Okay, so I just bought the newest Kindle, a Kindle 3, or K3 as it is known to aficionados.
"Hy, wait a minute," you say. "Don't you already own an iPad and an old Sony Reader? Why would possibly need a Kindle also, especially since the iPad can use a Kindle app?"
Shut up, that's why.
So anyway, now that I own both an iPad and a Kindle, I'm able to compare the two machines and tell you which one is better. And the answer is, it depends.
If you're looking for a device that can "do it all," or at least can do a lot, then the iPad is clearly the better choice. It works very well as a Web browser (though it is slightly impaired by an inability to handle Flash animation), a photo viewer, a movie player (streaming video from Netflic works like a charm), and a PDF reader. It also works adequately as a word processor if you have the right add-ons: a Bluetooth keyboard and some good apps like Quick Office, Dropbox, WritePad (a handwriting recognition program), and Dragon (voice recognition). It's a cool device, though perhaps slightly smaller and heavier than the advertising might lead you to expect, and I found setup easy and most operations fairly intuitive.
On the other hand, if you're looking for an e-reader, then the Kindle is a better bet. Yes, you can read books on the iPad, but it's not the ideal vehicle for the job. It's just a little too heavy, a little too tricky to hold (especially when lying down), a little too bright (even with the screen brightness dimmed), a little too glarey. Plus, the device offers so many distractions that it's difficult to concentrate on reading!
The K3 is a very different animal. It's so lightweight, it actually deserves the adjective "feather-light," which is sometimes applied to it. The form factor is small, the design pleasingly ergonomic. The screen is not very glarey, and the contrast between the type and the page is much better than earlier generations of e-ink readers. Amazon claims a 50% improvement in contrast, and I believe it.
The iPad is certainly portable, but not exactly pocket-size. The K3 is small and light enough to fit in a pocket or a purse. The K3 can be read in sunlight, which washes out the iPad's color screen. And while the iPad boasts impressive battery life of ten hours or more, the K3 beats it easily, with a battery that can reportedly stay charged for two weeks with WiFi turned off.
As with the iPad, the Kindle's setup is easy, and if you buy it direct from Amazon, it comes with all your Kindle books archived and ready for immediate download at the touch of a button. The controls are slightly less intuitive, but the user guide explains everything clearly.
The K3 boasts a few other features besides the ability to read e-books. It has a primitive, slow, but usable Web browser. It can serve as an MP3 player. Its text-to-speech feature reads the text to you in a monotonous robot voice -- useful for the vision-impaired, but a nonstarter for anyone else. (If you've ever seen "Red-Eye Robot Theater," it's a lot like that. Listening to a little of The Count of Monte Cristo this way, I kept wondering when the Count was going to ask for some lotion.) The word look-up feature allows you to easily read definitions of unfamiliar words you find in the text, though the two included dictionaries are more basic than I'd prefer.
In short, neither device is perfect, but both are pretty darn cool. If you're looking for an e-reader, the Kindle 3 is probably the best there is. If you want a tablet computer, the iPad is the way to go. And if you can afford it, treat yourself to both!
By the way, this post was written on the iPad, using a Bluetooth keyboard.
"Hy, wait a minute," you say. "Don't you already own an iPad and an old Sony Reader? Why would possibly need a Kindle also, especially since the iPad can use a Kindle app?"
Shut up, that's why.
So anyway, now that I own both an iPad and a Kindle, I'm able to compare the two machines and tell you which one is better. And the answer is, it depends.
If you're looking for a device that can "do it all," or at least can do a lot, then the iPad is clearly the better choice. It works very well as a Web browser (though it is slightly impaired by an inability to handle Flash animation), a photo viewer, a movie player (streaming video from Netflic works like a charm), and a PDF reader. It also works adequately as a word processor if you have the right add-ons: a Bluetooth keyboard and some good apps like Quick Office, Dropbox, WritePad (a handwriting recognition program), and Dragon (voice recognition). It's a cool device, though perhaps slightly smaller and heavier than the advertising might lead you to expect, and I found setup easy and most operations fairly intuitive.
On the other hand, if you're looking for an e-reader, then the Kindle is a better bet. Yes, you can read books on the iPad, but it's not the ideal vehicle for the job. It's just a little too heavy, a little too tricky to hold (especially when lying down), a little too bright (even with the screen brightness dimmed), a little too glarey. Plus, the device offers so many distractions that it's difficult to concentrate on reading!
The K3 is a very different animal. It's so lightweight, it actually deserves the adjective "feather-light," which is sometimes applied to it. The form factor is small, the design pleasingly ergonomic. The screen is not very glarey, and the contrast between the type and the page is much better than earlier generations of e-ink readers. Amazon claims a 50% improvement in contrast, and I believe it.
The iPad is certainly portable, but not exactly pocket-size. The K3 is small and light enough to fit in a pocket or a purse. The K3 can be read in sunlight, which washes out the iPad's color screen. And while the iPad boasts impressive battery life of ten hours or more, the K3 beats it easily, with a battery that can reportedly stay charged for two weeks with WiFi turned off.
As with the iPad, the Kindle's setup is easy, and if you buy it direct from Amazon, it comes with all your Kindle books archived and ready for immediate download at the touch of a button. The controls are slightly less intuitive, but the user guide explains everything clearly.
The K3 boasts a few other features besides the ability to read e-books. It has a primitive, slow, but usable Web browser. It can serve as an MP3 player. Its text-to-speech feature reads the text to you in a monotonous robot voice -- useful for the vision-impaired, but a nonstarter for anyone else. (If you've ever seen "Red-Eye Robot Theater," it's a lot like that. Listening to a little of The Count of Monte Cristo this way, I kept wondering when the Count was going to ask for some lotion.) The word look-up feature allows you to easily read definitions of unfamiliar words you find in the text, though the two included dictionaries are more basic than I'd prefer.
In short, neither device is perfect, but both are pretty darn cool. If you're looking for an e-reader, the Kindle 3 is probably the best there is. If you want a tablet computer, the iPad is the way to go. And if you can afford it, treat yourself to both!
By the way, this post was written on the iPad, using a Bluetooth keyboard.
Michael,
Thanks for the review. I was wondering, can you put your own PDF files on a K3?
-Kevin
Posted by: Kevin | October 02, 2010 at 04:47 PM
Yes, there's a way to do, though I haven't tried it. Not sure how well a PDF would display on the Kindle's small screen, though. When I get around to trying a PDF, I'll let you know how it goes. The iPad, by the way, excels at displaying PDFs.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 02, 2010 at 09:05 PM
"If you're looking for an e-reader, the Kindle 3 is probably the best there is. If you want a tablet computer, the iPad is the way to go'
thank you for the review,
Posted by: Maldoro | October 03, 2010 at 04:15 AM
I find the kindle cumberson when trying to read footnotes and endnotes. Many endnotes are keyed to pages (Page 32 "Smith said Jones had a bade temper") but the page numbers don't show up on kindle.
Posted by: Neil Parille | October 03, 2010 at 05:49 AM
"Many endnotes are keyed to pages (Page 32 'Smith said Jones had a bad temper') but the page numbers don't show up on kindle."
I guess this would be a problem in cases where the notes aren't hyperlinked to the text. Most of the books I read are too dumbed down to have any annotations!
Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 03, 2010 at 08:34 PM
I'm so glad I remembered you posted instructions on the monthly onesies! Especially since you can't find the Old Navy ones anymore. These are MUCH better anyway! My little guy is going to be 2 mos on the 23rd, but I think I'll fudge and do a late 1 month shot so I have the whole "collection." TFS!!!
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Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 05, 2010 at 09:30 AM
I was thinking of getting one to replace my bulky technical manuals. Given it doesn't display page numbers how do you use the index or search for keywords?
Great article btw!
Posted by: RobT | October 13, 2010 at 03:19 PM
On the Kindle, I mean't to say...
Posted by: RobT | October 13, 2010 at 03:20 PM
If the manuals are PFDs, I'm not sure Kindle is the ideal solution. It can read PDFs, but the iPad does a much better job. The Kindle's screen is a little too small for the typical PDF. I think you can zoom in, but I haven't tried this.
The iPad has a bigger screen and an intuitive zoom feature.
I don't think the index would be of much use, since, as you say, there are no page numbers displayed on the Kindle or the iPad.
In either device, you can search for any word or phrase by typing it into a search box.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 13, 2010 at 05:30 PM
Michael,
Have you tried the Kindle DX? PDFs are apparently full size. There are a lot of older books available for free in PDF format.
Unfortunately it approaches iPad price.
-Neil Parille
Posted by: Neil Parille | October 16, 2010 at 06:44 PM
I haven't tried the DX. In terms of size and price, it would duplicate the iPad, but without much of the iPad's functionality.
For reading PDFs, I use the iPad, but I'll give the Kindle 3 a try once I figure out how to get a PDF onto it. (I think I have to email it to Amazon, or something. Gotta look at the users guide again ...)
Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 16, 2010 at 10:01 PM
Okay, I tried putting a PDF file on the Kindle. Transfer was easy; I just hooked up the Kindle to my PC via a USB cable and dragged the PDF into the Kindle's "documents" folder. However, because the Kindle has no zoom capability, and because it can't adjust font size on a PDF, the document displayed very small on the screen, and was nearly impossible to read. Probably there are conversion programs available that would allow you to change the PDF to some other, more flexible format.
Overall, the iPad is much better for reading PDFs. You can zoom in on the document at will, and change from portrait to landscape mode to suit the PDF's layout.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 17, 2010 at 08:31 PM
I bought a kindle 3 about 3 weeks ago. A truly excellent free program called calibre will convert all your personal documents:
http://calibre-ebook.com/
Or you can use one of your 2 amazon kindle email addresses and it will convert and send wirelessly your personal documents to your kindle. This is free using wifi but a charge is made if you use 3G (I'm from the UK so am not sure if the same applies to the USA).
If you want the pdf to be converted you just put "convert" in the subject, otherwise it will be sent as it is. If you do convert a PDF document then the footnotes become incorporated into the body of the text, which is a slight inconvenience. Possibly calibre can help here. I don't know not having explored it sufficiently yet.
Posted by: Ian Wardell | October 18, 2010 at 09:04 AM
"If you want the pdf to be converted you just put 'convert' in the subject, otherwise it will be sent as it is."
Neat. I knew about the email option, but I didn't realize Amazon would convert a PDF for you. Thanks for the info!
I think I'll still use my iPad for PDFs, though.
I have Calibre, which works well, but hadn't thought of using it to convert PDFs. (Truthfully, I don't read that many PDFs.)
Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 18, 2010 at 09:36 AM
Hello, thanks for your RL experienced review!
Kindle is a far better r-reader IMHO, iPad is more multimedia hand held.
Posted by: ipad or kindle | October 23, 2010 at 03:27 AM
I sent a pdf to Amazon with "convert" in the subject line. The document does display differently than if you just drag and drop the PDF when the Kindle is connected by USB. Bu the converted PDF shows as microscopic, and the option to increase the ize (100%, 150%, 200% etc) that shows when you press the aA key, this option is no longer available on teh converted PDF. And I mean it is really microscopic ... No option to zoom??? Help anyone?
Posted by: LR | October 30, 2010 at 11:32 AM
You could try using Calibre, a free program, to convert the PDF to a MOBI file. Then you can use the Kindle's Aa button to adjust the text size, and the five-way button to move the selected area on the screen.
It's still pretty clunky, though. The iPad is better for PDFs.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | October 30, 2010 at 02:25 PM