I'm a voracious reader, so for me, one of the hardest things about becoming a full-time RVer was packing up my thousands of books. There they sit, boxed up in a storage room... and here I sit, hundreds of miles away. I do carry a few reference books with me—campground guides, atlases, cookbooks and the like. But when I feel like settling down with a good yarn on a rainy day, there isn't much to read here... on paper, at least.

Of course I have my internet connection, and there's plenty to read online. In fact, there are millions of books online in electronic form—everything from bestsellers to classics, many of them free. But reading a book on a computer screen, while better than nothing, is not at all like reading a book! Even if it's a laptop computer, it's bulky, has limited battery life, and the screen washes out in direct sunlight. The onscreen text isn't as sharp as in a printed book. You can't sit outside in the sun and read on a laptop; you can't curl up in bed with one, and you certainly don't want to take one into the bathroom with you.

Fortunately, the dedicated ebook reader, once an obscure gadget, has gone mainstream in recent years. Sony was among the first, starting six or seven years ago—I've owned two of their ereaders—but the market didn't really take off until Amazon's 2007 introduction of the Kindle. For $399, that first Kindle was an ugly thing... but it worked, and it had Amazon behind it. Today, after three generations of refinements, even the least expensive Kindle (pictured at right) is a very usable ereader with access to a huge library of ebooks—both commercial and free.

The $79 Kindle and its cousin the $99 Kindle Touch are typical of today's most popular ereaders: they weigh six to seven ounces and are less than half an inch thick, so they're as easy to hold as a book. Their built-in batteries last for weeks on a charge, and their paper-like displays are easily readable even in direct sunlight. They can store thousands of books, so you can carry a small library in your purse or jacket pocket. They let you enlarge the text when the light is poor or your eyes are tired. And of course they offer access to more than a million commercial books, newspapers and magazines, plus millions of free public-domain books.

Today the question for RVers who like to read is no longer "Should I buy an ereader?", but "Which one?" In this article, I'll offer some suggestions based on my own experience with a number of different models over the past few years. I'm not going to try to review everything that's on the market, but hopefully my experience of what works for me will help you make your own choice. I'll also talk about reading ebooks on cell phones and tablets, since you may already have one of those.

Too many choices

After Amazon made ereaders into a mass-market success, everybody and his brother hopped onto the bandwagon. New models seem to pop up almost every week, with quirky names like Azbooka, Bookeen, eClicto, FLEPia, Jinke, Zinky, Kobo, Maylong, Nook, Oyo, and Readius (I'm not making these up!)... in addition to five different Kindles, various overpriced Sony models, Barnes & Noble's Nooks, and Apple's iPad. And then there's the flood of cheap and not-so-cheap Android-based tablets, all of which claim to be usable as ereaders, although few are well suited to the purpose.

With the market changing so fast, it's hard to recommend specific models. But here's my advice, for what it's worth: if you want a device primarily for reading ebooks, buy a Kindle. Why? Well, first, Amazon itself is a good bet. It's the world's largest online retailer, and it has invested more in the ebook revolution than any other company. Amazon is in it for the long haul. And they've shown that they are determined to undercut their competition's prices, even when that means selling Kindle ereaders for less than they cost to make. (They can do this because their main business is selling books, not ereaders.) It's unlikely that you'll find a better value than Amazon's Kindles.

And when stacked up against the Nooks and others just mentioned, today's Kindles are arguably the best products in their class. They're affordable, comfortable to use, and give you access to the largest library of ebooks of any ereader—and you can store thousands of books on a Kindle. You can borrow Kindle books at 11,000 public libraries, or from Amazon's lending library. They have the latest generation "Pearl" E ink screen, with 50% better contrast than earlier models. They offer nice features such as a built-in dictionary and (in the Kindle Touch) the ability to read books aloud.

That's right, any book can be an audiobook! Well, almost any book. Some publishers have disabled this feature for their more popular titles. Apparently they're afraid it'll cut into their audiobook sales. That's really kind of silly, because this is not like having your favorite novel read by a well-known actor. The Kindle's voice is computer-synthesized... but it's still clear and understandable. If you like to listen to stories while you drive, this feature could be appealing. I've used it that way, and for me at least, it certainly makes the miles pass more quickly on a long drive.

I should add that the Kindle Touch and Kindle Keyboard (but not the $79 low-end Kindle) can also download audiobooks from Audible.com—books read by professional actors, or in a few cases by the authors themselves. I find Audible's audiobooks rather expensive, and they're large downloads, so I haven't done much of that.

Electronic paper

Most of today's ereaders use the same type of "electronic paper" display, made by E Ink Holdings, Inc. It's very different from the color LCDs used in most phones and computers, so it's worth summarizing its pluses and minuses. (The Kindle Fire tablet does use a color LCD, and I'll talk about it a little later.)

E ink displays have no backlighting, so they use only a tiny amount of power: you can go for weeks between recharges, compared to mere hours with a backlit LCD. They have a "paper-like" look, with crisp, high-resolution characters that look printed—none of the "jaggies" you see on a computer screen. While their contrast isn't as good as paper, they are superbly readable in direct sunlight, again unlike a computer screen. In fact, the more light there is, the better they look. To get an idea, here's a link to a magnified image of the $79 Kindle 4. Zoom in on that photo and look at how smooth the text is. Now hold a magnifying glass up to your computer screen. See what I mean?

The flip side of the coin is that when reading an E ink display indoors, you need ample light, just as with a printed book. (There's a thriving market in mini book lights.) And E ink displays can't handle color at all. (E ink has shown a prototype color screen, but it looks lousy and it can't handle animation or video.) They're not even terribly good with grayscale pictures, due to a limited contrast range and only 16 levels of gray instead of the normal 256. Photos look dull and washed out.

Also, it takes about half a second to change anything on an E ink screen. That's no problem when turning the pages of a book, but it rules out animation, video, and all but the simplest games (e.g., Scrabble). You're not going to play "Halo" on an E ink screen, nor are you going to watch YouTube videos. In short, these displays are suitable mainly for reading text. They're very good at that, but don't expect them to do the kinds of things you do with a laptop. Just keep reminding yourself: "It's a book, not a computer."

Which Kindle?

The Kindle family has grown over the years from the original awkward slab to four different svelte ereaders. (I'm not counting the obsolete, oversized and overpriced Kindle DX, which lingers forlornly on Amazon's website, but which I don't recommend.) That leaves four families of Kindles: the basic Kindle, the Kindle Touch, the Kindle Keyboard (which is actually last year's Kindle 3 with a new name) and the new, colorful Kindle Fire. But the Fire is really in a separate class: it's a budget tablet computer. So let's talk first about the E ink Kindles, and then we'll get to the Fire... and finally, I'll give you some tips on where to get ebooks for free.

The Kindle Keyboard, as noted, is really last year's Kindle renamed. It's a perfectly good ereader, but its "Chiclet"-style keyboard offers the worst of both worlds: it's much too small to be a really good keyboard, but it makes the Kindle Keyboard model bulkier than the newer Kindle and Kindle Touch. And let's face it—how often do you need to type into a book, even an electronic one? Perhaps if you're a student and want to annotate your textbooks (assuming they're available in Kindle format, which most are not), you'll prefer this model... but for most of the rest of us, a physical keyboard isn't needed on an ereader.

The $79 Kindle (often referred to as the "Kindle 4") is the smallest and lightest of the E ink models. It's a pleasure to hold even for extended periods, and its bargain price is tempting. Its only drawback is its small buttons. If you have thick fingers, you probably won't like this model. But otherwise, it's worth considering. Although it's the bottom of the Kindle product line, it doesn't feel cheap, and it's a fine ereader.

For an additional twenty dollars you can get the Kindle Touch. With its touchscreen, page turns and other functions are accomplished with a tap of the finger. The only drawback here is the E ink screen's slow response, which makes the device feel sluggish... although in reality it's no slower than any of the E-ink Kindles. You tap an onscreen button... and then wait for half a second or so before the button highlights. If you've never used a touchscreen device, this may not bother you. If you're accustomed to an iPhone or iPad, though, the Kindle Touch will take some getting used to.

The $99 Touch model does offer the read-aloud feature I mentioned earlier, which is missing from the $79 Kindle. (You can also purchase and listen to any of 60,000+ audiobooks from Audible.com.) And you can get the Kindle Touch in a 3G model (see below). It's a hair larger and a fraction of an ounce heavier than its less expensive cousin, but not enough that you'd probably notice unless you were holding one in each hand.

Speaking of features, the three E ink Kindles have a few other abilities, such as playing MP3 music files (Kindle Touch and Kindle Keyboard only), playing (very) simple games, and an "experimental" web browser (all three models). My advice: don't base a buying decision on these features. For example, almost any iPod is a better personal music player than a Kindle... the small handful of available games are mostly simple, slow-paced board games like checkers and Scrabble... and Amazon's "experimental" Kindle web browser is unable to display many web pages correctly. When you buy a Kindle, buy it as an ebook reader—don't tell yourself you're going to be surfing the web with it, because you won't want to do much of that... except perhaps in a dire emergency (e.g., if your main computer crashes). Remember, "It's a book, not a computer."

Which options?

There are actually several versions of each E ink Kindle model. The options are: with or without ads, and Wi-Fi only vs. Wi-Fi plus 3G (cell network). Let's talk about the ads first. Amazon calls these "special offers," and the least expensive version of each Kindle has 'em. They're not as obnoxious as they sound: they only show up as a screensaver when the Kindle is turned off, and as a small banner at the bottom of the home menu screen. You never see ads when actually reading a book—that would be too tacky.

If you'd rather not have any ads at all, you can eliminate them for an additional thirty or forty bucks, depending on the model. Even if you buy a Kindle with "special offers," you can upgrade it later to an ad-free one by paying the difference in cost. My advice: buy the model with ads and see how you like it before spending the extra money.

All Kindles can connect to the internet wirelessly via Wi-Fi. That's how you browse the Kindle Store and purchase new books with a single click. Downloads to your Kindle typically take less than a minute. (You can also connect it to your computer with the included USB cable). But the Kindle Touch and Kindle Keyboard models can also be had (for an additional forty to fifty bucks) with a built-in 3G system that connects to the internet via AT&T's cell phone network. No Wi-Fi hotspot is needed—if there's an AT&T cell tower nearby, you're online. (The original Kindle and Kindle 2 used Sprint, but with later models Amazon switched to AT&T.)

What's unique is that this capability, which Amazon calls "WhisperNet," doesn't require you to have a cell phone or a contract with AT&T... it's built into the purchase price of the Kindle. That's right: you can use the cell phone network for data transfers forever, with no monthly charges. This means you can easily browse Amazon's extensive selection of ebooks, and purchase titles right from your Kindle; they're sent to you wirelessly at very high speed. You can also subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs; they'll be automatically delivered to your Kindle every time a new issue is released.

It all depends on where you are

This is extremely cool, but there's a drawback for RVers: AT&T's wireless coverage is so-so at best, especially out in the boonies. If you live or travel in out-of-the-way areas (and what RVer doesn't?), Kindle's "WhisperNet" may not be able to connect much of the time. Of course you can still use Wi-Fi, if you're near a hotspot... or download books to your computer and then move them onto the Kindle via USB cable. But it may not be worth spending the extra bucks to get the 3G model, if you won't be able to use that feature most of the time.

Also, even when you have a good connection to a cell tower, "WhisperNet" doesn't always let you download books that way. I've found a number of cases where with larger books, my 3G Kindle tells me that I have to find a Wi-Fi hotspot instead—very annoying! And with Audible.com, this is always the case: you must find a Wi-Fi hotspot to download any audiobook.

So that's it for the E ink Kindles: you'll probably be happiest with the $99 Kindle Touch, or possibly with the $149 Kindle Touch 3G if you think you'll be in range of a Sprint tower often enough. Now let's turn our attention to the newest member of the family, the $199 Kindle Fire.

A horse of a different color: Kindle Fire

Although it bears the name "Kindle" and can be used as an ereader, this product is really in a different category from the E ink-based traditional Kindles. The Fire is a cut-rate tablet computer with a 7" color LCD screen.

That screen has several consequences. First, the Fire is slightly larger than the other Kindles... and more important, it weighs twice as much (14.6 oz.). It can be tiring to hold a pound in one hand for long periods. Because it has a backlit LCD screen, the Fire needs no book light, but it washes out badly in direct sunlight, so you probably won't want to use this for outdoor reading. And the power-hungry LCD means the Fire's battery life is limited to six or seven hours, compared to two or three weeks for the E ink Kindles.

In short, the Kindle Fire isn't an ideal ereader. Unfortunately, it also isn't a very good tablet computer.

Is it as good as an iPad?

That's the obvious question. And the obvious answer is "no." You don't get $500 worth of value for $199, even if Amazon is selling Fire tablets for slightly less than they cost to make. The Fire is very noticeably slower than an iPad; it has a screen that's less than half the size (in square inches), its battery life is shorter, it has no microphone, cameras, GPS, Bluetooth, or gyroscope, so it can't do navigation, videoconferencing (e.g., FaceTime or Skype) or speech recognition (e.g., Vlingo or Dragon Dictate), among other things the iPad excels at. There are no maps, no address book, no calendar, and very crude, limited email support. The 7" screen is OK for reading books, but it's way too small to comfortably read magazines or web pages.

Regrettably, the Fire is clumsy and frustrating to use. It has no volume control buttons, for example. You have to tap a tiny gear icon at the top of the screen to bring up an onscreen volume slider. When watching a movie or listening to music, that's very annoying. The only button on the Fire's case is the power button, which is awkwardly located on the lower edge of the case. Rest the tablet on that edge, and you're apt to turn it off by accident. And there's no Home button to get you out of an application. You must tap near the bottom of the screen to bring up a status bar, then tap the home icon there. Worse, some apps I've seen even have multiple home icons that look very similar, but do different things. There's not much consistency from one app to the next, so it quickly gets confusing.

And there aren't many apps. The Fire has only about one percent as many apps as are available for iPads. There are no Google apps at all (Maps, Search, Gmail, you name it.) Amazon has locked them out. You can't even go to Google's Android Marketplace to look for more—the Fire's web browser won't let you. Again and again when I search the Amazon Appstore for some basic utility that I take for granted on the iPad, I come up with "Not found." And those apps that are available are generally of lower quality the what you see on the iPad.

So the Fire is hard to recommend either as an ereader or as a tablet. If you're looking longingly at the iPad and wondering whether the Fire will be a good low-cost substitute, the answer, unfortunately, is "no." I strongly recommend reading David Pogue's review for the New York Times, and (especially) Marco Arment's Fire-vs.-iPad comparison chart before deciding.

I forced myself to use the Fire tablet instead of my iPad for nearly a month, hoping I'd get used to its quirky controls and find a place for it in my life. Then I gave up and sold it on eBay. My advice: if you want a tablet, skip the Kindle Fire. Save your pennies and get a real iPad, not a crippled, midget-sized imitation.

The Prime advantage

There's one more thing to consider: Amazon Prime. When Amazon started this service many years ago, Prime was a simple arrangement: you paid an annual membership fee, and in return you got "free" (well, no-extra-cost) second-day shipping on anything you ordered. If you bought a lot from Amazon, or if you bought a few large, expensive items, it was a good deal. I signed up for Prime back in 2005 because I was buying an iMac computer, and it cost less to join Prime and have it shipped second-day than it would have cost for normal ten-day UPS shipping. Prime paid for itself with that one purchase, and from then on everything I bought shipped for free. It was addictive, and I've renewed every year since then.

What does this have to do with ereaders? I'll tell you. Over the years, Amazon has been adding features to Prime. First they added streaming video. If you're a Prime member, you have access to more than 10,000 movies and TV shows that you can watch at any time on your computer... or your Kindle Fire. Think about that for a minute. Netflix's streaming video service costs $96 a year and currently offers about 5,000 titles (far fewer than their disc-by-mail operation). Amazon Prime costs $79 a year and offers twice as many titles... plus you get free second-day shipping on all your orders. That's a pretty strong argument in Amazon's favor.

Next Amazon added free books. Not just the usual public-domain warhorses like "Pride and Prejudice," but more than 5,000 bestsellers such as "The Hunger Games," "The Last Lecture," and "Water for Elephants." The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is available only to Prime members. Any Kindle can borrow these books. If you're not already a Prime member, you can request a free trial from Amazon.

Amazon is working pretty hard to get your business with these enticements. They know that once you're a Prime member, you're more likely to buy from them. But the thing is, the package they're offering is really a good value for many people. It certainly has been for me.

An ereader in your shirt pocket

Here's another possibility for reading ebooks—one you may not have considered: use your cell phone, or an iPod Touch. At first blush this may sound crazy—read books on a 3.5" screen? I certainly didn't think much of the idea before I got my iPod Touch.

When I bought my iPod Touch, I wanted it as a pocket-sized computer, and it has fulfilled that role beyond my wildest dreams. What I didn't expect was that I'd be reading books on that little screen. But to my surprise, almost half my reading is done on the iPod Touch. (By the way, everything I say here also applies to the iPhone, which has the same screen and runs the same software—more than 500,000 applications, as of late 2011.) A smaller, but decent, selection of ereader programs is available for Android cell phones.

Why would anyone want to read a book on a palm-sized screen? Well, an iPhone or iPod Touch has two big advantages over a Kindle-type ereader. First, it's so small that it fits in my shirt pocket, so it goes wherever I go. That means I have dozens of books with me all the time. If I get stuck in a line at the supermarket, or have to wait in a doctor's office, I pull out the phone and read a chapter or two. For an avid reader like me, this capability is a godsend.

And second, the iPhone and iPod Touch run many different ereader programs ("apps"), so it can access virtually any ebook available. In fact, I have Kindle software on my iPod, so I can shop at Amazon's Kindle bookstore. In effect, I have a shirt-pocket Kindle! If I wanted, I could run Barnes & Noble's "Nook" software and shop their store as well. (But why bother when I have Amazon?) I also have Eucalyptus, a beautifully designed program that gives me access to 30,000+ free books at Project Gutenberg. And the Stanza program lets me get commercial and free books at a number of other sites. All of these apps are free, except for Eucalyptus, which sells for $9.99—a cheap price to pay for 30,000 free books.

But what's the actual reading experience like? Well, I was surprised at how quickly I took to reading on the iPod Touch, and later, on the iPhone. Yes, you have to turn the pages more often. But a flick of the finger does it... and especially with Eucalyptus, the experience of turning the page is so realistic that I sometimes catch myself absentmindedly playing with the pages, just as I do with a real book.

The one thing these pocket-sized devices aren't good at is reading outdoors. Where E ink screens are at their best, LCD screens like the iPod's and iPhone's are at their worst, washing out in direct sunlight.

Of course the iPod and iPhone do many other things besides acting as ereaders. In "My shirt-pocket iPad" I describe how I use one in the course of a typical day, and in "A few of my favorite things" I describe some of the most useful applications I've found.

What about the iPad?

Since I described my iPod Touch as a "shirt-pocket iPad," it's reasonable to ask how a real iPad works as an ereader. After all, Apple's free iBooks app gives you access to their bookstore, and Kindle and Nook apps, among others, are also available.

Yes, you can read books on the iPad. Like the iPod Touch, it has a brilliant color screen, and the experience is certainly more "book-like" with the iPad's 9.7" screen size. You can read books that are illustrated in color, unlike with Kindle and the other E ink ereaders. The iPad handles PDF documents with aplomb, as well as the more common Kindle and ePub book formats. Someday I hope to make Eureka available in an iPad version.

On the other hand, the iPad is larger than a Kindle, and its 21-ounce weight is three times as great. Reading a book on a Kindle feels like reading a paperback; reading on an iPad is more like reading a coffee-table book. And as with the iPod Touch, the iPad's LCD screen washes out in direct sunlight, so it's best suited for indoor, or at least in-the-shade, reading. Oh, and it costs about four times as much as an E ink Kindle, or twice as much as a Kindle Fire.

Like the iPod Touch and iPhone, the iPad is a tremendously versatile handheld computer that can run more than 500,000 programs—the same ones that run on my iPod Touch and iPhone—ranging from games to word processors to utilities of various kinds. Far be it from me to talk you out of buying one! But if you're just looking for an ereader, the iPad is an expensive solution, and probably less than ideal.

iPad bargains

One last note: if you're thinking about buying an iPad, check out Apple's stock of refurbished iPads. Availability varies, but as I write this, you can buy an original iPad for as little as $399—the same price as a Kindle DX with the same size screen, but infinitely more capable. These Apple-refurbished iPads are completely tested, given brand new cases and batteries, and offered with the same warranty as new merchandise. I bought one for my cousin, and it was absolutely indistinguishable from a new iPad. It's worth considering, if you're in the market.

By the way, if you do get an iPad, you might be interested in my "Cool iPad Apps & Accessories" page, where I list some of my favorites.

Where the books come from

Let me start off by saying that I'm not a typical reader: I rarely buy recent books. In fact, I rarely buy books at all. Bestsellers? Generally not my cup of tea. I read mostly old public-domain books, and a few new ones that have been released under Creative Commons licenses. So while I know that almost all the latest books by the trendiest authors are out there in ebook form, I don't buy them myself. But they're out there, believe me, and I can tell you what I know about buying them.

Let's get the drawbacks out of the way first. The bestsellers aren't cheap... typically $10–$13. That's less than a hardcover book, but considering that with an ebook there are no printing, binding, shipping, warehousing or shelving costs, it seems like a lot more than it should be. Of course there are all those free public-domain books—the ones I mainly read. I'll get to those a little later. But you won't find Stieg Larsson or Danielle Steel among those free books.

You can't resell an ebook either—no donations to the local church bazaar. In fact, legally, you don't even own it. The company you bought it from could legally erase it from your ereader, although admittedly that's very unlikely. (It has happened once, though: Amazon erased copies of "Animal Farm" and "1984" from Kindles after discovering that the publisher didn't own US rights to the titles. They were lambasted by the media, and promised never to do it again, but they do have the capability.)

Here's another drawback: it seems every ereader manufacturer uses a different copy-protection scheme for its ebook store. Amazon uses its own; Barnes & Noble uses a different one; and so on. A Kindle ebook purchased at Amazon can't be read on a B&N Nook. A book purchased at Sony's bookstore can't be read on a Kindle. You get the picture. The result is that once you buy into an ereader system, it can be very expensive to switch to another. Say you buy a Nook, but later on decide to switch to a Kindle. None of the books you purchased from B&N will be available on your new Kindle. That's yet another reason why I recommend that you go with Amazon in the first place: they are the biggest electronic retailer, and they're the most committed to staying in the game.

There is, however, one important exception. Because tablet-style devices such as the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad can run many different ereader programs, you can read Kindle books, Nook books, and every other kind of ebook on one of these Apple devices. (Freud would probably have called them "polymorphously perverse"; I just call them versatile.)

Free! Free! Free!

What if like me, you don't want to buy ebooks? Where do you get them? The good news is that there's a huge selection of free ebooks online. Many are public-domain (including some surprisingly recent books); some have been released by their authors or publishers out of the goodness of their hearts... but they're all free, and unlike some music downloads, completely legal.

Let me mention just a few of my favorite places to get ebooks. The granddaddy of them all, of course, is Project Gutenberg, which alone has more than 30,000 titles, plus links to tens of thousands more on affiliated sites. A close second is manybooks.net, with 25,000+ titles. There's some overlap, but I find Manybooks much easier to search, and they offer each title in a variety of formats. Harrold's Books Online is a hideously cluttered-looking site, but has links to a remarkable assortment of books, from C.S. Lewis's "Narnia" books (all seven!) to the Nag Hamadi library of Gnostic texts.

And if you're a science fiction aficionado, as I am, the Baen Free Library is a treasure trove of old and new SF novels.

But how do you get them onto the ereader?

Ebook files aren't huge compared to photos or videos; they typically run somewhere between a few hundred K and just over a megabyte. There are four ways to get ebooks onto an ereader: via USB cable; via removable SD memory card; via Wi-Fi wireless network; or via the cell phone network. Of course, not all ereaders support all these methods. For example, my two-year-old Sony Reader (and actually, most of Sony's new ereaders) can only get books via USB or SD card. My iPod Touch can use USB or Wi-Fi. Amazon's latest Kindles come in two flavors: the budget models have Wi-Fi, but for another thirty bucks you can add 3G cellular-network capability (except the Kindle Fire—it's Wi-Fi-only). With the 3G models, anytime you're in range of a Sprint tower you can shop Amazon for books, and have them sent to your Kindle in a minute or two. (I'll talk more about that in a bit.)

You can also convert your own (un-copy-protected) files to be readable on most ereaders. The program Calibre (free for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux) can handle many different ebook format conversions.

And Amazon lets you email files to your Kindle. I've been doing that quite a lot, since I have a large library of books in RTF format. The Kindle can't read RTF files directly, but when I email a book to my Kindle address, Amazon converts it to Kindle format in the process.

A caveat about PDF files: although many ereaders claim to be able to display PDF files, most such files are formatted for an 8.5" x 11" page, and when you reduce that to a 4" x 6" screen, the text becomes too tiny to read comfortably. With normal ebooks, you can resize the text and it will "reflow" to fit the screen, but PDF text doesn't reflow, so you can't enlarge it without having to scroll horizontally to read each line—extremely annoying! Hence, most PDFs just aren't legible on the common 6" to 7" eReader screens. If you must read PDFs, get an iPad; its 9.7" screen will do a much better job.

Placing your bets

The ereader market is rapidly growing and changing, with new models popping up like mushrooms. That means many of today's models will be on tomorrow's garage-sale tables. (A gently used Kindle 3 could be a bargain, but I recommend against the angular Kindle 1— it has too many drawbacks.) That doesn't mean you should wait until the market shakes out to buy an ereader, because that'll take years. It does mean that choosing an ereader is making a bet, and some bets are better than others. For example, Amazon's Kindle is a safe choice, because Amazon has put all of its considerable resources behind it. An iPhone, iPod, or iPad running ereader software is another safe choice, because it can read any ebook format, and Apple—now the world's second largest corporation—isn't going away anytime soon.

What to avoid

But just as some bets are safe ones, others don't look so good. Here are a few ereaders that look like risky buys to me. For example, Sharper Image's Literati, Pandigital's Novel, Viewsonic's VEB620... and the slew of cheap Android tablets that can also be used as ereaders. I've seen 7" color tablets going for as little as $99. Of course, for that price you get minimal storage and RAM, a slow processor, lousy battery life, an unresponsive touchscreen, and a badly outdated version of the Android operating system, so that most new software won't work. You also get an instruction manual that's poorly translated from Chinese. (A typical example: "No reaction to operation for the screen - The stylus is recommended in such situation with more strength because of the slow response for the screen. 1 second is needed, as for the method of operation, please refer to the video.") You get the idea. There are a bunch of these ultra-cheapies already (they're even showing up in Walgreen's!), and there are going to be a lot more. Not a safe bet. If you absolutely have your heart set on a 7" tablet, you might want to consider the Nook Tablet. But like all 7" tablets, it has many drawbacks (small screen, small selection of apps, minimal storage, etc.)... so consider carefully before you plunk down your money.

I hope this has given you an idea of what to look for when shopping for an ereader. E ink Kindles are an easy, affordable choice. The iPod Touch and iPad are more expensive, but they're general-purpose devices with a host of other uses—well worth the extra cost if that's what you're looking for. (Many people, including me, own both a Kindle and an iPad; the two are really complementary.) What's certain is that an ereader will change your life for the better, giving you access to millions of books with no weight or space penalty. For a book lover, that's worth every penny.

This sample article is from my ebook "Eureka! Bright Ideas for Your RV."