Here's the deal:

I've been pondering an e-reader for a while, and reading all kinds of reviews and doing all kinds of research. And it seems like the verdict basically comes down to this: The Kindle and the Sony readers are baaasically equivalent, depending on which features are most important to you (how's that for a nutshell?). Sony: Metal casing in multiple colors, bigger screen (depending on the model), no wireless, harder to get files onto it, harder to organize files; Kindle: Wireless, better store, easier navigation, plastic casing, smaller screen.

And then comes the iPad, which I start hearing is, like, the ultimate e-reader ever. But, you know, expensive. And I think, could it possibly be worth that much more?

Well, last night we went to Best Buy just to poke around because we were out running errands, and they happened to have a Sony reader display set up right inside the door. Yay! I could try them out! Well, the one I really wanted to try out was broken-ish. Strike one. It was on, and had a screensaver that said "Touch screen to get to Home screen", but no amount of touching or button-pushing would pull up a Home screen or any other screen. Oh well, I tried the other reader just to see what it was like.

It was kind of frustrating. Not bad, once I figured it out, but there were a few bugs that I found right off the bat. Some issues with changing the font (I'd make it smaller - which took three button pushes - then turn the page and it'd go back to the bigger size and I'd have to make it smaller again), and the file organization wasn't very intuitive.

After I got tired of playing, we wandered back to the Apple display, where they had some iPads set up. And, note to Best Buy - setting up all of your display iPads with ONLY crappy-looking iPhone apps? Not the best use of your display. Seriously. Fortunately, some over-eager geek next to me heard me whining that they hadn't even installed the free (free!) iBooks app and did some magic with a made-up iTunes account to install it for me so I could try it out (thanks, over-eager geek - Best Buy Customer Service should hire you). And OMG. It's like... magic. It's like reading a real book, on a slim little screen that fits so nicely in your hands, with gorgeous full-color pictures... Winnie the Pooh comes pre-installed in it, and all of those classic illustrations just looked GORGEOUS.

The organization system is SO simple and makes SO much sense - it's just like using Delicious Library, which I've been using at home for years, and when you want to visit the store, the bookshelf swings around like something out of an old mystery movie to take you to an extremely easy-to-use storefront. It took me about half a second to download a free 100-page demo of a Stephen King book to flip through.

Oh, and when I couldn't find another book I've been wanting to read? I flipped back to the App Store and downloaded the free Kindle app under my eager geek-friend's iTunes account (lovestinkerbell99@hotmail.com, I'm not judging). It was just as easy to use and opened up access to tens of thousands more books. I'm pretty sure there's a Barnes & Noble app, too, or there should be one soon.

So, back to the question - is it worth spending that much more money for the iPad? The problem now is, would it be worth spending the money on any of the other e-readers? I just don't think I could justify it. I think I'll save my pennies. Or wait for my birthday...

Labels: Kindle