Something to Read
By Danielle Belopotosky
Published, New York Times: December 2, 2009

For anyone considering an e-reader purchase this holiday season, here’s a roundup of current and soon-to-be-available devices.

WHEN Amazon.com introduced its Kindle electronic book reader two years ago, the chief executive, Jeff Bezos, hoped the company was forever transforming the reading experience. The Kindle wasn’t the first e-reader on the market, but it came with a built-in advantage: a wireless connection to Amazon’s vast online bookstore. Today, when we think of e-readers, the Kindle comes readily to mind.


Plastic Logic’s Que will be unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

But it’s no longer just Amazon’s story. This year, new players have entered the e-reader space, while some familiar ones have hedged their bets by introducing new devices. Among Amazon’s eager competitors are Barnes & Noble, Sony, Plastic Logic, IREX Technologies and even Disney. We’ll see even more in 2010.

Companies hope convenience will trump the beloved aesthetics associated with real books. They’re even betting that consumers will turn to these devices to read magazines and newspapers, or to complement their professional e-lives.

For anyone considering an e-reader purchase this holiday season, here’s a round-up of current and soon-to-be-available devices.

AMAZON’S KINDLE, $259

The Kindle has access to more than 360,000 e-books as well as newspapers, magazines and blogs that can be wirelessly downloaded from Amazon.com. The latest version uses AT&T’s 3G wireless network and works in more than 100 countries.

The Kindle relies on Amazon’s own proprietary file format so it is not compatible with titles purchased from other e-bookstores. But Amazon offers a free application that allows its books to be read on an iPhone. And both remember where you left off if you change devices.

You can buy subscriptions to your favorite magazines and newspapers, but don’t expect them to look like your favorite print publications on the Kindle’s screen. And unlike on the Web, the journals aren’t updated throughout the day.
e
The Kindle’s 6-inch display is crisp, and text is easy to read in most lighting conditions. The text size can be changed with the stroke of a key on its built-in keyboard, which is also fine for making annotations and taking notes. A small joystick navigates the Kindle’s menu selections.

An experimental text-to-speech feature exists, but the computer-generated voice is stilted. For those who prefer a celebrity narrator, the Kindle supports audio books.

The Kindle DX ($489) has a 9.7-inch display that’s geared toward students and professionals who want to read textbooks or documents. Its screen automatically rotates to a landscape view, making it ideal for maps, graphics and charts. It can store up to 3,500 e-books, but the wireless connection works only in the United States.

Link here to read comments on: NOOK FROM BARNES & NOBLE, $259, SONY READER TOUCH PRS-600, $300, AND DAILY READER, $400, UE, FROM PLASTIC LOGIC, IREX DR800SG, $399, COOL-ER, FROM INTEREAD, $249, DISNEY DIGITAL BOOKS, $8.95 A MONTH,