Hacker News Reader

Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Why is a Kindle better than an iPad?

I have both. I've had iPads for about a month, and a Kindle for about 2 weeks. I assume you are asking why it is better specifically for reading since comparing the two generally is like comparing a notebook and an MP3 player. They're just not analogous in general, but for reading purposes the Kindle is vastly superior to the iPad.

I actually read the same book on both this past weekend flipping back and forth. The iPad has a slick UI for books, though the page flipping can be a bit finicky,but it's still a back-lit LCD (albeit a nice one) which is just uncomfortable for long reading. It's the same uncomfortable feeling you get from staring at a monitor for a long time.

The Kindle is also much lighter, which is nicer than you'd think when you're holding it for a couple hours at a clip. The iPad is surprisingly heavy, which is such a common complaint that I imagine Apple will address it in the next generation.

The Kindle's battery is good enough that I suspect you could read a few books on one charge if you kept the wireless antenna off. You could go on a weekend trip without taking a charger, which is nice. The iPad's battery is actually pretty good for what it is, and is probably why the thing is so damn heavy, but you'll still be charging it every night.

The iPad's screen is AMAZINGLY smudgy. I can't describe how bad it is in that regard. The smudges add a slight blurring effect to text which gets annoying. We have 5 of them in the office and everyone has complained about it. I got an Invisible Shield screen protector for them, which helps a lot (and I could also take a key to it without scratching) but adds its own annoyances.

E-ink is really unbeatable for reading. You would love a Kindle I think. How many books do you read a year?

“It's the same uncomfortable feeling you get from staring at a monitor for a long time.”

— I don’t get that, your mileage may vary. (The Kindle is probably still what you should get if you read a lot.)

I think that some people don't get eyestrain using a monitor because their eyes jump around and off of it continually throughout the day. The eye motions and strain of reading is fairly different when you read word after word, line after line for 1/2 hour or more.

An analogy would be saying your arms don't get sore picking up a book but actually you're picking up a book 100 or more times in a row. Your arm will get tired.

Ugh, yes, the smudges drive me nuts.

>smudges

Just use a shirt to wipe it down. Works for me.

Over 300 words and you pick on the smudging part. I think the main point of the Kindle versus iPad argument is twofold: 1) the e-ink is remarkably better to read and 2) the battery life allows for more reading than the iPad allows.

I have the nook and I cannot see myself without it. eBooks are great for people who want a device to read books on.

Well he didn't say anything I disagreed with. If you want my opinion, take a look at this article

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/07/26/ipad.universit...

>Students at Reed College complained of the slow refresh rate of e-Ink displays, problematic input, inability to load PDFs over the network, and inability to view more than one text at a time as major sticking points. Reed faculty found converting documents to work well on the Kindle to be particularly difficult in most cases.

>Students participating in the test at Darden School of Business, while loving the Kindle for personal reading, overwhelmingly felt the Kindle didn't pass muster in its current state for academic use -- about 4 out of 5 would not recommend a Kindle DX to incoming MBA students.

I came to that exact conclusion after using a kindle DX for a few months. Additionally, battery life & weight don't really bother me. It's lighter than most textbooks, & I don't mind putting it to charge right before I go to sleep. I spend a lot of time looking at LCDs anyway, so that isn't a problem.

E-ink is still a much better screen for reading text than the iPad's LCD. Not only does it perform much better in sunlight, but the lack of a backlight reduces eyestrain substantially (the Kindle iPad app has an option to use white text on a black background, which helps a little but nto completely). Back when I wasn't working on a startup I would often spend several hours at a time reading books on my Kindle, but that would be much more painful on my iPad.

Some formats are better on an iPad: periodicals (which can use more rich media and images), and technical books (code and diagrams render better, and the faster screen makes it much easier to flip through reference books). But if you spend lots of time reading books cover-to-cover, Kindle is easily the best device.

red or green letters on a black screen would be even less of an eyestrain.

That explains why Bloomberg terminals have that strange color scheme.

So if you read more technical/reference type books than fiction, would everyone recommend the iPad?

I would, yes. Especially over the vanilla Kindle. At least the Kindle DX would support full-size PDF's without panning. But I still think the delay in page-turn times on e-ink would give iPad the edge.

I was trying to decide between a Kindle DX and an iPad for reading PDFs. Ended up going with Kindle, and I'm loving it so far. The page turn delay has been much criticized, but it's actually faster than the older eink readers, even with the bigger screen.

And the text looks beautiful. No comparison to LCD is even possible. When I got my Kindle, I thought there was a piece of paper stuck to the screen telling me to go plug it in. That was actually an image on the screen.

But I'll concede that an iPad would have more functionality.

The iPad is better for technical books, with giant flaw. The screen shuts itself off pretty quickly. It's annoying to have it turn itself off while you have a page up you want to reference. It does this even in its dock. It's not enough to drive me back to a real book + book stand yet, but it's definitely annoying.

Check your auto-lock in General settings.

I gave my 1st gen Kindle to my sister about 2 months ago and have been reading on an iPad ever since. I still preordered this Kindle because:

1) The active area on the iPad screen is a giant pain. Any touch ends up triggering... something, and when I'm reading I tend to shift around quite a bit. It's amazing how often I unintentionally bring up menus, change pages, etc.

2) Lighter is better. The weight of the iPad makes it a little ungainly for reading. The Kindle is easily held in one hand.

3) Better page changes: I can read the Kindle with my one hand and click the next page button without having to move around. On the iPad, I have to hold with one hand and change pages with the other.

4) e-ink. I prefer reading on it. Even in the dark I'd rather use a booklight and e-ink thank the iPad screen.

5) Portability: my kindle is always in my laptop bag. The Amazon case for it makes it almost a no brainer to toss in and go. I'm much less likely to drag my iPad somewhere. I'm afraid to break it. :)

6) "Free" 3g is ridiculously useful to when I want to get new books.

When it comes down to it, I really just want the best reading experience I can possibly get. The Kindle is designed specifically for that and they've done a pretty good job with it. I've read a ridiculous amount of books since I first got one and slowed down when I switched to reading on the iPad full time. It's just ungainly.

It's lighter and smaller. This makes it easier to carry around and less of a strain on my hands to use. It probably comes down to personal preference, though.

One thing about the iPad that really turned me off was that I tried to read it in direct sunlight and it was hard to see. It also overheated, so I had to turn it off. Real bummer for me, as I love reading out on my deck while I get some sun.

I don't know that it's better but it's a quarter of the price of my iPad during a period of penny pinching.

1. A more naturaL reading experience to the eye. 2. Less stressful. after spending the day in front of a computer and tv, you wouldn't want to strain you eyes while reading i guess. 3.Battery life.

The longest I've read in one session on the Kindle was about 2-3 hours (typical for me if I'm reading fiction). After reading for that long, my eyes are a little sore, but the strain isn't signifcantly different from reading a paper and ink novel. I haven't read a complete book on the iPad, but from what I've seen of the screen, I think there would be significantly more eyestrain.

Maybe someone who has read a couple of books on the iPad can commment?

I've read a couple of books on an iPad (most recently Shogun, which is >1000 pages, and several smaller novels). I've also had an extended play with a Kindle. The Kindle is kinder on the eyes, but not to the point where it makes a practical difference to me.

I think people might look at a laptop display and from there decide that LCDs are awful for reading from (this was my opinion). But the iPad is a significantly better reading device than, say, a laptop, because you get much more control over where the display goes in relation to your face. This sounds like an obvious thing to say but it does seem to make a big difference.

To relate back to your reading experience: I was reading Shogun in 2-hour sessions (or longer) and didn't notice any eyestrain.

I turn the backlight down as low as it can go and read in 30min-2hr chunks. I haven't tried a Kindle for any real length of time because of the page change slowness (has that improved in recent models?) Anyway, i didnt find the eye strain to be bad, but I spend all day staring at a monitor so what is normal for me might not be normal for others.

- Epaper is easy on the eyes

- If your book could stream YouTube you would probably be less inclined to read

- Kindle is loads lighter and smaller in other dimensions too so the form factor is more like that of a typical paperback

- Lower barrier to entry (lower cost, no requirement for data plan for on the go data)

Actually it becomes evident that the iPad and Kindle serve different markets. When else would you compare two things that differ in price 3-4 fold?

From what I understand of the tech specs of both (not an owner of either) the Kindle has a special screen unique to modern e-book readers that mimics the paper-ink reaction to light (i.e. more light is more readable) rather than the iPad's backlit LCD which produces glare under more light.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink

Beyond that, why is a kindle better than my phone?

* I'm not going to take a kindle to the bathroom at work, I am taking my phone.

* The page turning is instant and effortless on my phone, not so on the kindle.

* With white text on a black background on the phone, I can read in more situations more easily than on the kindle, and with less eye-strain.

I tried reading a book on my phone a while back. I read for about 40 minutes and then spent the next hour or so convinced that I was permanently cross-eyed.

Seriously though--maybe my eyes are weaker than most, but I just can handle the screen and have yet to meet someone who can read for an hour or two at a time without significant eyestrain.

Were you doing black text on white, or white text on black? Switching to the latter was what made the difference for me. I've read for many continuous hours on my phone.

I haven't tried that but I'll give it a shot.

I also found that it really helped to have a serif font, and relatively small type, say 15 lines per page in landscape mode.

That's my issue with phone reading. I can't just pick up any arbitrary pdf and read it comfortably, it has to be specially-formatted, or else you have to side-scroll and all that annoying stuff. And the pdf's I want to read are rarely formatted right.

You'll find that to be a big problem with any ebook reader except perhaps the kindle DX. I feel your pain though. I looked for months for an ideal ebook reader for academic papers, and concluded that such a product didn't yet exist.

The battery life is nutty, you don't even need to pack the charger when you go on vacation. Having my phone go dark because I was reading a book on it earlier is a bum out.

Because if you are only using it for reading you only spend about 1/4 as much.

You can buy 3 for the same price and always have 2 spare ones?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com