Kindle and iPad compared

Now that I have got an iPad as well as a Kindle I thought I would do a bit of a comparison of them.  I am not referring to the Kindle Fire but to the standard black and white Kindle.

For reading ebooks, I think the Kindle is far superior – but this is a matter of taste.  It is the e-ink that is used that makes the difference.  It means there is no backlighting so it is much easier on the eyes.  It feels like reading a paper book.  It does mean you can’t read your Kindle in the dark – but then you can’t read a paper book in the dark either – unless it is in Braille.  And you can read the Kindle in the brightest sunlight.

But if you don’t want to have both a Kindle and an iPad – I would go for the iPad.  It not only enables you to read books, but also to connect to the internet (via wireless and/or 3G), play games, download all sorts of fun apps etc.  No question there are some things it can’t do as well as a pc – editing or posting in Blogger for instance.  I have found that comments and replying to them work fine but I can’t deal with posts on it.  I have done a bit of digging and haven’t been able to find any app that will make this as good as doing it on my laptop.  Has anyone else found one?

The other issue with the iPad is that you can’t just plug it into your pc and transfer files etc to it.  You have to set up your own wireless network.  You also can’t download camera cards directly to it – which would be a pain if you were travelling.  It doesn’t have any USB ports.  And the camera function is very clunky.  It does have much better battery life than my old netbook did (which was truly useless).

But it is a beautiful bit of kit for all that.  I can see why so many people have fallen for the iPad hook, line and sinker.

I am glad I have both.  The e-ink Kindle is now so cheap and small and light that I don’t find it a chore to carry it around.  The basic Kindle is now about $79US – this is not the touch screen one.  But since you only need to be able to scroll through and index and page forward and back, resorting to buttons rather than poking the screen doesn’t seem too bad.  One tip – don’t leave the wi-fi turned on all the time (unless you are constantly accessing books on the net) – you will get much better battery life.  In fact I only charge up my Kindle once a week.

Whichever you go with don’t forget to get a cover for it.  The screens are reasonably fragile – I squished the first Kindle I got just by putting it into a briefcase.  The snazzy magnetic covers from Apple for the iPad are great looking – but not perfectly secure since they can be knocked out of place.

For an earlier post about a Kindle, click here