Only five years ago this wasn’t a question anyone would ask. In those pre-iPad days, the Kindle and (late, great) Sony Reader were pretty much the only games in town for digital reading devices. The iPad changed things in 2010, but those early tablets were big and expensive. The real competition between traditional E Ink e-readers and tablets for consuming the “printed” word didn’t happen until Android tablets went to 7-inches to do an end run around Apple’s market domination. Suddenly tablets were roughly the same size as e-readers and not a whole lot more expensive. That resulted in predictions that tablets would doom the the dedicated e-reader the same way smartphones were killing the point-and-shoot pocket camera. The e-reader isn’t dead yet, but should it be? Which is better for digital reading, an e-reader or a small tablet?
I own a whack of both (a small sample is on the photo above). Yeah, I may have a bit of a problem when it comes to collecting these things…
I was an e-reader guy when they first started becoming popular (are you kidding? I can carry all my books with me and the covers won’t get tattered?) but a small tablet in the form of the Nook Color won me over for a while because it had a backlit display for night reading, page turns were fast, resolution was good and there was no accompanying black flash — the Achilles Heel of E Ink displays.
However, recent generations of E Ink e-readers have flipped the equation around thanks to effective front lighting, more powerful CPUs for faster page turns, higher resolution (my current go-to e-reader has a 265 ppi display) and minimizing of that annoying black flash — now less black, quicker (almost unnoticeable) and only on every eighth page or so. And despite the falling price of tablets, E Ink e-readers still maintain their key advantages:
- less screen glare
- high contrast display that’s easy to read outdoors
- battery life measured in weeks or months instead of hours
- lighter
- less expensive
- generally speaking, less fragile (speaking as a parent of three kids who drop tablets and e-readers with alarming frequency)
There’s also evidence that the backlit displays used in tablets can cause eyestrain when reading at night. Not everyone agrees, but I know I feel it if I read using a tablet for too long after lights out. Even with the various night-reading schemes different operating systems offer.
On the other hand, with tablet ownership up so much, an e-reader may be considered an extra expense as well as yet another device to lug around. And an e-reader doesn’t offer the e-book format flexibility that a tablet does.
There’s a saying in the photography community that says the best camera to shoot a scene is the one you have with you. I think the same thing holds true with digital reading and I’ll happily use a tablet if that’s what’s on hand. However, if I have the choice, I’ll reach for my e-reader first. And for roughly the past year, that’s been a Kobo Aura HD (reviewed here). Some day — probably soon — Kobo or Amazon will come out with something better, but to date I haven’t found a device that beats it.
In my opinion, despite the explosion in popularity of small tablets like the Nexus 7 and iPad Mini, the answer is more clear than ever: an E Ink e-reader beats a tablet for reading, any day.
Unless your thing is reading digital comics. In which case, stick with the tablet (at least until someone shoves a color Mirasol display in an e-reader).
I agree. I tried to read my first e-book on my iPad and couldn’t do it. Eventually I got a kindle and LOVE it. I find that I can “disappear” into the kindle the same way I can with a book, but I wasn’t able to do that with an iPad.
One thing I am torn on is when to introduce my kids to a kindle? For my own benefit, I want to get the newer model and give them my old one. But what I have realized is that they pickup books based on the cover art and they like the tactile part of the book. So for now I’m leaving them with the dead-tree books and I’ll have to wait a little longer before upgrading.
If men had purses it wouldn’t be a problem…
Okay seriously, I carry both. I have both my Kindle Paperwhite and my 7″ Kindle Fire HDX in my purse and the two together in their Amazon cases is approximately the size of a tall paperback. Still way, way smaller then the days when I hauled around hardbacks (and those never fit in my purse, so I always had something in my hands). When people why I have both my answer is simple. My Kindle is for reading. My Fire is for cookbooks, magazines, comics, and watching videos.