Poll: iPad

[grizzle]

The Kindle is a book replacement, the iPad is a device that can display books.

^ this.

The Kindle doesn't need games because it's a book replacement, not a gamepad.
The Kindle doesn't need "multi-touch" because the only two buttons you REALLY need are "prev page" and "next page".
A color display could be good in some cases but approximately 99% of the things I read are black-and-white text.

(and even for the things I read that are color, I'm not convinced that, say, a Neil Gaiman graphic novel would look good on an iPad. The iPad is large but his books are larger still, which means you'd either be shrinking the images or having to scroll, neither of which is ideal. e.g., the hardback Sandman is 15.8" x 8.9" -- significantly larger than the iPad. I think I'll just continue buying graphic novels on paper.)


"Kindle vs iPad" is like "iPad vs laptop". If you pay about twice as much and don't mind getting something larger, you'll get a lot more functionality. If you don't need the functionality, then don't pay twice as much.

Even further are simple size and weight comparisons. If you are an avid reader, are you going to want to hold something small, compact, and lightweight in one hand, or something larger, bulky, and requires two hands? One of the reasons I love the Kindle isthat at night I can lie in bed at night and hold it over my head with one hand, using the thumb to easily advance the pages. With an iPad, I would have to use both hands to hold it above.

No, the iPad is not for serious book readers. But, if all you read are newspapers, magazines and school text books, where the iPad is always set on its back on a surface and you are not constantly supporting its weight, then I could maybe understand.

But for newspapers, I read them all online - my desktop & laptop already do that fine, I don't need a specialty media player to do that. Magazines, I still get those in the mail, and enjoy reading them as an actual magazine. Text books - I'm not in school.