The Read on E-Book Readers

Print on paper may not be entirely passé, but thin-screen devices that store hundreds of books—images, music and sometimes video, too—are clearly gaining cachet. While B&H doesn’t sell every brand of e-reader, it does offer a select group of capable models. Most employ touch screens. The displays range in size from 5 to 7 inches, and each model is considerably less expensive than a full-fledged tablet computer.

All these e-readers enable you to transfer media from your computer via an included USB cable and all but one let you download books, magazines, newspapers and other content wirelessly via a Wi-Fi connection. All but one link directly to an online bookstore that the manufacturer has chosen to partner with.

If reading will be the major activity, you’ll do fine with a monochrome, non-backlit screen. On balance, how many fiction and non-fiction titles require more than black and white to be read all over? And how many books are self-illuminating? The major advantages of monochrome readers are long battery life between charges and ultra-lightness in weight. For instance, the newest generation Sony Reader, the PRS-TI Wi-Fi Reader, empowers you to read on for more than a month on one battery charge. Its dual touch, glare-free screen lets you read even in direct sunlight, a prime consideration if you’re planning a head start on your 2012 beach reading via a Caribbean stopover this winter.

The other monochrome screen here, which is Aluratek’s Libre eBook Reader PRO, features a 5-inch ePaper Display and is the only model in which you keep your hands off the screen. While touch navigation has mainly eclipsed hard buttons, some people still prefer the tactile feel of separate controls, especially if they’re oiled up.

Having a bookstore at your fingertips anywhere with Wi-Fi access is the ultimate convenience. As more brick-and-mortar bookstores disappear, it may become a necessity. The Sony PRS-TI Wi-Fi Reader houses the Sony Reader Store for instant purchases. The two Pandigital Novel color models provide access to the Barnes & Noble Online Bookstore. And the Aluratek AEBK08FB LIBRE Touch eBook Reader with WiFi & 7" Touch Screen Color LCD supports Kobo’s online bookstore.

Not all e-Book content, incidentally, incurs a cost. The Sony PRS-TI Wi-Fi Reader enables public library lending and the downloading of Google public domain books. The Archos 70c Reader makes it possible to find free books via an AppsLib application. And the 2GB SD card included with the Libre eBook Reader PRO contains 100 free eBooks, classics ranging from Dracula to Wuthering Heights.

E-Book devices are especially friendly toward older users, since they can enlarge the text to a comfortable size and orient the page so that the words fit most efficiently across the screen in portrait or landscape mode.

Advantages of the four color TFT LCD models are that you can read the screen under poor lighting conditions and play movies and photo slide shows. Of course, that also means it’s easy to be distracted from finishing War and Peace. Nevertheless, you could be reading in bed in the dark listening with earphones to music from the same device, all without disturbing you spouse.

Running out of memory isn’t much of a threat when it comes to stuffing text into an e-Book. Each of these models can hold hundreds or more books at once. It’s only when you start adding video or a career’s worth of photos that the built-in memory can be insufficient. With 4GB of built-in memory, the Archos 70c eReader is the most capacious. Still, every model capable of playing video contains an SD card slot for exponentially expanding storage.

The holidays are a great time to give the gift of reading. If the recipient is partial to making it a tech holiday, an e-Book reader could be the way to go.