle Touch, and honestly, every day I wish I got the non-touch. Touch does not go well with e-Ink. The delayed responses are far more intuitively compatible with hardware keys. You can press, let go, and know what's going to happen. The tactile feedback makes up for the delayed UI response. But with the Kindle Touch, I press.... and then I don't know if it registered or if it's just slow, so I press again and again. I think a lot of it has to do with the general sluggishness of the Touch models that the blog author mentioned - it's very, very noticeable. But the other part is just that at the end of the day, feedback is important. Either immediate visual feedback (a la iPhone, not Android - referring to how iPhone is programmed to "slide" on first touch whereas Android is programmed to give some room before switching screens) or immediate tactile feedback.
wvenable 15y ago
The Kobo touch seems pretty hackable -- it's very easy to root the device; the firmware upgrades are just tarballs that overwrite files in the main partition and it has a backup partition if you screw it up. There's some documentation on mmapping the e-ink display and using ioctl to update portions of the display. I'm looking to get one of these for my wife for Christmas (Neither the Nook or the kindle are really available in Canada) but I'm not allowed to mess around with her devices. However I think having an e-ink Linux machine might be an interesting device to play with.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  I have the version before the Touch -- the one where they added wifi. I'd love to hack it just enough to get fixed width code examples to (mostly) fit the display width. Or, better yet, to get it to support a landscape display of ePub books (for the same reason). I don't suppose someone's already done something along these lines? (Just asking in case happenstance brings a knowledgeable reader past this comment.)
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    It appears one can hack the ePub to change font settings and include an embedded TrueType font (maybe also other formats?), and the Kobo firmware will successfully process this. I'm waiting for the battery to finish charging to see how Proggy Tiny Slashed-Zero looks. It may be too small, in which case I'll try one of the other Proggy variants, or Dina. (Both Proggy and Dina have TrueType implementations, although I'm uncertain how complete they are. I may have to look around for a better choice of a small-format fixed width font implemented in TrueType format.)
  - wvenable 15y ago
    The Wifi version is also hackable in the same way. You might want to google "Kobo wifi hacks" and start looking around. Unfortunately, it's pretty early in the scene and developers are still working to figure stuff out. I'm not sure there are yet any workable apps written for these devices.
zokier 15y ago
Sadly the article doesn't address the issues with Kindle typography raised in "Ebooks, you're doing it wrong" [1] [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3256317 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3256317
_stephan 15y ago
Something important that Marco forgot: The Kindle Touch is the only Kindle without landscape mode. I find that pretty annoying.
flomincucci 15y ago
I think this is the best article about ebook readers that I've read since... well, ever.

72 points by martingordon 15y ago

duck 15y ago

On the Kindles, the ads aren’t intrusive, and if you get an ad model and change your mind later, you can just pay the difference and get the ads removed. So it’s not much of a risk to just get the ads. This is the first time I have heard this... you would think they would market that ability more.

jad 15y ago
> you would think they would market that ability more Maybe Amazon thinks that if it is obvious, no one will pay up front to have ads removed, and getting more money at the time of purchase is more valuable than future ad revenue.
- bmuon 15y ago
  Everything on the web points to the opposite. Ads in the long run are always more profitable. Besides, nothing guarantees that the quality of the ads will stay the same. When I bought my Kindle 4 I reasoned they looked well now because the service is pretty new, but we'll start seeing all the abhorring ads we see on the web soon enough.
  - jsnell 15y ago
    I would be stunned if the lifetime advertising revenue from a Kindle unit was higher than the price to turn the ads off. Isn't it much more likely to be purely a market segmentation thing? Sell the cheap version to the extremely price-sensitive, but get an extra $30 from those who don't really care about the price.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Kindle is dangerously close to having too many models. Customers are becoming confused. I was at a Best Buy and I overheard a couple looking at a Kindle. This Best Buy seemed to only have the Special Offers models. The couple was asking for the ad-free version, and the employee wasn't giving them a sure answer. He thought that after you buy the Special Offers version it would ask you if you wanted to remove them for the addition $30. I'm a super nerd and even I don't know if that is true (I suspect not). There are a couple of problems here: Amazon is allowing retailers to carry part of the line. Radio Shack has even fewer choices (mine didn't have the Touch at all). But worse, they have too many choices, and the retailers aren't able to (or are failing at) educate their employees on the devices. That couple I saw is going to be pissed if they take the device home and aren't able to remove the ads. On the flip side, it encourages people to just buy from Amazon.com where you know what you're getting.
- duck 15y ago
  Unrelated to the Kindle, but regarding too many models - I wanted to get a new Dremel tool last week and looked online, but for the life of me I can't figure out what the difference is between all of them and their site is terrible at comparing models. Because of that I stopped looking for one and just realized why when I read your comment.

joebadmo 15y ago

As a 3rd gen Kindle owner, I don't really see how this product/experience could be meaningfully improved until color, full-motion, hybrid reflective/backlit screens (like Pixel Qi and Mirasol) are good and cheap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_modulator_display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_modulator_displ...

tikhonj 15y ago
I agree. I'm sure you could get some improvement over the Kindle 3, but it's already as good, if not better, for reading novels than a paper book. Any improvements in that direction would be, at best, marginal. However, there is one thing that could really be improved: typography. The default setup is not particularly good for English text--manageable but subpar--and is even worse for Russian. It's still readable, but they do not wrap long words with a hyphen leading to an annoyingly ragged margin. If they fixed the typography, the experience would be even better. I know this because I took several of my books and reformatted them using LaTeX (I had way too much time on my hands :)), which does wrap words and generally produces a much better-looking result. The LaTeX books were significantly easier to read than the Kindle ones--I think they were even a little better than what I expect of most paperbacks. However, they also take up more space and take more effort to make. So, since my only issue can be fixed by changing the ebook format, and isn't much of an issue at that, I think its safe to say getting an ereader now would be a good bet.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  I totally agree with you on the typography, though at this point I've gotten used to it. Could you elaborate a bit on your reformatting? Does typesetting it in LaTeX make each page a fixed width? Do I understand correctly, then, that you wouldn't really be able to resize the text? It's a bit crazy to me that algorithmic typesetting isn't a lot farther along than it seems to be. Hyphenation doesn't seem like that hard of a problem. Am I wrong? I guess the demand just isn't really there?
  - 15y ago

dprice1 15y ago

I wish the review (or the accompanying ecosystem review) had considered the freedom/openness of each device. To me that seems like the #1 concern I would have with a reader for content I value over the long run. It has seemed to me that the Kindle is the device with the most lock-in whereas the Kobo has the least (it uses Adobe's DRM scheme, which at least has a tool which lets you move your content from device to device). I'm less sure about the Nook. Second, it has never really been completely clear to me what would happen to my content were one of these companies to go out of business. Any thoughts? Finally, since the review mentions periodicals, I think it would be great to review the periodical retention policies of the devices. I have a friend who has a Kindle and complains bitterly about its periodical retention scheme-- about how it always wants to age out (and remove) old issues of a magazine (which you have to tediously disable issue by issue), and how, once gone, you can never regain access to periodicals you once had. Want to re-read that New Yorker from last year on the upgraded Kindle you just got for Xmas? You can't... [Posting as a non-ereader owner who keeps trying to figure out which one to get; I have used my phone as a client with Kindle and Kobo stores]

tikhonj 15y ago
I recently got a Kindle 3. I actually won it rather than buying it, so I didn't do much research into alternate options, so I only really know how the Kindle works. You can just buy ebooks outside of the Amazon store and load them onto your Kindle. Calibre is a perfect program for this--it helps manage your collection and converts the files for you. It's very good at converting epub to mobi--which makes sense; the formats are related--and is pretty good with other formats. Pdf is more difficult, but it does do a decent job sometimes. Other times it's a complete mess. Thanks to Calibre, you are not really tied to Amazon for getting ebooks. If you do opt to use Amazon, you might have some issues, but I don't know because I haven't bothered. I also have no idea about periodicals because I don't read any. I basically use my Kindle to read random science fiction novels when I have free time. The real advantage of the Kindle isn't in the market (as far as I'm concerned) but in the convenience and form factor. I've actually found it easier to read than a paperback, and it lets me carry a decent collection of books around easily. I suspect other ereaders are similar in that regard.

swanson 15y ago

Can anyone comment on the page turn speed of the non-touch Kindle4 vs the Kindle3? I picked up a Kindle Touch thinking that the refresh speed would be better than the 3rd gen model, but, like Marco, I didn't really find it to be the case.

pasbesoin 15y ago
I took a very brief look at the Touch and 4 (ads version) while breezing by them in a Target (I know -- and they had some Sony's and Kobo's as well; these things are really going mainstream). Anyway, after spending a few seconds with them, my impression was that page turn on the Touch and 4 were about the same. If so, you could use your Touch experience as a basis for comparison. EDIT: Reading his article, now. Apparently, I didn't spend enough time with them to form an accurate observation: The Kobo Touch is the slowest at page-turns, followed closely by the Kindle Touch. In fact, my old Kindle 2 turns pages slightly faster than the Kindle Touch. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

emilepetrone 15y ago

I own the Kindle 4 (non touch screen) and it is great. Works exactly as advertised. As far as I'm concerned, that is all I need.

lpolovets 15y ago

I'm surprised to say this, but I like the Kindle ads. I have an ad-free Kindle and I got the ad-supported version for my wife (she was on the fence about getting a Kindle at all, and knowing it was cheaper compelled her to finally get it). The ads are pretty great! As the blog post says, they are unobtrusive and only displayed when the Kindle is off. More importantly, though, they are sometimes useful. The first few ads that I ended up clicking on were "$5 off any Amazon purchase" and "Buy any one of these 100 bestselling business eBooks for $1." Yes, there are ads that have nothing to do with Amazon or books, but the fact that I occasionally see an ad that makes me go "Wow, I will use this!" is pretty unexpected and pleasant. If my Kindle 3 ever breaks, I plan to replace it with the ad-supported version.

metajack 15y ago
I like them too. I buy something via the ads about once a month. In fact, I bought the Kindle with ads just for one of the ads which was a few hundred dollars off a TV. The Kindle was essentially free.
WalterBright 15y ago
I bought the Kindle DX and was actually disappointed that it didn't serve ads. Instead, it puts ugly pictures of dead authors as the screensaver.
- SWengineer 15y ago
  I bought the DX for the large screen so I can read programming books and pdfs on e ink. I like some of the artwork, esp the one of the fish. I think the kindle 4 smaller devices have more contemporary screen savers.
  - smhinsey 15y ago
    I didn't anticipate how much I would come to prefer my DX to everything else. I do wish that screensaver (that isn't quite the right term) was at least somewhat customizable though.

ComputerGuru 15y ago

I have a Kindle Touch, and honestly, every day I wish I got the non-touch. Touch does not go well with e-Ink. The delayed responses are far more intuitively compatible with hardware keys. You can press, let go, and know what's going to happen. The tactile feedback makes up for the delayed UI response. But with the Kindle Touch, I press.... and then I don't know if it registered or if it's just slow, so I press again and again. I think a lot of it has to do with the general sluggishness of the Touch models that the blog author mentioned - it's very, very noticeable. But the other part is just that at the end of the day, feedback is important. Either immediate visual feedback (a la iPhone, not Android - referring to how iPhone is programmed to "slide" on first touch whereas Android is programmed to give some room before switching screens) or immediate tactile feedback.

wvenable 15y ago

The Kobo touch seems pretty hackable -- it's very easy to root the device; the firmware upgrades are just tarballs that overwrite files in the main partition and it has a backup partition if you screw it up. There's some documentation on mmapping the e-ink display and using ioctl to update portions of the display. I'm looking to get one of these for my wife for Christmas (Neither the Nook or the kindle are really available in Canada) but I'm not allowed to mess around with her devices. However I think having an e-ink Linux machine might be an interesting device to play with.

pasbesoin 15y ago
I have the version before the Touch -- the one where they added wifi. I'd love to hack it just enough to get fixed width code examples to (mostly) fit the display width. Or, better yet, to get it to support a landscape display of ePub books (for the same reason). I don't suppose someone's already done something along these lines? (Just asking in case happenstance brings a knowledgeable reader past this comment.)
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  It appears one can hack the ePub to change font settings and include an embedded TrueType font (maybe also other formats?), and the Kobo firmware will successfully process this. I'm waiting for the battery to finish charging to see how Proggy Tiny Slashed-Zero looks. It may be too small, in which case I'll try one of the other Proggy variants, or Dina. (Both Proggy and Dina have TrueType implementations, although I'm uncertain how complete they are. I may have to look around for a better choice of a small-format fixed width font implemented in TrueType format.)
- wvenable 15y ago
  The Wifi version is also hackable in the same way. You might want to google "Kobo wifi hacks" and start looking around. Unfortunately, it's pretty early in the scene and developers are still working to figure stuff out. I'm not sure there are yet any workable apps written for these devices.

zokier 15y ago

Sadly the article doesn't address the issues with Kindle typography raised in "Ebooks, you're doing it wrong" [1] [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3256317 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3256317

_stephan 15y ago

Something important that Marco forgot: The Kindle Touch is the only Kindle without landscape mode. I find that pretty annoying.

flomincucci 15y ago

I think this is the best article about ebook readers that I've read since... well, ever.