Best eBooks and eReaders

December 15, 2009 By Nick Mokey

We review the best eBooks and eReaders like the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Sony Reader and compare them against each other.

Amazon Kindle 2 $259

After taking the world by storm with the original Kindle, Amazon returned to the drawing board for the Kindle 2, a slimmer, sexier version of the original. It offers a 6-inch screen, 2GB of internal memory (to hold about 1,500 nonillustrated books) and most importantly, Whispernet access to pull down books from the sky when you’re out and about. Text-to-speech capabilities even allow it to read books to, if you don’t mind a little robotic intonation. Sadly, it’s missing a touch screen, and many users bemoan the lack of a backlight for evening reading. It also only handles Amazon’s DRM-protected AZW books, free Mobipocket titles, and plain text files, leaving out the popular PDF and EPUB formats.

Update: Amazon released a firmware update for the Kindle 2 on Nov. 25 that added native PDF support and screen rotation.

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Showing 8 comments

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dang at 1:50pm 15th December 2009 The Kindle 2 did not ship with native PDF support. It was added just recently through a firmware upgrade.
The Kindle DX supports it natively.
Kaiser at 1:39pm 15th December 2009 Nick, you should due your homework when reporting. The Kindle 2 does support native pdf files.
1. jakester at 4:00am 13th July 2010 Kaiser, you should check your spelling before submitting a comment. Its "do" not "due".
TechFreak at 10:33am 13th October 2009 Is there a reason all eReaders are ugly? Why are they white or grey? How about some blue, black or something with a little flair?
1. Greg Mombert at 8:30am 14th October 2009 Would you really want to stare at blue plastic for hours while you read?
  1. Marilyn at 7:21pm 19th October 2010 What a moronic question. It is the content of what you are reading that matters. The vehicle is just that and having a choice of colors on the vehicle is a matter of personal choice. So while you choose black or white, others would prefer colors to stare at for hours. Color enhances the environment for many folks.