So you want to buy an e-Reader, but you don't know which one to buy? Well you have come to the right place because in the following article we will be looking at each of these hot products that are flying off the shelves. We will pit each one against one another under several different categories to find out which will reign supreme. But ultimately only you know which you prefer, so which is better, the Apple iPad or the Amazon Kindle?
For thousands of years man has read books! Books printed on paper! But in the last few years this has suddenly become lame. Who wants to be seen with an old fashioned book when you could be reading on a shiny new e-Reader. Many people said that the e-Reader would never catch on, but how foolish must they feel now, major egg on face! The e-Reader is one of the hottest products on the market at the moment and they are getting even more popular. Two of the most famous and equally popular are the Apple iPad and the Amazon Kindle. Both are fighting it out for this newly emerging and highly profitable market. But which one will win your custom? iPad vs Kindle, let the squabble begin!
Design
These two products have very different designs for what is essentially a simple concept, to read books electronically. The iPad follows in the footsteps of it's siblings the iPod and iPhone by being sleek, sexy and uber cool. A large, full colour LCD touchscreen allows the user to realistically turn pages with just a single swipe of the finger across the screen and you can zoom into pages if you find any print too small with the use of two fingers. The only draw back of this is persistent fingerprints, but a quick wipe with a suitable cloth gets rid of them easily. The iPad screen is also backlit with the ability to adjust the brightness, which means that you can read all of your books in the dark. The Kindle is, well let's face it, no where near as sexy or cool as the iPad, but for what it lacks in style it more than makes up for in practicality. You can read the Kindle in direct sunlight due to it's E-ink screen, however this only offers 16 shades of grey and can struggle with some graphics.
To compare the two based on design, the iPad would win hands down. Yes, the Kindle does the job of allowing the user to read books, however the iPad let's you do it in style.
Battery
The iPad has a battery life of approximately 10 hours, which is more than than enough for the average person to read in a single sitting. This is however annihilated by the Kindle which can go for days and weeks without needing a charger. Amazon claims that it will last up to a month with the wireless turned off. Kindle wins hands down!
Portability
Admittedly, either of these are infinitely better than hauling all the physical books and magazines around on your back, but for simple everyday portability the iPad is beaten by the feather like Kindle. Apple's iPad is 680g (iPad 2 is 600g) compared to the Kindle weighing in at 247g.
The iPad is 13mm thick (iPad 2 is 8.6mm) Compared to the Kindle which is 8.6mm. The Kindle can be carried around in your back pocket due to it's size (190 x 123mm), whereas the iPad needs to be carried around in a bag due to it's larger size (243 x 190mm). Therefore the Kindle is king in the portability category.
Content
The point of having an e-Reader is to let you read the books that you want to read. The Amazon Kindle has a vast library of books of over half a million for you to download and read. It also allows you to read blogs, newspapers and magazines that are uploaded to your device daily. This amazing amount of content simply cant compete with the huge volume of content that is available on the iPad. This is because the Kindle is exclusively for Amazon content, whereas the iPad has access to it's own iBooks store, the whole of the amazon kindle library through the Kindle App, and many other vast libraries of content through corresponding apps, as well as being able to download and read PDFs from anywhere on the web. The iPad wins easily due to it's vastly superior amounts of content.
Price
Currently here are the versions that you can buy for an approximate price at today's prices;
iPad 2
Wi-Fi...................................?399. ($650). (?450)
3G access...........................?2-15 a month. ($3.25-24.45). (?2.26-16.96) Varies depending on network
Kindle 3
Wi-Fi only..........................?111. ($180). (?125)
3G lifetime access.............?152. ($248). (?172)
Prices obviously vary from shop to shop, and currency to currency, and you can buy more expensive models with larger storage capacity. Amazon tends to sell their books much cheaper than iBooks do. My advice would be to shop around and find the best price/bundle for you!
Conclusion
Well pitting these two products against each other is a bit unfair due to the varying uses of the iPad. If you are after a device to solely read books on then buy a Kindle, it's a great product and serves it's purpose excellently. If however you are looking for a device to read books on AND do other things like listen to music, write, draw, watch movies, surf the Internet, do presentations, things for work, view photos, etc. then the iPad is for you. Ultimately, only you know which you prefer, so which do you think is better, the Apple iPad or the Amazon Kindle?
My name is Matt and I am a writer for http://www.TheSquabble.com a great website that lets people discuss and debate over a wide variety of topics. Currently we have articles added regularly covering products/brands, politics, sport, people and many others. If you have something to squabble about, then we are the place to do it.
So check out http://www.TheSquabble.com - Because everyone has something to squabble about!
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