Not all e-readers are created equal

Although no one actually made the prediction, one could have easily predicted that reading material would soon go digital, following the same line as music and movies before. It’s something that not too many novelists are thrilled about, but avid readers appreciate the PDF format and love their eBook readers like the Kindle.

Developed by Lab126, a subsidiary of Amazon, the Amazon Kindle uses connectivity and allows users to browse around the net to locate and download eBooks, newspapers, magazines, and other types of digital media. An e-reader isn’t the same as a tablet PC, but the Kindle is definitely innovative for what it does.

Let’s go over a few products in the Kindle range and speak about their features and other strong points.

Kindle First Generation

The First Gen Kindle arrived on the scene in 2007 and was available for around $400. It featured a 6-inch display, expandable memory, an SD slot, 4-level grayscale display, and 250MB of memory – about enough for 200 basic titles.

Kindle 2

The second in the Kindle line featured 2GB of memory, capable of holding up to 1,500 basic books (non-illustrated), but it did not accept memory cards. Basically, this was just a reader with more memory and Amazon even dropped the price by $100 compared to the original Kindle.

Kindle DX

In 2009, the Kindle DX burst onto the scene, featuring a larger screen than the previous versions of the Kindle (around 7-inches diagonally), and it also supports a 3G wireless net in the international version.

Kindle DX Graphite

Soon after DX, the DX Graphite came out, available for $379 and featuring an E-Ink display with better contrast. It had practically the same features in terms of screen size, but the memory was cut in half from the original DX, down to 128MB, and this version wasn’t capable of holding as many titles.

Kindle 3

With built-in 3G, the Kindle 3 also features the E-Ink display and a sleeker frame than its predecessors. Kindle 3 weighs 8.5 ounces, is 1/3 of an inch thin, and features a long-life battery, easy navigation buttons, a large screen, and more.

Kindle Touch

Although the previous Kindle products were great sellers, none of them were touch screens until this release. Released in 2011, the Kindle Touch is virtually the exact same machine as the Kindle 3, with one exception of course – it operates using a touch screen. This product was priced at around $189 on the high end and $99 on the low.

Kindle Fire Tablet

The newest Kindle product, the Kindle Fire is going to be Amazon’s first legitimate tablet PC, directly competing with Apple’s iPad. For $199, users get a 7-inch E-Ink display, 8GB of storage, and a battery life of around 6-7 hours. However, unlike other tablet PCs, there is no 3G option, camera or microphone.

Although the Kindle products started out as strictly e-readers, they’re quickly evolving and are now threatening Apple’s reign on the world of tablet computers. In only a few short years, there have been many versions of the Kindle released, and the latest proves to be the best yet. Just wait until 2012 – you never know what’s next.

Making their mark on the public stage before Amazon’s Kindle came along, the Sony Reader has been around since 2006 and was once a big seller among the eBook reading crowd. It has since faded a bit in popularity, but many avid readers prefer their Sony machine over anything else on the market.

Sony is planning on releasing their newest reader in mid October of 2011, called the PRS-TI. This reader will feature a custom version of Android (Windows/Mac optional), 1.3GB of memory, a 6-inch diagonal screen, E-Ink electronic paper, 16-level grayscale resolution, a touch screen, and many other features, all packed into a lightweight 5.9-ounce package.

That’s just the latest, though. Let’s take a look at the entire Sony Reader range.

PRS-500

Launched in 2006, the PRS-500 was Sony’s first reader, featuring a 6-inch display from the E-Ink Corp and 64 MB of memory. It didn’t hold a lot and it wasn’t as feature-rich as Sony’s new readers, but it did have a powerful Lithium-ion battery and USB ports.

PRS-505

Released shortly after the original, the 505 was the next step up for the Sony Reader. This model in stock form featured the same E-Ink display and same size screen, but it was 5mm thinner (8mm down from 13mm), featured 256 MB, and could be upgraded to hold up to 32 GB.

PRS-700

The 700 was the first legitimate touch-screen model from Sony. You could use this as a virtual keyboard for searching. It was available for around $350 and featured the same 6-inch E-Ink screen as the old models, LED lighting, the same powerful battery, and 512 MB of stock memory.

PRS-900 Daily Edition

Launched in 2009 and available for around $400, the Daily Edition had a larger display, 7-inches, and also featured a higher resolution, 16-level grayscale, 2GB of internal memory, user-replaceable batteries, and 3G wireless capabilities.

PRS-600 Touch

Known as Sony’s middle-range reader, the PRS-600 Touch featured the power of a larger model, the screen and body size of a smaller model, and the price met right in the middle at $299. The 6-inch E-Ink screen, 8-level grayscale, 512 MB memory, and support for expandable memory made this one of the more popular Sony Readers released.

PRS-350 Pocket Edition

Released in 2010, the Pocket Edition was Sony’s smallest reader release, featuring a 5-inch E-Ink screen, still with 16-level grayscale and a whopping 2GB of memory. It also had hi-speed micro USB ports and supported a wide range of eBook formats, from EPUB and .pdf to Microsoft Word and TXT.

There were a couple of other editions released as follow-ups to main editions, but this just about covers the entire Sony range. The newest Sony Reader to be released, the PRS-T1, will be priced to compete at under $200, making it a great mid-range reader.

Standing for the East-Coast Trading American Company Incorporated, ECTACO Inc. is a developer and manufacturer of hardware and software products based in the United States. The company is mostly known for the work they have done in the field of speech recognition software and also electronic translation, but eBook lovers also know this company for releasing the jetBook eBook reader.

Unlike Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Sony, ECTACO doesn’t have an entire range of readers to choose from. They have one main model and some modified versions of that model. In a way, that does create a “range,” but this reader isn’t quite as widespread as other companies’ readers.

Even still, the jetBook is a great eBook reader and makes a fantastic alternative for people who want something sleek and affordable. It’s also a very reliable reader and gets the job done for being a simplistic eBook-focused device.

Recently, however, ECTACO has released a device that’s a reader hybrid. Their jetBook K-12 Reader is an educational tool that comes preloaded with a wide range of information, featuring language learning classes, SAT prep courses, calculators, textbooks, fiction books, state information, dictionaries, and much, much more. This educational tool retails for $399.

As for the basic jetBook Reader:

Features

The jetBook features an advanced T9 text input feature, an installed device manager, and an intricate and large folder system that helps users keep things as organized as possible. It also features a PDF viewer that includes a zoom feature, a scroll/pan feature, but it does not support reflow.

Specs

Weighing about 7.5 ounces, the jetBook Reader was a lightweight device before lightweight devices really took off. It’s rather small compared to other readers, though. At only 5-inches, it’s more like a pocket reader than a tablet. But it does have a Reflective LCD 16-level grayscale display, which is great for contrast and crisp, clear pages.

The reader also supports most Euro and Asian languages, has built-in Russian, Polish and Spanish options, features an MP3 player, packs 128MB of memory (expandable up to 2GB) and the internal lithium-ion battery is good for up to 22 hours of reading.

Software

Oddly enough, ECTACO doesn’t state what type of software they use for their jetBook Reader. Rumors suggest that the manufacturer uses Linux. And that makes sense, because if they used MAC or Windows, surely that would be a strong selling point. People tend to shy away from anything Linux.

Modified Versions

You can find two modified versions of jetBook: the jetBook Lite and the jetBook mini. The Lite version is practically the same minus some software and battery changes. It runs on 4 AA batteries and does not support audio. The Mini version only has 3 buttons, a 5-inch display, weighs 5.8 ounces, and runs on 4 AAA batteries. It also does not support audio files.

All told, these are still pretty reliable readers. You can grab the original jetBook for around $180, the Mini for $119, and the Lite for $150.