Considering buying a tablet or an ereader

[RikuoAmero]

Right guys, I'm considering buying a tablet or an e-reader. I have never seen a tablet or a ereader in my life. If someone came up to me and asked what components to buy for a custom PC, I can rattle off about a dozen such without thinking.

Okay, I'm not sure whether to get a tablet or an e-reader. The ability to play music/video would be a plus, but its not mandatory. And as an e-reader, reading must be easy. I looked at the Kindle 3 page on Amazon, and they have a picture of a guy using a backlit LCD, and it was reflecting his face.

If you know of a cheap enough tablet that doesn't reflect faces and is easy to read, and can play music/video (and has memory expansion, that's the one thing I don't like about Kindle 3, it doesn't allow SD cards and such), then please tell me about it. I'm looking at spending a couple hundred euro, maybe 300.

Lastly, its file formats. As I've said, I'm a noob when it comes to ereaders. What file formats should I look for? What software would I need to convert?

Thanks!

[† L4ugh]

I'm pretty much in the same boat you are in right now. I don't really think this market has opened up enough yet to buy anything worth having for a reasonable price. It would also depend on what you really plan on using it for. If you just want something to read black and white text, then an ereader with the eink screen (like the kindle) is probably what you want. If you are looking for something you can use to read colored comics or anything with color, then you will most likely want to go for a tablet. There aren't many ereaders that offer colored screens and the ones that do will most likely not support the cbz, cbr files that scanned comics usually come in. Most ereaders only offer compatibility with a few file types that will most likely have DRM built in.

The top ereader on the market I think is still the kindle, and the top tablet is easily the ipad. There are a bunch of companies that are just now starting to come out with their own versions of ereaders and tablets but nothing yet that really competes with the top contenders. You can check out companies like samsung, archos, and asus. They both have units already on the market and the samsung tab is probably the best you can get right now without selling your soul to Steve Jobs. Ereaders that come with the new Pixel Qi screens may also be something you might want to look out for because they are suppose to be both a colored LCD and an EInk screen in one.

I had high hopes for the Motorola Xoom because if you compared it to the ipad over hardware the xoom would win, but the 800 dollar price tag is bs. I think they now have a wifi version that is 600, but I can buy a good netbook for 300. You can't tell me a touch screen and android adds 300 dollars.

[RikuoAmero]

Thanks L4ugh, but I've ordered a Kindle. At first I wasn't going to, as I tried to order from Amazon UK, but they won't sell to Ireland (and I have no idea why, I can buy any other electrical device), so I ended up ordering from Amazon US. Initially I wasn't going to, because the process was drawn out: I had to specifically select the Kindle for international shipment, and I have to pay an import fee, which wouldn't be the case if I had been allowed to order from the UK. I considered the Sony Reader PRS 650, but the Sony Centre near me was out of stock...that, and they were charging 240 euro. Another one I briefly considered was a Binatone colour, for 109, that could also play video files, but I couldn't find any reviews on it. So in the end, I went with the Kindle.

Thanks anyway L4ugh!