Ereading still causes a lot of confusion. I thought it might be useful to put together a post of some common questions regarding ereading and to do my best to answer them. What is eReading?Simply put, ereading is reading a book, comic, magazine or other similar content on an electronic device rather than in hard copy. Why should I give up my paperback and switch to ereading?Like many things, ereading is not an either/or activity. There is no reason why you cannot read books in both hard copy and ebook formats. It is very much a personal choice. Having said that, there are pros and cons to ereading. I have listed some here to help you decide if ereading is right for you. Pros:Convenience. With ereading you can carry your entire library around with you on your eReader, smartphone or tablet. Can you imagine carrying around all 14 hardback books in the Wheel of Time series? With ereading that is no issue. Likewise, if you’re living in a small space, an ereader takes up much less room than forty shelves of books. Accessibility. Most ereaders and ereading applications allow you to adjust the font size to suit your eyesight. This…
This last few weeks, I’ve not taken much time to write reviews of my recent reads (well, the new TV season has started!) so I thought I’d write a few notes. The Timekeeper by Mitch Alborn This was rather a sweet story about a boy who was the first to mark time (in the sense of dividing it into years, months, weeks, days, hours) and how it became an obsession for him. In the story, he becomes Father Time. His tale is interwoven with those of a young teenage girl and a dying old man. While I loved the story, I felt the moralising about appreciating the time we have was a touch heavy handed. Still, I gave The Time Keeper 4 stars out of 5 Les Chevaliers d’Emeraude – L’Enlevement by Anne Robillard OK, I admit it, I’m a complete sucker for this series. I love Robillard’s understanding of character. Even though they are in a fantasy setting, they feel fresh and timeless. After all, a man in love with his best friend’s wife is still conflicted and in pain whether he’s a 21st century person or a heroic mediaeval knight. One thing I’m noticing about this series is…
I’ve had my hands on the Kobo Glo for a few days now, and it is a very nice device. I took some pictures to compare it with my Kobo Touch and Kindle Touch. Here is a picture of the three devices with the Kobo Glo unlit To my eyes, the Kobo Glo’s screen is noticeably lighter than the Kobo Touch’s and on a par with that of the Kindle Touch, making more of a contrast between the screen and text. With its 1GHz processor, page turns on the new Glo are considerably faster than on the Kobo Touch and the Kindle Touch. You may notice from the images that the Kobo Glo has dropped the physical home button. Personally, I’d have preferred that they keep it. Access to the Home screen is now via on-screen menus. The Kobo Glo comes with a slightly updated UI, which, according to the forums, and my own experience, is still rather buggy. Once or twice I noticed that the device got stuck on a page and I had to turn it off to get back to reading. I imagine a firmware update will be coming soon to fix this. It’s annoying, but not…
Sigh. I really should not have spent yesterday evening looking at reviews for the Kindle Paperwhite eReader. They unanimously give the device a “glowing” review. Now I really, REALLY want one. This is a device I use on a daily basis, so it’s something I don’t mind paying for. In addition, it appears Amazon has discontinued the Kindle Touch, so there will be no more software updates. That is my excuse and I’m sticking to it! As I live in Canada, I am unable to purchase directly from Amazon, so I’ve had to go through shopereaders.com. They called me yesterday to confirm my order, and I will likely receive it the first week in November. Their first batch is 20, and I’m the 30th preorder. Other than the front lighting, new screen and capacitive touch, I’m very excited about the updated UI. From what I’ve seen on the review videos, it looks so much nicer with the book covers. On the other hand, I won’t have to wait as long for my Kobo Glo. Tracking indicates it’s halfway between Mississauga and Montreal, so I imagine it will arrive tomorrow. I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in person. I…
So in the last 48 hours both Kobo and Amazon have released details of the next iterations of their ereader products. Full details can be found at the Kindle and Kobo websites. It should be noted that I watched the Amazon press conference, but all I know of the new Kobo offerings is what Kobo has put on their website. At the lower price point end of the scale, Amazon has refreshed the screen and reduced the price of their base model Kindle – it now costs just $69. It doesn’t have a touch interface. The Kobo base end model is now touch based, but reduced in size to a 5 inch screen. It costs just $79 dollars. As an advocate of e-reading it’s great to see that the entry level models are so reasonably priced. Naturally, I was most interested in the touch readers. The big selling feature of both the new Kobo and Kindle touch devices is the front lighting to allow you to read when in a darkened environment. I often like to read in bed in the morning when I wake up, and don’t like to disturb my husband sleeping next to me, so this is…
Those of you who have read my blog know that I am an Apple fangirl, and that I had been very disappointed in my brieftime with the Kobo Vox ereading tablet. That had been my first experience with Android, and although I was very disappointed in the Kobo Vox, I realised that was due to the tablet itself not the operating system. I really liked the 7 inch size of the Kobo Vox, and I had been considering a more general Android 7 inch tablet. I had been seriously considering the Galaxy 2 tablet, but then I heard about the new Nexus 7 and was blown away by the presentation and reviews. Just looking at the specs of the Kobo compared to the Nexus I can tell already my experience is going to be completely different: Kobo Vox: Operating system custom Android 2.3 CPU 800 Mhz Storage capacity 8 GB Memory 512 MB RAM Display 7″ multi-touch FFS+ multimedia display; 1024 x 600 resolution Nexus 7: Operating system Android 4.1 Jelly Bean SoC Nvidia Tegra 3 (T30L) CPU 1.2 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 with additional low-speed companion core,[1] GPU 416 MHz Nvidia GeForce ULP with 12 cores Memory 1 GB…