eBooks and eReaders: Readers & devices

E-ink readers use a display technology that is similar to paper books in appearance and are mainly used for reading text.   Most e-ink devices display shades of gray, although a few color e-ink devices have begun to appear.

E-ink readers generally require daylight, interior lighting or a booklight, but recent models have included built in lighting that enables reading in darkness or low light conditions.  Notable characteristis of e-ink include:

• long battery life - weeks or months as opposed to hours or days for tablets or smartphones
• the reading experience is more similar to paper books than devices with lcd displays
• single purpose device - intended mostly for reading - either a strength or a drawback, depending on perspective

The e-ink market has settled into 3 main brands:

• Kindle, produced by Amazon.com, currently the best selling device
• Nook, produced by Barnes and Noble
• (somewhat distant 3rd place) Kobo.

There are also literally dozens of e-ink devices currently in production,  a detailed list is at: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix

E-ink readers and file types

There are several filetypes that are de facto standards for ebooks - The 'big 3 readers' each support 2 out of 3 main critical types

Most e-ink readers also support other filetypes, such as html (web pages) and pictures (jpeg/gif).  The Kindle also can play audiobooks.

Tablets and smartphones can also access ebook content through a web browser or ebook specific apps.

The following are some of the apps available for iOS and Android based devices:

• Bluefire reader - for Adobe's DRM protected PDF and ePub format
  
• Comixology - for digital comic books/graphic novels from Marvel, DC and other major publishers
  
• Kindle reader - for items purchased from the Amazon Kindle Store *
  
• Kobo reader - for items purchased from the Kobo bookstore *
  
• Nook reader - for items purchased from the Barnes & Noble Nook store
  

These are all free to download and available through your device's app downloading utility (i.e. Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon App Store

* also available for Windows 8 and Blackberry devices

Most tablets can download ebooks through their built in browsers, but for e-ink devices, unless you are buying titles from their built in 'store', you will need to download them to a computer first, then transfer them to your device, a process known as sideloading.