Springtime is in the air and the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom. People are starting to consider their next e-reader in order to read outside or take with them on vacation. Today, we take a look at the Top 5 e-readers for spring 2015.
Icarus has redefined what an e-reader is capable of with the advent of the Illumina E653. It comes bundled with Android 4.2, which gives users the flexibility to install their own eBook, magazine, newspaper or manga apps.
The Illumina E653 features a six inch e-Ink touch screen display with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels. There is 4GB of internal storage to house of all of your apps and eBooks. If this is not enough for your literary needs, there is support for a 32GB MicroSD card. You should get some solid battery life with the 2000 mAh, which is good for 4,000 page turns, or about 1 month of constant use.
This e-reader has a front-light, which means you can read in the dark. This device is good for people who commute to work because not only does it have a touchscreen but also physical page turn buttons. This allows you to hold it in one hand.
Kobo has an obsession on what constitutes the perfect e-reading experience and they have been feverishly working towards this ideal. They have slowly been evolving their product line to fall in line with the quintessential five B’s of bookselling; Bath, Backyard, Bedroom, Bus and Beach.
The Kobo Aura H2O features a 6.8 inch e-ink Carta touchscreen display with a resolution of 1430×1080. Carta Imaging Film offers a 50% improvement in contrast ratio over previous generation of e-Paper displays. This allows for faster page turns and the ability to turn pages in a digital book, without the need of constant screen refreshes.
Underneath the hood is a Freescale i.MX507 1GHZ processor and 512MB of RAM. It ships with 4GB of internal storage and can be expanded further via a MicroSD for up to 32GB of additional memory. Basically, if you max your storage, you can store over 30,000 books on your e-Reader and not have to charge it for up to two months.
This e-reader is compelling because its the first mainstream waterproof e-reader and allows you to read in the dark with the built in light. The Kobo online bookstore almost rivals Amazon with the sheer amount of content you can buy. Kobo will likely appeal to many users because you can download your own books from the internet and easily load them on.
Onyx has broken e-reader convention by releasing a new 9.7 inch device that runs Google Android, so users can install their own apps. Large screen readers are not cheap, and this model will set you back $293,28 €.
The M96C features a capacitive touchscreen display which allows you to interact with the device with your fingers, whereas the older M96 relied on an accompanied stylus. The resolution is 1200×825, which makes it solid for reading documents that are image heavy, such as manga.
Underneath the hood is a 1 GHz Freescale CPU with 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage, and a microSD card. You will be able to connect up to the internet via WIFI and connect up external devices via Bluetooth.
The Amazon Kindle Voyage is likely the best e-reader ever made, in terms of hardware and software performance. It brings to the table innovative features such as a new methodology in page turn buttons, ambient lighting control, X-Ray, and social book discovery site GoodReads.
The Amazon Kindle Voyage features a six inch e-ink Carta display with a resolution of 1430 x 1080. It has 300 PPI, which is the highest we have ever seen. In contrast, the Paperwhite 2, which this model replaces only has a resolution of 1024 X 768 and 212 PPI.
Lets look at what the competition is doing, the Kobo Aura H20, which came last year has a 6.8 inch screen with the same resolution as the Voyage, but has 265 DPI. The Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight has been on the market for quite awhile, but its 1024 x 758 and the 212 PPI is somewhat depressing.
Amazon does not have an SD card and the company also has its own digital book format. This prevents users from buying e-books from another company transferring them to your Kindle. Still, if you want to deal with one company for all of your content, Amazon currently controls 75% of the North American e-book market, so historically they are very appealing to deal with.
The Energy Sistem PRO comes from a Spanish company and the six inch e-reader not only has a touchscreen but also physical page turn buttons. It runs Google Android, so you can install your own apps. This is basically the same e-reader shell as the Icarus HD model, but has different software.
I like this e-reader because it has an SD card, solid resolution and the fact it has a 3.5mm headphone jack is very compelling. Few e-readers these days have any sort of audio capability for audiobooks and music. If this is important to you, the Energy Sistem PRO is a solid investment.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.