Today, devices for reading publications in digital format e-Books, aka electronic book readers, are increasingly gaining popularity. This is not surprising, because the e-book is more compact, mobile and much more cost-effective budget in comparison with printed publications. And with its size and weight is spacious enough to store a large library.
In addition, advanced devices can connect to the Internet, support multimedia functions and have a number of other useful features.
A large range on the market and a variety of hardware filling such devices easily confuse inexperienced buyer, so for a successful purchase is definitely to understand such devices.
When purchasing such a device, you first need to pay attention to its display, based on personal preferences and the necessary set of functions.
e-Book display, can be from 4.3 to 10.7 inches, one and two page, touch, anti-glare, black and white or color on the matrix E-Ink (electronic ink), and only color on the LCD matrix type TN,or equipped with two types of displays. Each type of display has its advantages and disadvantages.
If the reader is purchased primarily for reading books, it is better to buy a device with a black-and-white or color E-Ink display, a diagonal of at least 6-7 inches (in order to avoid small font) and a resolution of at least 600x800 pixels. Unlike the TN-display, E-Ink does not emit light but forms an image in reflected light like ordinary paper, which eliminates eye strain. But reading behind such a screen is possible only in the presence of external lighting, so fans of reading in the dark should pay attention to the presence of built-in back-light or buy it separately.
In addition, e-Ink reader is thinner and lighter than the LCD, and the power consumption is only needed to refresh the page. But at the same time, E-Ink-display is more fragile, expensive, pages can slow down when updating and black-and-white E-Ink-display will not allow to fully view color illustrations.
E-Ink-display can be based on one of two technologies: Vizplex - second generation or Pearl - third generation. Pearl display, unlike Vizplex, has a higher contrast, rich black color and lighter paper substrate (see photo).
LCD displays have a higher contrast and color image, which is important for reading magazines, working with graphics, surfing the web, viewing photos and videos. But flickering LCD very quickly tires the eyes, and the need for constant back-light quickly consumes battery power, just for 5-6 hours. In fact, an LCD reader is the same tablet computer without an operating system and therefore with fewer media options. In very rare cases, you can find on sale instances running on a full Android OS. But in this case, a hybrid tablet-book reader will be more imprisoned for reading.
Any type of display reader can have an additional function-touchscreen (touch screen). Which will allow you to make notes with a stylus in the text, draw and use the device as a notebook. In addition, such a display will have a touch control, which is more convenient than a push-button, the disadvantage of such control can be fingerprints on the display. Also, some modern readers can be found accelerometer (automatic screen rotation function for the location of the reader) and anti-reflective coating of the screen, which will reduce the possible light glare and make reading more comfortable.
In addition to the correct selection of the screen, you should also pay attention to the device support for popular formats and the ability to properly process the text in language. Almost all modern book-readers are able to cope with popular formats: TXT, FB2, HTML, PDF, and RTF. Of these, the most versatile, which easily cope with the support of many formats, being able to recognize not only the above, but also in addition to DJVU, DOC, FB2.zip, TCR, EPUB, PRC and CHM are PocketBook. And for example, e-book reader Amazon Kindle, in addition to popular have their own formats - MOBI, which other e-readers is not supported. In case of incompatibility of formats, it may be useful, the device has the function of converting one format to another, or you can use programs such as Calibre and Book Designer.
All such devices have built-in memory. To date, its volume is from 32 megabytes, which is enough to store up to 50 books in digital form, depending on the presence in the books of various illustrations. However, many modern book-readers also have an additional slot for micro-SD or SD memory cards with a memory size of up to 16 gigabytes, which is equal to about 16,000 publications in the digital version.
The presence of MP3-player is not only listening to your favorite music records, but also the ability to listen to audio-books through headphones or built-in speaker. This option is also useful for learning foreign languages, because the simultaneous reading of the text and playing the necessary information will contribute to the correct pronunciation. More advanced in the audio readers, additionally have the option of FM-radio, the function of speech synthesis and built-in voice recorder. Thanks to this, you can listen to your favorite radio, listen to a book or easily record the necessary information without paper notes.
Many book-readers have a very useful option-WiFi wireless module that allows you to connect to the Internet and download books from the world wide web, browse the web. If you have Bluetooth, you can share e-books and other various files with another book-reader or computer.
Modern e-book reader may please the owners and of support games. Advanced devices allow you to run not only such simple games as: checkers, chess, etc., but also more advanced, for example - Doom 2 (see photo).
When choosing an e-book should pay attention to the name of the manufacturer. Often, devices of unknown manufacturers do not have SOFTWARE updates and do not support popular formats of digital books.
Models already proven manufacturers may have a number of technical problems, so you should first read the reviews on the potential purchase.
Some popular models do not have only one language interface, which complicates their operation.
The presence of QWERTY-keyboard will make web surfing and correspondence more convenient and fast, but QWERTY-keyboard occupies a possible area of the screen.
In this article, we did not consider an alternative to E-link and LCD display screen on the Mirasol matrix. Due to the fact that this technology is still very raw and yet has only negative reviews of the owners.
Modern tablet computer, easily cope with the tasks of the reader. In this case, its price may be lower and the feature set is larger.
