Cover via AmazonOK. I did it. I took the plunge and bought an eReader. Last week, I posted that I was just about ready to buy an eBook reader. At the time, I was leaning towards getting the Nook wi-fi version eReader for a couple reasons. One was the fact that the Nook is expandable with a micro SD card. Another was that you could purchase books from more sources. The final reason was that you could borrow eBooks from the public library with the Nook.However, I was tempted to do a little more research before finally making the decision to purchase a reader. Last weekend, I headed out to the local Barnes & Noble to take a look at the Nooks. Specifically to take a look at the Nook color. The bookseller showed me some of the features of the Nook color, but in the end, I didn't want the additional features of the color. I also noticed a lot of glare on it when in the store. The other factor against the Nook color is that because it was a backlit LCD display, the battery life would be much shorter.
I then headed up to Target to take a look at the Kindle wi-fi that they had there. One of the things I noticed was that the model they had said it would hold 1500 books. However, I recalled seeing on Amazon's site that they had expanded the memory on the Kindle so that it would hold up to 3500 books. Now, I do not expect that I will be going crazy adding eBooks to my library, but I wanted to have the option to either expand or hold as many books as I could.
The last factor was in looking at the availability and costs of books at the various outlooks. I visited the website of my public library to see what eBooks were available to check out. I did not see a whole lot of choices, so that favorable point for the Nook was nullified. I then visited both the Amazon and Barnes & Noble sites to search for some books that I would be interested in downloading. Most of the books were available on both sites, but Amazon had a decided advantage in price on a couple books I was looking at.
In the end, I decided on price and the market leader, the Kindle. I placed my order on Amazon.com on Wednesday evening, shortly after 5 pm. It arrived yesterday, registered to my Amazon account and ready for me to start downloading books. So far, I have been looking at a lot of the free or very inexpensive options. I have added a collection of Mark Twain books, Treasure Island, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, and Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther.
There are a few books that I am looking at purchasing in the very near future. There are also several other classics that I can get for free or at a very low price that I will also be downloading very soon. It should come in very handy for an upcoming trip I have to the west coast for a trade show next month. Whenever I would take a long trip, I would always take three books with me, the one I was reading at the time and a choice of two for when I finished that one. Now, I can just take my Kindle and have a full range of choices.
