Portable Ebook Reader

After seeing a friend of mine, who owns this gizmo, early this year, I was fascinated by the features of this more-than-just-an-e-book- reader mini-tablet computer. I searched its name on the web later that day to learn more about its features. The following day I had my own Kindle Fire, which is the finest among the Amazon Kindles as of now. It goes without saying that this gadget is quite useful to my daily life.

The Kindle Fire was launched in the U.S. market late last year on November 15, 2011. Currently, Amazon.com Inc. claims this gadget captured 22 percent on tablet sales in the U.S. alone after 9 months. This makes the second most profitable tablet after the Apple Inc.’s iPad. Let me tell you what makes this mini-tablet computer very popular.

Kindle Fire is the first colored screen among the Kindle tablets of Amazon.com Inc. The touchscreen’s color is superb with extra-wide viewing angle. This handy Android gizmo has external dimensions of 7.5×4.7×0.45 inches and you can hold it comfortably with one hand. The size is just perfect which is neither too small for the images on the screen to see, nor too big to fit inside the bag’s pocket. The weight is only 413 grams, it is very portable indeed. It weighs lesser than an iPad but much bigger screen than smartphones for better viewing. The power button is the only physical button this gadget has and everything including the volume adjustments will be manipulated through the option menu on the screen’s software button. Some people do not like it but I found it as a user friendly and simple. The mini-tablet’s display is extra durable Amazon says it is chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic. Battery life is up to 8 hours of continuous reading of e-books or may vary depending on the type of Wi-Fi usage such as video playback, web browsing and downloading content. However, charging time takes 4 hours which I suggest you doing it when sleeping at night or when not using your Kindle Fire.

According to Amazon, Kindle Fire has up to 20 million songs download capacity. Now this is very appealing to all music lovers! The gadget’s sound system is 3.5mm stereo audio jack, top-mounted stereo speakers. The audio has a fantastic quality! What a fortune to have this gadget by playing the appropriate music when having an instant party with friends, picnic in the park with your family or sunset dining in a beach resort with your significant someone.

In the meantime, movies and TV program fanatics have the benefit to free download, purchase, rent or stream more than 100,000 movies including new release and favorite TV shows. Long travel time inside the bus or train will no longer be boring or sleepy as you can now watch your favorite currently released movies.

For those who are bookworms, the Kindle store is offering over 1 million books which includes 800,000 titles for only $9.99 or even lesser. Also there are over 2 million copyright free and classic books such as Pride and Prejudice, Les Misérables, Oliver Twist and many others to download. For your kiddos, there are more than 1000 delightfully-illustrated children books for them to read or for you to tell bedtime stories. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library allows you to choose from over 145,000 books, these includes 100 new release and former New York Times best sellers.

Do you like publications? Well known magazines such as Popular Mechanics, Marie Claire, and Better Homes and Gardens have shiny, full-color layouts, photographs and illustrations. While Vanity Fair, Wired, and GQ come with built-in video, audio and other interactive features.

Well, those who are Amazon Prime members have greater advantages compare to those who are not. Prime’s benefits includes unlimited, instant streaming of more than 10,000 popular movies and TV shows, Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of items, and admission to 100,000 popular Kindle books through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. If you are not a Prime member yet, Amazon automatically gives you a free month to try it through your Kindle Fire.

With the assistance of the Amazon Cloud, which is like a huge warehouse that keeps all Amazon digital content, there is no need to rely on your memory to locate all downloaded materials from the Amazon store. Amazon Cloud makes it simple and easy for you retrieving organized music files, movies, etc. on the screen.

Attention to all responsible parents! There is no need to worry for your kids to see unnecessary images when this gadget is in their hands. With Kindle Fire’s Parental Control feature, children are prevented from web browsing and most of all content purchasing. This is done by simply putting a password in the settings menu. So let kids read children e-books or play multiple kinds of games with worry free on your part. By the way, there are thousands of Game Apps that are available for download which includes the popular Angry Birds, Plants Vs. Zombies and Words with Friends.

Downloading e-books, music and movies from the Amazon store to tablet computer wasn’t very easy not until Kindle Fire came. This is because it has a fast Dual-Core Processor for speedy and powerful performance. This allows you to stream music or read e-books while downloading movies.

The gadget has a built-in Wi-Fi called Amazon Silk which makes streaming videos and web browsing extremely fast. Amazon Silk is an innovative, cloud-accelerated browser to leverage the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud. This feature supports Adobe, Flash and Player. Now this enables you to read email messages from your Yahoomail, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, etc. accounts into a single inbox only. This also enables you to send email documents including Word, PDF and more. Sending documents is done through Send to Kindle which available on the Amazon website for a free download.

The Kindle Fire doesn’t have a digital camera, video and audio recorder, GPS and other unnecessary features you don’t need anyway in a tablet. I have a digital camera with video recorder so it’s okay. I don’t expect this mini-tablet that only costs $199 will have all the features.

In spite all those great features of Kindle Fire that I mention above, the great thing is that it is affordable. It is reported that the cost of manufacturing a single unit of this gadget amounts to $150. Amazon may have a small profit margin for Kindle Fire but this mini-tablet computer serves its purpose for it is made for consumers to buy more e-books, music, movies and TV programs from the Amazon store. Greater profit for Amazon.com Inc. is not from this hardware but from the software the company sells downloaded through this mini-tablet computer.

If you’re looking for a feature-packed yet affordable ebook reader and/or tablet , then the Kindle Fire is a good fit for you. Check it out today.

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The ebook readers market has mostly been dominated by a few companies. Sony Readers and Kindle from Amazon are the most popular ebook readers in the world.

Content is the only real difference between these devices. Amazon is known to distribute content directly from its store. Though a closed system, it is accessible widely through apps on smart phones and PCs. Many other companies including Sony do not have across platforms provision or an integrated bookstore experience, but they offer open format support.

The Kobo eReader has been in the ebook market for quite a while and Smartphone users may be familiar with the preinstalled app. The manufacturers of the Kobo eReader are moving from pure content to both content and hardware with the aim to provide a complete solution like Amazon. The Kobo touch eReader is a good and genuine alternative to the Kindle.

Hardware

The Kobo touch eReader is well designed and has an interesting “quilted” back finish. It is of course not a real quilt, but the plastic material is sturdy enough. The device has a diamond pattern that is nice to hold and provides a user with something extra to hold on to. At 185g, it is lighter than the kindle touch, but slightly heavier than the new Kindle from Amazon.

The Kobo touch ebook reader is built with an E-ink display of 6 inches and just like many other models, it will easily fit into a small bag or jacket pocket. The device also has USB connections and also a microSD card slot on the side in case you need to expand the memory. This device only has a home button below the screen and a power slider at the top. All other operations are by touch, thus no need for more buttons.

Getting content

In order to sync the Kobo eReader, the user will require a Kobo account. Unlike the Kindle which offers users PC free operation, the Kobo touch requires a user to download software from a Mac or PC before connecting to your device.

If you as have an account all you need to do is key your details in the application and all content you have purchased will be available and ready to sync to the Kobo touch eReader. If there is no existing content, you can navigate and purchase them via the desktop application. PayPal is included in the payment options on the Kobo store which makes things very easy for most users.

The advantage of having a Wi-Fi enabled device is that you can easily browse and search free ebooks or even download a preview of a book without necessarily having to use a computer. The Kobo store is easy to navigate and is accessible from the device’s home page.

Any book purchased on the Kobo store is made available on your eReader, mobile device and desktop computer on one same account. It is not a must you connect to your computer as long as you do the initial setup well and if you will only stick to the Kobo bookstore.

This device has the ability to perform cross device bookmark syncing, which means that you can continue to read a book on your eReader from the point you left off on the phone and vice versa.

The Kobo touch is an EPUB ebook reader and so it does not restrict you to Kobo’s bookstore. Of course the reading experience is better if you stick to the Kobo store but if you buy EPUB titles and authorize your device with Adobe Digital Editions, you will have the ability to read from these collections as well.

This ability of the Kobo touch lets you have more freedom than the Kindle. This is because you can shop around to find the best prices and you get to choose where you source your books from. The only downside to this is that you will lose the syncing function, meaning that your EPUB ebooks will not be automatically mirrored to other devices.

Reading Experience

In actual reading, the Kobo touch offers readers a great experience. The E-Ink screen has good contrast and the letters are well formed and crisp. For your preference, you can select a different font and even change the font size. The device has highlight and dictionary functions and offers the share on facebook function. Page turning on this device is fast and very easy as you only need to tap at the edge or swipe across the page. It is however possible to sometimes turn pages by accident with a stray finger.

The e-ink display of the Kobo touch has 2 distinct advantages that you get over LCD displays. One is that they are not glossy which makes it easy to read in bright conditions or outdoors. They are great for poolside reading. The second advantage is that the battery life for this device is very efficient because there is no backlighting.

The battery life is one month but this very much depends on the reading you do. The Wi-Fi also shortens the battery life considerably, so it is advisable to use flight-safe mode if you do not need a connection.

The Extras

There are some few extras in the Kobo touch. These include a browser in case you want to browse the internet although it is still an experimental browser and may be a bit slow with tricky navigation. A Sudoku game and a sketchbook are also some of the extras hidden in this device.

Another feature is the Reading Life section which is available on the home page and offers a social side of the eReader. This section is basically a kind of an achievements system where upon taking various actions readers earn awards. From this section you can also see the stats of activities like number of books read, page turns and even hours spent on reading.

Verdict

There are many eReaders that are technically proficient but not all of them impress. The service offered by the Kobo touch rivals that of the Amazon Kindle and it’s impressive because there is a full system to explore. It is a good and interesting alternative to the Kindle and it is competitively priced.

The cost and availability of content should also be considered. A quick glance at some recent titles in the kindle reveals that the prices are the same with occasional higher priced titles in the Kindle store and vice versa.

Overall the Kobo touch is a great option that should be considered by anyone planning to buy an ereader.

Buy the Kobo Touch here.

Reading a favorite book in a comfortable bed before finally retiring into the night is one of the best stress relievers that I could ever think of. Reading a book or telling bedtime stories have been proven to be an effective and practical non-pharmaceutical tranquilizer for an exhausted brain because of the usual wearisome activities we have gone through the rest of the day. Some of us probably can recall those times when we use candles or an oil lamp while reading or maybe using a flashlight under the blankets as we flip through the pages of an engrossing book that we just can’t get enough of.

As time goes by, reading books has evolved into a more sophisticated manner. The E-reader was first introduced to the market in 1999 when Gemstar promoted the eBookman which was an e-reader that could record and play sounds. E-book readers were never very popular until 2007 when the Amazon Kindle was widely promoted. Many say this was the kick start of the public’s acceptance of this great, new technology, and paved the way for the newest E-readers available in the market today.

It was in October 2009 when Barnes & Noble released the first version of the Nook E-reader which originally came with Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connection capability. This amazing device was subsequently followed by its successors – the Nook Simple Touch, Nook Color and the Nook Tablet.

Then came the latest innovation in E-reader technology – the Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch™ with GlowLight™ . This is the latest version of the Nook E-readers and it comes with revolutionary technology that creates a gentle glow that is optimized for the most convenient low light reading. It has the Easy-to-Adjust GlowLight that could be customized for preferred glow intensity.

The SimpleTouch is the lightest of all Nooks, and is 6.5 inches by 5.0 inches by 0.47 inches and also weighs the lightest at just 6.95 ounces. It also comes with an installed chargeable battery which could be attached to a computer via USB or from a wall outlet using an adapter. Its 6-inch touchscreen with 16-layer grayscale is very easy on the eyes with its 600×800 resolution that supports 6 adjustable font styles and 7 font sizes. It also supports wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi® (802.11b/g/n). It has the original data storage capacity of 2GB which could hold up to 1,000 books, which should be plenty for any avid reader.

Nook GlowLight also supports ePub and PDF file formats and JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP for graphics. This means you can buy ebooks from many different websites and easily upload it to your Nook. Other e-readers force you to only purchase e-books from their own store which really limits your choices as far as pricing and availability goes. You can also syncronize the last page you’ve read on your Nook, with your smartphone or computer using the FREE NOOK Reading App™.

As you can clearly see, with the latest innovation in Nook e-Reader technologies, bedtime reading has never be so comfortable and sophisticated. A lot of happy customers have expressed their satisfaction with the new Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch™ with GlowLight™, so check it out for yourself. It makes a great gift for friends and family.

It seems that Amazon has really been stepping up their portable ebook reader game in the last few weeks. They’ve gone from two Kindle releases over a 1.5 year period to announcing something major every week or so. That’s quite a turnaround!

Here’s some of the recent developments from Amazon:

• Kindle DX - This was an expected but still huge announcement on May 6, 2009. It’s the largest ebook reader yet and the first ever to incorporate an accelerometer device, so pages are automatically rotated between portrait and landscape, simply by turning the device.

• Kindle for iPhone v1.1 - Amazon recently released a new version of this popular app which is available from the iPhone App Store. Some of the notable new features include:
  • Pinch screen to zoom images within books
  • Read in landscape or portrait mode
  • Select alternate text colors and backgrounds to improve reading comfort in low light
  • Tap on either side of the screen or flick the screen to turn page

• Amazon Encore - Amazon has joined the “publishing” industry. They’ll reportedly be publishing authors who are currently doing it themselves and are showing promise. Amazon has obviously realized that there’s tons of money to be made in publishing, especially with a lot of their future competitors going under.

• Kindle Publishing for Blogs - Amazon is now allowing bloggers to sell their blogs to Kindle owners through the Kindle Store. This is huge news for web marketers and content publishers as it provides a simple method for generating income from their labors of love.