Apple iPad eBook Reader vs Amazon Kindle: Comparison Review

Are you looking for an ebook reader and hesitating on which one to choose between the Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle. The iPad and Kindle are currently the most popular personal gadgets on the market and both are offering to their users an unique experience as ebook readers. The Amazon Kindle is completely dedicated to reading: it allows its user to download and read ebooks, magazines, newspapers... Whereas the iPad is more like a "computer": it allows you to read and download ebooks like the Kindle, but it also allows you to browse the web, to play games, to listen to music... So why these 2 ebooks which are different as night and day are so popular? To help you decide which between the iPad and Kindle is best for you, let's take a closer look to them.

The iPad has a color screen, whereas the Kindle has a black and white screen.

The iPad LCD screen use the same technology as most notebooks and HDTVs. The IPad screen allows you to display photos, to play video games, to watch videos.. With the LCD screen, you can read in darkness. Moreover you can modify the pages and the display changes instantly. The drawbacks of the LCD screen is that a prolonged use may cause eye strain because of the luminosity. Moreover it's also hard to read in direct sunlight with the iPad LCD screen due to the reflection. Finally iPad LCD screen consumes energy quickly.

The Kindle has an e-link screen which works differently. The Kindle screen is easier on the eyes. You can read in direct sunlight with the Kindle: it's like you are reading a paper book. And, it consumes less energy. The drawbacks is that you can't read in dark places with the Kindle and you can't display animation with it.

The iPad has a 10-hour charge under regular use with Wi-Fi enabled, but will only get 9-hour battery life if using 3G. Of course, if you disconnect from the internet and only read, you will get a little bit more battery life, but not a lot, because the iPad LCD screen uses lots of energy.

Thanks to its e-ink screen, the Amazon Kindle uses energy only when it turns the pages. Therefore, its battery life is longer than the iPad's: you can wait up to one month before charging the battery.

The Amazon Kindle has a storage capacity of 180 Mo and more, whereas the iPad starts at 16 GB and goes up to 64 GB of internal memory.

The Amazon Kindle bookstore has more books available (over 670,000 books) than the Apple iBook store. Moreover the Amazon Kindle bookstore has more than 2 million of free public domain ebooks. But, this point is arguable, for the Kindle bookstore is availabe to the iPad through the Kindle Amazon iPad app. Moreover the Apple iPad user can access to Google eBooks with the Google Books app, to Barnes & Noble's Nook bookstore and other online bookstore... This isn't available to the Kindle which is limited to the Amazon Kindle bookstore.

What might influence your decision between getting an iPad or a Kindle is the price. The Kindle price starts at $114, whereas the iPad begins at $439 and may cost a lot more if you want more memory or want to add 3G.

Before deciding buying an iPad or a Kindle, ask yourself how you want to use your product. If you only want to read, then the Kindle is the best choice for you. Do you want to do more than reading? Then, the iPad might come handier. In both case, you will enjoy having them, for you can bring and read as many books as you want wherever you are.