<p>I have the Kindle Paperwhite and love it. This replaces my Kindle 2 which I gave to DS. The light in the Paperwhite makes it about perfect for me. I bought my dad a Kindle Fire for Christmas on Cyber Monday when it was on sale so it will be interesting to compare it to mine. Personally I never found the need for a tablet and just wanted an ereader.</p>
<p>I wanted a device that’s an e-reader only – no games, no surfing, no email. For that purpose, I love my Nook SimpleTouch.</p>
<p>Understand that Overdrive content is driven by your own local library (they buy access to titles for their own patrons). So if you don’t like the selection on Overdrive tell your local librarian!</p>
<p>Love my Nook color. I added a 32G chip to it for about $30. I can use it as a table if necessary and check my e-mail, but I use it for reading, games, and listening to music and videos.</p>
<p>We are a 3 Kindle family (2 gen 2’s and a Fire) and have an Ipad. For just reading I would suggest the Kindle Paperwhite. I love, love love my Kindle generation 2. I am always reading on it. I can borrow ebooks from the library and Amazon offers many cheap and free books. </p>
<p>If I had unlimited funds I might get a tablet like the IPad though so I can also surf the web.</p>
<p>I have a Kindle and recently got a Kindle Fire,an early Christmas gift:) We like both.</p>
<p>My Kindle is the most basic one (not backlit) but I ordered a little clip on light that works well. Battery life is great. Very lightweight.
The Kindle Fire is a lot of fun. The bigger backlit screen makes reading easier. I like the touch screen for turning pages. Also love to play Scrabble, check email,waste lots of time on Pinterest and CC. We travel fairly often. Now that we have the Kindle Fire,we can leave the heavy laptop at home and DH and I don’t have to fight over who uses the Kindle.</p>
<p>You can do well with either the kindle or the nook, the basic paperwhite one still has the best text in my opinion. It also has a long battery life, something anything backlit will not have…but in the end, it comes down to what you want to do with it. Needs light to read it, though. </p>
<p>The advantage of a tablet or the Kindle Fire and the Nook color is I believe you can get an app for the others books (though it may take some jacking around to be able to do that, wouldn’t be surprised if they blocked you from downloading the other’s app, i.e on a kindle fire having a nook app), whereas if you have a kindle reader you only can read kindle books and acrobat files. Both kindle fire and the nook color are android based, and it is possible to open up the nook (I think the kindle is, i.e with the fire you can download android apps). </p>
<p>I read on my samsung charge smartphone using the kindle and nook apps and it works great for me. </p>
<p>As others point out, you have a lot of options, it really depends on your preferences. Try the various bookreaders in the store, try reading on a tablet, and see which hits you more. Buying an Ipad or Ipad mini wouldn’t make much sense if all you are going to do is read on it, too expensive for just that, you might be happier with a nook,nook color or kindle/kindle fire. </p>
<p>As far as the debate over amazon and publishing, I don’t think a single channel is a good thing, but I am not all that enamored of the publishing industry either. One of the things the e-books have opened up (and it wasn’t because of the publishing industry, believe me, they have fought e-books tooth and nail), is the growth of self publishing and some pretty cool stories have come out of nowhere there, and it isn’t just 50 shades of Gray, either, not everyone wants to read Dom Delilo or some other great author. I sincerely hope that Amazon’s publishing arm doesn’t become a monopoly, but I truly appreciate that e-book publishers (like the company that did 50 shades originally), sites like smashwords, the self publishing on amazon and elsewhere, has meant a lot of new voices getting out there, whereas the publishing industry has contracted to primarily cater to its successful authors or to the ‘great literature’ their editors and internal readers like. </p>
<p>I also find it ridiculous that mainstream publishers are charging more for e-books then print books, in some cases they are charging more then for the hardcover, that is basically like the gas station that charges 20c a gallon more then other stations, they do it because they don’t want to see gas. I have heard all the crap about how printing books doesn’t cost more, and that is crap, when they print 100 ,000 copies of a book and it doesn’t sell, it is a money loser, and a lot of books have that problem, whereas with an e-book, the only cost is storing a file on a website. I think publishers are whining because they see their stranglehold on books being pulled apart, where they can’t decide what we will read but we can. Hate to say it, but in recent years books put out by the publishing houses aren’t even very well edited, a lot of the e-books I read are better edited and these are books self published or through a small e-book publisher so even that isn’t much of a difference these days. </p>
<p>I also hate to say it, but the publishing companies have coming back to them what they did themselves, the big publishing companies once upon a time had a cozy relationship with Barnes and noble and the other mega bookstore chains, who promptly put out of business the small bookstores, and B and N and the rest had only a relatively limited diversity of books, but the publishers de facto helped them do that…now e-books and amazon are doing to them what they did to small bookstores everywhere, as they say, the circle turns…</p>
<p>One of the things to keep in mind is that publishers could compete directly with amazon or B and N for that matter, the kindle e-book format is not proprietary, books are published in that format on Smashwords and other sites, so there would be nothing stopping them from selling the books themselves, or working with other electronic retailers, to sell the books in kindle and nook formats, they don’t have to be published on Amazon’s website to be sold.</p>
<p>We’re a 3 Nook family: DH has a 1st generation while D1 & I have a Simple Touch. I deliberately chose a device JUST for reading, as it’s too easy to get distracted by apps etc. When I want to read, I just want to read and I have my iPhone & laptop for the other stuff.</p>
<p>DH also has an iPad and he has the Nook app on there. Different reading experience.</p>
<p>Just purchased an Android tablet and one of my first downloads is the Nook app. For Android tablet owners, there are several e-reader apps to choose from in addition to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.</p>
<p>I rarely use the apps on my Nook Color. The kids do though. I do a lot of reading before bed, when DH is asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow it’s nice to not have a light on to read :D. I’ve been using my Nook Color since they came out with no issues at all. I like that I can access the web on my Color though too. It’s especially handy for those late night storms to pull up a weather app to see what is going on outside :D.</p>
<p>Ok I just need to know what is the best one for reading and it needs hold her music collection.</p>
<p>Nook Color, Nook Tablet, I think the Kindle Fire hold music or any of the “generic” tablets like Samsung, etc. The Nook and Kindles are far less expensive so I would opt for one of those.</p>
<p>Some people like generic Android Ice Cream Sandwich (i.e. Android 4.0) tablets, but more than a few people report problems getting certain apps to work. If your purpose is use a tablet exclusively for e-books, you might find what you need in an Android that costs quite a bit less than an Apple, or even Kindle and Nook. Buyer beware. Find a dealer/brand that offers credible customer support online.</p>
<p>Flash doesn’t work after ICS though you can hack your device to get it to work (mostly). I think that 4:3 aspect ratios are better for reading books which is why I can’t recommend the Nexus 7 for reading if reading is the main reason for the device.</p>
<p>The kindle fire and nook color will play music (there are android apps for that), so they would work fine. With music, keep in mind that to get music if you use Itunes to store music on your pc takes some tricks, there isn’t an app for Android that can directly read the Itunes library on a pc, but there are apps that allow you to get Itunes files into the music player on Android (usually involves software on the pc that does a work around, or software on the pc/app on the Android device). If Itunes is how they do music,might be easier to get an Ipad mini, get the Nook/Kindle Apps for it, and they would be all set.</p>
<p>On the iPad Mini - it uses a lot of old hardware - they kind of just slapped it together to fill a market need. I’ve heard that they’re going to have a new model with more modern hardware in the spring. I’d like to get one now but it would make more sense to wait.</p>
<p>During lunch hour today I installed B&N Nook Reader and FBReader on my new Android ICS Tablet. So far so good. Tried to install Amazon App Store for Android (to get Kindle for Android) but it wouldn’t work. Again, as they say, your mileage may vary. Let’s see what happens when I try to install Netflix in a few days.</p>