Tablets vs. e-readers
With electronic reading devices adding more bells and whistles including wireless connectivity, the differences between e-readers and tablet computers seem to be blurring.
But there’s one difference that might never go away.
Tablets are designed to let users interact with a range of features, from telephony and video chat to e-mail and text messaging, and from watching movies and looking at photos to browsing Web pages and news sites.
But e-readers are just for reading.
Most e-reader converts will tell you that the Amazon Kindle, for instance, works because it has reduced the number of built-in bells nearly to zero.
When you’re reading a book, you’re not bombarded with “You’ve got mail” sounds, “Friend” notifications or even a digital clock. All you get is the text in front of you, ready for your complete attention.
Tablet devices like the iPad or Samsung’s new Galaxy tablet afford no such digital austerity: E-mail, Web browsing and Facebook are only a click away, and many readers find the temptation of the media matrix too difficult to resist.
And though tablet screens will soon offer higher resolution and brighter colors than the electronic ink still favored by most e-readers, you may find that staring at a digital display for hours can tire out your eyes (especially if you’ve already been doing it at work all day). The e-ink displays, while slower and monochrome, are all but identical to a printed page.
The success of Amazon’s Kindle reader, which has become the online retailer’s bestselling product, may show that the best way you can improve on the printed book is to make it lighter and simpler.
