Buying a dedicated eReader for the first time

My experience in buying a dedicated eReader

I found myself in the fortunate position of being able to afford to treat myself to a dedicated eReader. I have the kindle and Kobo apps on my tablet but I was beginning to find certain aspects of reading on a tablet rather irritating. Mainly glare when reading outside and eye strain when low light reading. If I was going to make this purchase, it had to be right because I doubt I will be in this position again anytime soon. If I get it wrong I will have to live with it!

I was on a limited budget of between £75 and £100 (approx $115 to $150 US Dollars), so I knew I was not going to be able to afford a top of the range eReader but within my budget were three fairly good choices. They were the kindle Paperwhite, currently on offer in the UK at £99* ($150). The Kobo Aura again on offer at £79** ($120) and the Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight at £89 ($135).

My first criteria was “Could I make my purchase on my high street?”
I am not a big fan of buying my gadgets online via mail order, just my personal choice because I like to support my high street where ever possible even if it means using the large chain stores. After about twenty minutes research it became pretty obvious that I would not be buying a Nook! I live in a reasonable sized city and could find no high street retailers in my city that sold the Nook over the counter. W.H.Smiths stock the available Kobo range and John Lewis stock the full kindle range. I know other retailers (Argos/Asda/Tesco) stock kindle, Nook and Kobo but the retailers mentioned were chosen because they have display models that you can play with before making your purchase and are situated on the high street and not retail parks (at least that is the case in the city I live in).

Next came “How owners actually liked/disliked either or both.”
For this I asked an indirect question in the For Reading Addicts group on Facebook. The overwhelming majority (everyone) were in favour of the kindle so I felt I had to look elsewhere for some balance. I searched a few eReader forums that are out there on the internet and found that overall, owners were pretty happy with what they owned and owners of both kindle and the Kobo were quite happy using either eReader though the operating system on the Kobo seems to suffer from occasional glitches. Certainly not the majority suffered from these glitches but it was mentioned often enough to be a concern.

I then looked at features.
A few features came into consideration, things like on board storage, type of book files I could purchase, could I use my local library elending service?
On Board Storage: It was here I started to sway towards the Kobo. It has 4GB built in storage plus it is expandable a further 32GB by way of an SD card. The kindle has 2GB on board storage and no facility for an SD card. Both have cloud storage if you sign up as an account holder, which obviously you would and I have because of the apps on my tablet.

File types: The Kobo allowed me to purchase from almost any on line book seller (not Amazon UK as far as I could see) and also allowed me to borrow ebooks from my library. The kindle pretty much ties me in to Amazon almost exclusively with no facility to connect to my local elibrary (I know this is different in the USA but is not available with most UK library elending services).

Both have E-ink and anti-glare screens and both have light control for low light reading. All other features were uninteresting to me at this stage.

“The price of books!”
Future costs are important so I figured a quick book price comparison would also be a good idea. For this I compared six books over several ebook selling websites (the websites I used were Waterstones, W.H.Smiths, Google Books (Google Play Store UK), Amazon UK, Kobo Bookstore UK and Barnes and Noble UK. Obviously USA users will have different choices). Over the six books I searched, on average Amazon UK was cheapest by far, being somewhere between 10 to 50% cheaper than the other online book stores I checked. I have to admit I was surprised by this. This was an important discovery! The kindle might be more expensive initially but given a year or twos use, it could quite easily be the cheaper option.

Kindle Paperwhite (US)
Kindle Paperwhite (UK)

Finally, and for me the most important: The Physical Test!
I found myself in W.H. Smiths and I am in front of the Kobo Aura and the Aura H20. Almost immediately I find myself disappointed with the Aura. It seems small, looks cheap and cheerful. It really does not look appealing! I play with it anyway and find myself even more disappointed! The way it  changes page is very unsatisfying, almost lazy! It also appears to be quite slow. I moved on to the H20 and although it is well above my budget at £135 ($205) it is a much better product. Why did I play with it because I simply cannot afford it?

I figure it is time for a coffee so I head towards the city library and relax in the coffee bar lounge for half an hour.

I then go to John Lewis, they hold the full kindle range from eReader to tablet and have all on display and ready to play with. I did have a little play with the kindle Touch but right next to it was the Paperwhite. I played with the Paperwhite for probably fifteen minutes and quite simply fell in love with it!

So, the Kindle Paperwhite has features missing that I would like but I can use my tablet if I really want those features. It was the most expensive. I bought one!

All prices and currency conversions correct on 6th May 2015
*The kindle Paperwhite normally retails in the UK at £109-£129 ($166-$196)
**The Kobo Aura normally retails in the UK at £109 ($166)