Kindle or iPad 3?

[Radiating Gnome]

I own both a kindle 2 and an iPad 2. My experience may not be typical, but I do most of my reading on my iPad. I like having the kindle around for vacations -- longer battery life, easier to read in bright light, easier on the eyes in general. And I can't get to my work email on it.

But at home, in my day-to-day life, it's all about the iPad. I do most of my reading in bed, and because it's backlit I can read in bed without having a light on -- which is a lot easier on my wife. I can do a ton of other things on it as well -- between netflicks and HBO Go and any number of other video sources, the iPad is really hard to beat.

-rg

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

He's in Australia. The iPad 3 doesn't work with non-US 4G networks. In fact, in Australia, Apple had to give refunds to craploads of people when it transpired it didn't work on 4G networks there.

Something to do with different frequencies being used for 4G in different countries or something.

All the more reason to get a hotspot, I guess!

 

[renau1g]

I blame this entirely on Australia. We have the stupidest, most incompetent, money-grubbing, idiotic telco's in the world. Seriously.

Sorry, Canada's got you beat. Our telecoms suck large, plus we have government rules to keep out foreign-owned companies, despite sharing a border with one of the largest phone-using countries around.... *sigh*

Canada's cellphone rates among highest - The Globe and Mail

US, Canada have priciest cell phone plans in the world

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ohhhhh Canadaaaaa...

 

[jcayer]

I was in a similar situation, trying to decide what to buy. I already had a kindle and very much enjoy reading on it. My concern with forking over $500+ on an ipad was, how much will I really use it?

In the end, I opted to go with a Kindle Fire. For my family, it was the right choice. With 2 kids, I knew if it was a hit, I'd need a second one....it took about a week to order that. It does what I need/want, proved to me that the family was indeed tablet ready, and allowed me to purchase 2. I could not have done that with am Ipad.

In a few years, I will probably look at upgrading to something with a larger screen, but for now, the Fire is my choice.

 

[Mercutio01]

I have both a 1st Gen Nook and a 3rd Gen Kindle keyboard (with ads). The differences between the two are fairly minimal, in all honesty. I tend to use my Nook more often because I sideload books from Project Gutenberg and most of the gift certificates and stuff that I get from friends and family are for Barnes & Noble. What I want most is the new Nook Simple Touch (releasing this week in the US, I think) called Glowlight (again, I'm not sure of the name). It's not backlit, like the tablets, but it will have built in lights the way the old IronMan Indiglo watches did when I was in high school.

I have a netbook that I do all that tablet type stuff on. Not saying I don't want an iPad, Fire, or Nook Tablet (I do, and probably Nook Tablet just because I'm already invested in B&N and, in general, prefer it to Amazon), but most of the computer stuff I already do on a lightweight computer and most of the reading I do is on E-ink, which I've found is far preferable to staring at a backlit screen. I know that's the standard marketing-speak behind E-ink, but it's been true in practice for me, too. I also tend to read a lot (two to three books a month or more, and more in the summer--I'm a college teacher) and do it inside, in bed, on the couch, on the porch, and even on the beach, and the Nook does all of those perfectly well. I'm just ready to get away from the 1st Gen Nook's weird touchpad thing on the bottom and into a full-touch screen like the newer ones for usability and convenience more than anything else.

EDIT: Are Nooks available outside the US? I suppose I should have thought about that. Oh well.

 

[renau1g]

I don't believe the Nook works outside the US. I went state-side from my border location (in Canada) to a Barnes & Noble and the guy selling the Nook told me it wouldn't work for me.

 

[Morrus]

I don't believe the Nook works outside the US. I went state-side from my border location (in Canada) to a Barnes & Noble and the guy selling the Nook told me it wouldn't work for me.

I'm not familiar with Barnes & Noble, so I assume it's a US-only chain. If they sell the Nook, I'd guess it would be US-only too.

 

[Mercutio01]

I'm not familiar with Barnes & Noble, so I assume it's a US-only chain. If they sell the Nook, I'd guess it would be US-only too.

Yeah, about 5 minutes after I posted this, I read an article about Microsoft injecting funds into Barnes and Noble to help break them out of the US only market. The article also went on to say that Amazon has 60% marketshare of ebooks/ereaders, Barnes and Noble has 25%, Apple 15%, and the rest left to Sony/Kobo/others. It seems odd that B&N wouldn't open up to a worldwide market to try to eat into Amazon's huge lead and to try to stay ahead of Apple.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I had seen those percentages recently, but hadn't heard of the MS angle.