The iPad certainly hasn’t made the once-untouchable Kindle look cutting edge, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves: the Kindle’s still got some advantages on Apple’s e-reading tablet. For one, the Kindle’s e-ink screen is much easier for long reading sessions than the iPad’s LED-backlit LCD display… and because of the power efficiency of e-ink, the Kindle can go weeks at a time without needing a charge. For a lot of people, the Kindle is going to be good enough, especially for the $259.99 price.
The problem is, while the Kindle has some advantages on the iPad, what it’s doing technologically is easily done for less. Enter the Kobo, a $150 e-reader that smartly shaves a few specs to undercut the already-ailing Kindle by over a hundred bucks.
The main sacrifices here are the elimination of Amazon’s WhisperNet, which gives Kindle owners limited 3G access for free. WiFi’s also excluded: PDF or ePub books need to be transferred by USB cable or Bluetooth. It also comes with about half as much storage space (although you can expand your library to 4GB if you’ve got an SD card hand).
But these are small sacrifices for $100 discount over the Kindle, and what Kobo really gets right is the interface design: big, beautiful chapter and library lists, an “I’m Reading” pages that correlates the books and newspapers you’re reading into a newspaper-like display, and even a proto-iPad bookshelf method of browsing your library.
Basically, if you want to save some money, and all you want an e-reader for is reading, the Kobo just undercut Amazon by a wide margin without sacrificing the few questionable benefits the Kindle has over the iPad. If you’re looking for a more traditional device to read e-readers, or if your grandmother is, give the Kobo a look.
[via Gadget Lab]
