Review: Ereaders vs Paper Books

I love reading. I don’t do enough of it. But with that said, there are a lot of options out there these days for people who love to read. And a lot more people are considering getting ereaders. Are you struggling with his decision and aren’t sure? Let me go through some of the pros and cons of ereaders.

One of the first things to consider is where you read. This may sound funny but what I mean is – do you read only on the couch, in bed or do you read in the tub? Tubs and ereaders do not mix well as you can imagine.

Do you read a lot of magazines or books that have coloured pictures? This will have a factor as to what reader you may want to purchase. Basic models are only in black and white but you can purchase other models that have colour. Many readers have wifi directly built in so you can subscribe and have your magazine subscriptions delivered directly to the ereader.

Do you read a lot of books that require you to go back and forth to look at something prior? For instance, in a fiction book you may have a family tree to look at or a list or characters. This can be difficult to do on an ereader. If you are reading a non-fiction book, you may like being able to reference the index or definitions of the book. While this can be done on your ereader, it can be trickier.

One of the biggest reasons to purchase an ereader is for travelling. I recently went on a trip for a month and took my Kindle with me. It was great as I had almost 300 books loaded on it. While I didn’t read them all, I read a dozen or two on my journeys. To carry that many books with me, you can just imagine how heavy that would be! On prior travels, I have stayed in places that had book exchanges but on this trip I did not see any.

These days, ereaders do more than just let you read books. For this reason, consider what you really need. You can choose a basic model for just reading or you can pick a more advanced model that lets you surf the web and browse documents or anything else you may want to do. For some, this can be a great alternative to buying a more expensive tablet.

While your ereader is going to cost you some money at the beginning, you will probably end up saving the money in the long run. Many ebooks cost less than their paper counterparts and over time this will add up. Not only that, but there are many books that you can download for cheap or for free. This includes many classics as the copyrights have expired making them public domain.