These days, a good e-reader should be in everyone’s suitcase. Steve Dinneen casts an expert eye over six new options.
Amazon Kindle Touch
- £109
- amazon.co.uk
The Kindle is to e-readers what the iPad is to tablets. Amazon is the clear market leader in e-ink (technology whereby liquid ink responds to electric impulses, enabling it to form text and images) and its Kindle Touch is the one to beat. It is light, fast, responsive and now comes with an intuitive six-inch touchscreen. It also has the advantage of being hooked up to Amazon’s online bookstore. The physical keyboard of previous generations has been replaced by a virtual one, which makes the unit more compact. Typing takes a bit longer, but you probably aren’t going to be writing any essays on it.
Books are downloaded over wifi and there is space for about 3,000 on the internal hard drive – you’d have to be on a pretty long holiday to get through them all. Even better, your purchases are automatically stored on Amazon’s cloud, meaning you won’t lose your books, even if your e-reader falls into the sea.
The Kindle Fire (US$199, currently available in the US only) is billed as Amazon’s colour e-reader but it’s really a multimedia device, more akin to the iPad. If you want video and apps as well as books, it’s a solid, budget option. But if you’re looking for a reading device, the Kindle Touch’s e-ink is the way to go.
Kobo Touch Edition
- £79.99
- whsmith.co.uk
This is probably the closest rival to the Kindle Touch. They are pretty evenly matched in terms of size and weight but the Kobo has the edge in terms of its impressive e-ink screen, which renders quickly and is easy to navigate. It falls down on its e-book store (accessed via wifi), linked to WH Smith, as it can be difficult to find your way around and is generally more expensive than Amazon’s.
The Kobo’s most distinctive feature is its quilted rubber back, which, in black at least, is not as bad as it sounds, sitting comfortably in your hand. Be warned – the silver edition looks a bit like a padded cell from a 1970s sci-fi movie. The battery will last around a month. Overall, the Touch Edition is one of the best e-readers on the market.
Trekstor Pyrus
- e69.99
- trekstor-onlineshop.de
The Pyrus falls well and truly into the “budget” category. It’s one of the cheapest e-ink products on the market but is also one of the least pleasant to use. The screen is pixelated and rendering new pages is painfully slow. One advantage is its open platform, which allows you to read almost any e-book or document. If you’re taking it abroad, stock up on books before you go – it does not come with wifi, so you’ll have to manually drag and drop files when it’s plugged into your PC. The rubbery back is comfortable but the build quality is dubious and feels rather flimsy. It also suffers from a faint “shadow image” of the previously viewed page, almost like you’re reading a book printed on very thin paper.
If you need an e-reader for a couple of weeks on the beach then the Pyrus will probably suffice, but if you plan on using it regularly, you’d be better off investing a few more pounds in something else.
Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight
- US$139
- barnesandnoble.com
In a crowded market, it can be difficult to stand out. The Nook Simple Touch has an ingenious solution in its Glowlight. Billed as the ideal bedtime e-reader, the unit emits a soft glow that enables you to carry on reading with the lights off, while retaining the all-important e-ink display.
The Nook is also a solidly built reader that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with its rivals in terms of hardware. Built-in wifi gives you direct access to the Barnes and Noble online store, which has a great, if slightly pricey, selection. The touchscreen is responsive and page rendering smooth. The downside is that you can’t currently buy the Nook in Europe yet (although possibly by Christmas), so you’ll have to get it shipped over from the US. If you’re a night-time reader, it could be worth the extra effort.
View Quest BookBox
- £44.99
- amazon.co.uk
The Bookbox is an interesting proposition – it claims to be all things to all men and yet it is one of the cheapest e-readers on the market. It has a colour screen, supports video and will play your MP3 collection. All of this is squeezed into a five-inch display – and you’ll get change from £50. It sounds too good to be true – and, in some respects, it is. The colour display means no e-ink, so it’s not ideal for reading on for too long. The build quality isn’t great and there is no wifi.
It may look like an overgrown smartphone from the front but, at 16mm thick, it’s actually pretty hefty. You will also have to resist the urge to swipe at the display, as there is no touchscreen. If you need a portable video player, the View Quest Bookbox is a viable option, but if you want to do some serious reading, there are better options out there.
Nintendo Wii U
- price TBA
- nintendo.com
A games console is hardly the first place you’d expect to go to read a book – but then Nintendo’s latest offering is hardly your average machine. The ingenious console, due out in time for Christmas, comes with a wireless controller that looks a bit like a tablet, complete with a 6.2-inch screen. While the Japanese manufacturer is playing its cards close to its chest, a series of leaks has revealed this tablet/control-pad hybrid will double up as an e-reader.
You might not want to use it in a meeting, but it is an interesting alternative to a stand-alone device. Plus, if you get bored reading War and Peace, you can switch to the games you have stored on it instead. You can’t do that on a Kindle.
