But I don’t have to hold my laptop on the couch. It’s on my lap with the screen at the perfect angle. I don’t commute, I work at home and drive to my scattered clients. When I do go into the City, I either read on my Kindle or (more often) read my backlog of the NYT which we get in paper on weekends.
@mathmom But the statement was about trying to understand the appeal of i pads over laptops. And as I said the appeal is that they can be held like a newspaper which is much better than a laptop if one want to read on public transportation or even on a couch if one is curled up rather than sitting up straight or is lying down or is sitting in the carpool line, engine off and reading with the steering wheel in front of them. Laptops are difficult to maneuver in those instances. I’ve seen most of my fellow train commuters switch to iPads from laptops for the train.
This doesn’t mean they are appealing for everyone. But that the appeal is clear for many.
Kind of like how I feel about iPads vs. iPhones. Now that I use my phone all the time, the iPad doesn’t hold much appeal for me.
@maya54 thanks for the more specific examples. My SIL is in love with her laptop which she mostly seems to use sitting at a table. I like having a real keyboard and spend less time just reading.
Since it might be nice to have a contrarian’s perspective, I’ll give my two cents.
I like my new Paperwhite, but don’t love it. I have a five-year old iPad I use regularly and an iPhone SE (that tiny one) and love to read the newspaper and pretty much anything on them, but for books, I felt like I wanted something with softer light, less glare, with a much larger storage capacity, and that wouldn’t allow me to get distracted by everything else those other devices offer.
I don’t regret getting it (and it was a gift from my boys so I don’t feel guilty either), but I find the screen size a little small for someone who also needs to enlarge the print. I also find the swiping function challenging at times - probably because I’m used to a very different “touch” on my Apple devices. I find there are times it won’t “turn” the page and other times it will skip one, and it’s hard to find my way back. I’m also someone who likes to go back a page or chapter to recall something I’d previously read and that’s nearly impossible for me to do because scrolling backwards usually leaves me unable to get back to where I was.
Granted, I’ve yet to read the tutorial, and these may all be easily rectified problems, but those are the drawbacks as I see them. (Pun intended.)
I also had to buy a good cover because I kept dropping it (its case is plastic and slippery) and couldn’t get it into a comfortable reading position without the cover to give it more weight. This really isn’t a big deal because I wouldn’t even touch my iPad until I’d bought a cover (because it was so expensive and I was terrified of breaking it). But the Kindle seems far less delicate, so it would be nice to feel like I could use it without the cover.
The upside is the portability, the huge storage capacity, and the ability to read in bed without the lights or a book-lamp.
Love my paperwhite and fall asleep reading almost every night. Auto shut off is a great feature for this reason. It’s great for reading outside in bright light, and you can dim brightness for night reading so as to not disturb your partner. The best part is borrowing free ebooks from the library, though suppose this would be true of any device.
Too late to edit, but SIL is in love with her ipad. 
I really appreciate hearing all these comments. Yesterday I was doubting buying a Paperwhite and leaning towards deciding to pull the trigger on an iPad. I woke up today after getting comments from a couple family members back to getting the Paperwhite! LOL! Sometimes I’m actually a terrible spender!
I think ideally - and perhaps selfishly - I want a laptop, an iPad and a Kindle. I want it all! 
Seriously, I do feel they all serve a different purpose.
I have a MacBook Air which I use at home sitting in my chair and often take on trips. I do enjoy the full keyboard. But I also love the ease and screen clarity of an iPad. My MacBook is a few years old and I often feel the screen isn’t the deep saturated look my eyes desire. iPad is also great for traveling and using in the car/plane, to read magazines, play games (our family has a history of playing Yahtzee in the car while traveling on the iPad). The Kindle would be better for reading at night and on the beach or outside on our deck - all where I spend a lot of time in the nice weather.
The comment on page swiping is interesting. The iPad swipes so well. I’m hoping the technology is a little better than my early edition Nook by now!
Get both. The Ipad air has dropped price considerably and the current kindle is around $100, I think they are both great deals. My Ipad Air 2 is 3yo and I don’t foresee replacing it anytime soon. My kindle is 5 yo, so they are both built to last.
They serve different purposes and they are both used extensively by me.
That’s my setup - macbook pro, iPad, and Kindle. The mac is for work so I use the iPad for all my casual web browsing. But for “serious” things like booking travel (airplane, hotels), etc, I use the mac and a big monitor. Also some websites flake out, particularly with shopping cart checkout, with the iPad, so every once in a while I’ll need to switch to the mac for things like that.
I use a keyboard case for my iPad, couldn’t live without it. Also use a case for my kindle so it can stand up on its own; couldn’t live without that either.
OMG, I bought a new kindle paperwhite for myself over Christmas to upgrade my 1st-gen paperwhite and had the exact same experience! This was the model one generation before the current, but it sounds like the latest also has the same issue. I found the tap-sensitivity to be significantly less responsive than my old paperwhite. It was so frustrating I returned it after a week and I’m back to my old paperwhite now. The most obvious difference was that I could turn pages with the back of a knuckle on my old paperwhite, but not with the new one (yes, I read while 2-fisting cheeseburgers and fries). In general I was finding myself doing more of a long, firm slow “tap” to turn pages than an actual quick tap.
I’d be interested in hearing from current-gen paperwhite owners if I just got a lemon or not. Tap your kindle with the back of a knuckle and see if the page turns?
“ I’m also someone who likes to go back a page or chapter to recall something I’d previously read and that’s nearly impossible for me to do because scrolling backwards usually leaves me unable to get back to where I was.”
I usually find a PW easier than a paper book for this. I like to highlight text as I’m reading and then I can easily go back to find those sections. I typically have a few bookmarks in any one book to use in referring back to key pages, like character lists or the table of contents. And when I encounter an unfamiliar word it’s easy to look up the definition or Wikipedia reference. Plus I find it interesting to come across highlighted passages that are popular with other readers.
For traveling I take my iPad and my Kindle. For reading on the go I usually use the Kindle app on my iPhone because I don’t always take my PW with me as I’m out and about locally. The PW page turning IS different from Apple’s, so for me it’s a matter of switching styles. My PW doesn’t swipe but responds to a touch.
My laptop is a Surface, which doubles as a tablet - the keyboard comes off. I don’t have an iPad, so the swipe isn’t an issue for me.
@anomander, I have no idea which version this is, but it was purchased last summer. I can’t find a series number, although it does say “Now with a 300 PPI display” if that’s any hint. And it’s 4GB, WiFi only.
Mine requires what I consider a “swipe” to turn the page. And frequently a second one.
Okay, I just “knuckled” it, and it “turned” two pages, but it may be because I pressed too hard. :))
@LucieTheLakie Sounds like what I experienced, except the one I had (briefly) wouldn’t turn at all with a knuckle. I have to think maybe there’s some duds out there because I can’t imagine that’s how it’s supposed to work given how much better my 5-year old 1st gen model is.
I might go find somewhere local that carries paperwhites and try out a demo model to see if it’s any better. The battery in my old paperwhite has been slowly losing capacity so I’ll have to upgrade it eventually.
@anomander, that’s probably a good idea. It’s my first, so I have nothing to compare it to.
And I noticed the last time I charged it, I couldn’t get it beyond 96%. Weird.
I have only owned the Kindle Voyage (now discontinued) which I chose over the Paperwhite for the haptic page-turning buttons/sensors and print clarity. It’s been great, but find myself not using the haptic sensors nearly as much as I thought I would, so the Paperwhite probably would have been fine for me.
The iPad is an entirely different experience IMO. I have never found much use for mine other than streaming music to my soundbar at home, or when I know I’m going to be stuck waiting somewhere for a while (like a hospital waiting room), want to read the news on something larger than my phone and don’t want to lug the laptop along. Generally, I much prefer the Kindle for reading books (no glare, easier and more comfortable to hold) and the laptop for just about everything else.
One great thing I didn’t know about when I first got my Kindle was that I could check out books from the library and download them onto the Kindle no matter where I was as long as I had a wifi connection. If all the Kindle versions of a particular book are checked out, I can still reserve one for when it becomes available. I used to buy paperbacks all the time for traveling, especially when I was flying coast to coast frequently, but the kindle has more than paid for itself in the money I’ve saved on book purchases.
Never an Apple fan, so no, never an iPad or other tablet. Love my PW Kindle- second one. The Bookerly font is easy on the eyes, the brightness and the font sizes are all great. I also have an easy time downloading library books. My biggest problem is, darn it, after a couple of books the battery needs recharging. The size is nice for my hands, and slipping into my purse for going to the doctor’s office, travel… Newer versions likely even better, but this one still works.
I do find my Kindle Paperwhite useful at times. I’ve never tried an iPad, but I love my Surface, which functions as both a tablet and a laptop. I agree that the Kindle isn’t any good for cookbooks, but I have bought quite a few Kindle cookbooks anyway, just because they were really cheap. I use them in the Kindle app on my Surface, which has a built-in stand that is useful when cooking. I am curious to know whether the latest iteration of the Kindle is better than the previous version or at least how it differs.
I use my Mac Air, ipad and iphone daily. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a kindle but thought it was probably an indulgence I could do without. Biggest reason is that reading my ipad outside is almost impossible. But, over the last year, I really feel like my eyesight is declining and I’m much more sensitive to glare. I bet I’d find it much easier and enjoyable to read on a kindle PW and it sounds like from the comments here that it’d be so for both outdoors and indoors.