kindle

The 5 Best E-readers

Andrea Cannon — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 09:00:07 +0000

E-readers offer a unique reading experience that is becoming increasingly popular with readers of all ages. We've found some of the best on the market to help take your reading to the next level.

What is an e-reader?

An e-reader is an electronic device designed for reading digital ebooks, newspapers, magazines, and more. They are very portable and offer easy one-handed reading and limitless book options.

Top 5 e-readers

Kindle Paperwhite E-reader

Amazon's Choice for e-readers, the Kindle Paperwhite E-reader has a built-in adjustable light and fast performance. The glare-free screen has the highest resolution e-reader display and won't tire your eyes out. You can also flip through books, save your place, share notes, and more.

A single charge can last up to six weeks. You can also enjoy the free Kindle app, unlimited reading on any device with Prime, and the lowest prices on millions of titles. There are also additional features and accessories available to customize your e-reader.

The best-selling Kindle is available in black or white. It's PCMag's Editor's Choice pick and recommended by Business Insider, The Wirecutter, Digital Trends, CNET, and Tom's Guide. It's also backed by over 55,000 five-star reviews on Amazon. The standard Kindle E-reader Glare-Free Touchscreen Display is the most affordable Kindle option available and is also highly reviewed and recommended online.

Currently $99.99 on Amazon

Kobo Aura ONE

The Kobo Aura ONE was developed with Kobo's customers' comments in mind to ensure it offers the best solution for avid readers. The waterproof e-reader has 8GB storage, ComfortLight PRO blue-light night reading adjustments, unique front-light technology for better nighttime reading, and an extra large display. It's Digital Trends' Editor's Choice pick and recommended by Business Insider, PCMag, and CNET.

Currently $263.52 on Amazon

Barnes & Noble NOOK GlowLight Plus E-reader

The waterproof, dustproof Barnes & Noble NOOK GlowLight Plus E-reader features GlowLight technology, which evenly disperses light for enhanced reading. The 6" high-resolution, enhanced contrast 300-dpi screen has a built-in glare-, scratch- and fingerprint-resistant lens. The battery lasts up to six weeks on one charge. It's also recommended by The Wirecutter, Business Insider, Digital Trends, PCMag, and CNET.

Currently $126.99 on Amazon

Fire 7 Tablet with Alexa

Amazon's #1 best-seller in computers and accessories, the Fire 7 Tablet with Alexa is the cheapest option on our list, but offers the most. It has Alexa and millions of ebooks, apps, movies, and more, as well as unique features to help you customize your e-reader. The fast, responsive reader has front-facing and rear-facing cameras, high-contrast 7" IPS display, and up to eight hours of mixed use battery life. You can also enjoy the free Kindle app, unlimited reading on any device with Prime, and the lowest prices on millions of titles. This upgraded tablet is also now thinner, lighter, and more durable.

This is available in various colors and in 8GB and 16GB, with options for up to 256GB of expandable storage. There are also limitless cases, accessories, and features to help upgrade and customize your tablet. The frequently recommended, best-selling tablet and e-reader has more than 25,000 five-star reviews on Amazon.

Currently $47.49 on Amazon

Kindle Oasis E-reader

The Kindle Oasis E-reader offers a thin, ergonomic design, an adaptive front light, tons of unique features, and up to 32GB storage. The waterproof, glare-free screen has the largest, highest resolution e-reader display and won't tire your eyes out. You can flip through books, save your place, share notes, and more. It includes Audible and has various options to customize your e-reader.

The feature-packed device offers weeks of battery life with each charge. You can also enjoy the free Kindle app, unlimited reading on any device with Prime, and the lowest prices on millions of titles.

This is PC Mag's Editors' Choice pick and Digital Trends' Editor's Choice pick. It's an Amazon's Choice product and recommended by Business Insider, CNET, and Tom's Guide. It's also backed by over 2,500 five-star reviews on Amazon. The Kindle Voyage Ereader is another highly reviewed and recommended Kindle option.

Currently $237.49 on Amazon

And those are our recommendations for the best e-readers. As always, be sure to check Wise Bread's Buying Calendar to learn when and how to buy just about anything!

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This article is from Andrea Cannon of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

How to Never Pay for Another Book

Brooke Kaelin — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 12:00:09 +0000

If you have a computer, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, or Android device, you can download more books than you will ever be able to read for free. Here's how:

Book publishers are finally beginning to move with the times and offer larger and larger selections of current and classic books in digital formats. Retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes list those offerings and make many of them free for a limited time.

Amazon's Free Book List

You can find recently-written digital versions of books for free in the business, finance, self help, romance, science fiction, fantasy, classic, and children's categories. These books are usually only free for a day or two before Amazon rotates them out and features something else. You can keep an eye on the top 100 free list (on the right side of the linked page) to see what's current, or you can subscribe to our daily deals list and get the current offerings delivered to your email each day.

To read the books for free, you will need to download Amazon's free Kindle Whispernet software for your chosen device. You can find the software next to the "Add to cart" button for any book you want to download.

Free Books from Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble released the "Nook" to compete with Amazon's Kindle. And, just like Amazon, they offer their software for free, so you don't need the device to take advantage of the free books. Scroll down on their Nook page a bit, and find the link on the right to download the free Nook app for the iPhone, iPad, Android, or PC. Then check out their huge selection of free books.

Free Books from iTunes

The iTunes App Store has thousands of classic and current books available for free. Just browse through the books section and download anything you like to your iPhone or iPad. Do double check the price before you download though; every now and then they sneak in a paid book app.

That's it! Easy-peasy, and you have access to enough free books to spend several years doing nothing but reading. Enjoy!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

This article is from Brooke Kaelin of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

10 Free Things to Do With Your Kindle

Carrie Kirby — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:00:02 +0000

When I received a Kindle ebook reader for Christmas, I was worried that it would prompt me to start spending a lot of money on books. Pre-Kindle, I got most of my reading material from the library, borrowed books from others, or at least bought them used. Since most Kindle books are priced around $9.99, I thought I might be tempted to add an extra $10 a month to my entertainment budget.

I was delighted to learn that there are lots of free things to do with my Kindle. So far the only actual cash I have spent on the thing? $27 for a cute case from Etsy. Here are 10 free things I discovered I could do with my Kindle.

1. Browse books on Amazon.

One of my favorite activities in the world is to linger in a bookstore, picking up new and old titles and reading a few pages here, a few pages there. Now that I have three kids, it's something I almost never get to do. One thing that I realized shortly after getting my Kindle was that this thing is a bookstore — one I can step into at any time of the day or night. The Kindle can download a free sample of any book on offer, and these samples are usually one or more chapters in length! I absolutely adore sitting down to breastfeed my son and checking out a new book I heard about on NPR that day — without paying a cent and without even using two hands!

2. Download and read public domain works.

There are multiple places to download free books formatted for the Kindle, but the easiest place to start is Amazon.com. Simply go to the Kindle books page and sort prices from low to high. You'll find a hodgepodge of classics (so far I've downloaded and read Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness) and oddities like ancient issues of the Atlantic Monthly. I think these have been converted to Kindle format by volunteers. So far I have no complaints about the formatting and had no trouble reading them. There are also millions of free books available from sites other than Amazon.

3. Check your email.

Free access to email and the Web is actually the top reason I wanted a Kindle. Kindles access wireless networks wherever you are, just like an iPhone or Blackberry. But unlike those devices, you don't have to pay any data fees when checking your email on your Kindle. The downside is that my Yahoo Mail and Gmail look pretty crappy on Kindle, the speed is low and navigating is cumbersome. To try it on your own Kindle, simply hit the Menu button, select Experimental from the menu, then select Basic Web. You'll find a Web browser into which you can type the URL of your Web-based email.

4. Read blogs.

You can pay to subscribe to blogs on Kindle, but why? The Web browser makes it quite easy to type in the address of your blog, and while the format doesn't look perfect, it's not bad either.

5. Get directions and do everything else that one does with mobile Internet.

You can access Google Maps to get turn-by-turn directions, or really look up anything on the entire Internet. You get the idea.

6. Look words up in the dictionary.

Kindle has a built-in New Oxford American Dictionary. To search it even when you're not reading, hit Menu, then select "Search." You'll be given a text window and the options of looking up what you type in the dictionary, Wikipedia, the books on your Kindle, the Amazon store, or just Google.

7. Listen to your mp3s.

OK, the Kindle makes for a dorky-looking music player, but what the heck? It's the word nerd's iPod. The mp3 function is also under the "Experimental" menu option. (Also, this is not free but you can subscribe to Audible.com and listen to audiobooks on Kindle as well.)

8. Read your own files.

This site has instructions for transferring PDFs to your Kindle — you can have them converted to Kindle format or just transfer them as PDFs.

9. Buy and read new releases — with Swagbucks.

Recently, I wrote about how I used the Swagbucks site to earn Amazon gift certificates for my Christmas shopping. Many of you signed up — and thanks to you I am getting so many points called SB each day that I can afford to cash some in for Amazon gift cards, which I then spend on Kindle books — and still have plenty left over to save for next Christmas. Once gift cards are applied to your Amazon account, they will automatically be used to pay for any books you order through your Kindle. It takes about 900 SB (they recently multiplied all SB by 100) to pay for one $9.99 Kindle book, and I'd guess that most people who use Swagbucks for search the Web every day could probably earn enough to buy one book per month.

10. Listen to a story.

Once you have books on your Kindle, you can listen to them as audiobooks for no& additional charge with the text-to-speech function. I found the robot voice surprisingly listenable. I also downloaded a free fairy tale book in case I ever need Kindle to read my kids a story in a pinch.

This article is from Carrie Kirby of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Help End Hunger, Get Kindled, and 3 More Positive Web Tips You Should Know About

Linsey Knerl — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:56:31 +0000

There are days when little bits of good news can help undercut the bad. With a recent initiative by Tyson to end hunger, a new super-groovy Kindle-esque iPhone app, and a killer comparison shopping site, there’s good stuff out there. (You just have to know where to find it!)

The iPhone can now be used as a Kindle (seriously). – The unofficial Apple Weblog verifies that the rumors are true! Hooray for those of you who held back from buying the $300+ Kindle (and possibly the 2^nd generation Kindle 2) but were using an iPhone, anyway. I haven’t purchased an iPhone yet (I’ve been narrowly eeking by without a phone at all), but this gives me one more reason to upgrade. This and the Pandora app will probably seal the deal for me. (Not to mention the fact that illustrations in the iPhone app will be displayed in color. Very groovy.)

Your pledge can feed 140 kids. As part of an impressive initiative by Tyson foods, you can help end hunger. Be one of the 1,000 people that pledges to give, share, or volunteer for the cause, and your pledge will guarantee 35 lbs of food will end up on a truck to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas in Austin during the SXSW ’09 Interactive Festival. Ways to share (which is all you need to do to help the cause) include:

Use the share function on the website.
Follow @HungerPledge on Twitter for updates and use #HungerPledge with your tweets.
Write a blog post about Pledge to End Hunger.
Email the link to your colleagues, family, & friends.
Join the Pledge to End Hunger Facebook cause.
Embed the Pledge to End Hunger Tally widget on your website, blog, or MySpace account.

Plan for the future with a family heirloom. You hear about it all the time: Kids squabbling over who will get the china set when the parents pass away. While we can’t give advice on the family dynamics that can come about during these difficult times, this recent article on Mainstreet.com highlights some tips you should take to ensure that taxes are handled accordingly. The best part of the piece isn’t the financial details, however. It gives creative ideas for passing down heirlooms, even if you don’t have a row to hoe. (Tomatoes, anyone?)

There’s nothing depressing about this meal. If you somehow missed Trent’s roundup of spectacular Depression-era cooking videos (compliments of a lovely 93-year-old Clara), you must stop what you are doing and check them out! Not only are the recipes delicious, they are true to the mission of keeping things simple. (It’s also motivation for those of us who’ve considered video blogging to get up and finally do it. This lady is fantastic!)

All I ever needed to know about growing sprouts, I learned from Jenn Fowler. I admit to over-spending on fancy sprout-growing kits. (Shame, shame.) If you haven’t already fallen victim to unnecessary growing gizmos, or you want to redeem yourself with a no-nonsense, super-affordable method to making your own green edible sprouts in your kitchen, you still have time. Frugal Upstate’s photos and directions are dummy-proof. (Plus, they really make me want to eat a veggie sandwich!)

Beat this! From the makers of the hit website RetailMeNot.com (a favorite among many of us, including Paul Michael) comes an impressive upgrade to comparison shopping. While it’s still in the beginning stages, BeatMyPrice.com is a fun and fairly accurate way to find the lowest price for an item online. What really caught my eye was the way that it suggests coupon codes for the shopping outlets it provides, and it is slowly building a reader-based price guide for each item. I just tried a search for “Salad Spinner” and input a link to one on Amazon for $29.99. The BeatMyPrice.com tool gave me just one other product to choose from, but it happened to be a Wolfgang Puck stainless steel version for just 10 cents less. Bravo!

This article is from Linsey Knerl of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Can a Kindle Save You Money? Oprah's Coupon Code Makes It Easier

Carrie Kirby — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:17:27 +0000

Amazon's Kindle digital reader is like a Wii for readers: Endless entertainment options, loveable hardware, extra features galore. Just today, Oprah showed how, with the addition of an digital memory card, the Kindle allows you to carry around FOUR THOUSAND books. An entire library, in your carry-on bag. Instant gratification when you want a new book or magazine. Plus blogs.

But two things have held me (and my credit card) back: price and price.

That is, the $359 price tag, and the cost to buy books and magazines to put on it. Even though Kindle books cost about $6 less than hard copies, if you get most of your books through the public libarary or second-hand sales like I do, keeping your Kindle stocked will end up costing you more.

In a moment, more on whether a Kindle could actually save you money. But right now, here's something that's convincing me to take the Kindle plunge: This morning, that booklover Oprah offered a $50 off coupon code, making the Kindle just $309.

The code is OPRAHWINFREY, and it's good through Nov. 1.

Now, to the question of whether owning a Kindle can save you money. Many have asserted it can -- in fact the Wall Street Journal argued that it can in two different columns. The best way, the Journal points out, to save money with the Kindle is not through buying books -- saving $6 a book, you'd have to buy 52 new books for it to pay for itself even with the Oprah discount.

The way a Kindle can really save you money, WSJ columnist Brett Arends says, is with its mobile data features. With Kindle's keyboard and basic Internet browser, some users may replace their cell phone's mobile data plan with the free Kindle service, saving $20 a month or more.

If you set aside your $20 a month for mobile data toward the $309 for the Kindle, you are only paying $5.75 a month for a year, then it's paid for. So if you buy one book a month, and cancel a $20 data plan, the savings WOULD pay for a Kindle in a year.

Then there are subscriptions. When I was a business reporter, I used to subscribe to the New York Times to read on the train. It currently costs about $6.70 a week to have the Times delivered to your doorstep. On Kindle, it's $13.99, a savings of more than $13 a month. So if all you did was read the NYT, it would take you two years for the device to pay for itself at the Oprah price. But other magazines, like the Wall Street Journal, currently offer better deals on the paper version than the Kindle version.

In conclusion, I'd say that SOME people would save money with a Kindle. Daily train commuters and people who spend a lot of time in airports could clearly save -- and would most benefit from the convenience of not having to go out and seek physical copies of their reading material. For me, a stay-at-home mom with no mobile data plan, there would be little to no savings.

But you know what? I kind of, really want one anyway. And my birthday is coming up. And, since I have a free trial of Amazon Prime, I could have one here tomorrow by paying just $3.99 to upgrade to overnight shipping. Oh, wait! I thought of something. I'm about to spend about $500 on a nice oak bookshelf for our dining room. To hold all those old-school books we buy at second-hand sales, etc. If I stop buying paper books, I won't have to buy any more expensive bookshelves. And there's always the savings to the environment if I convert my Chicago Tribune subscription to a digital one, even though they're the same price.

Commenters: Can you help me come up with any more justifications so my husband will read this and buy me a "money-saving" Kindle for my birthday?

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

This article is from Carrie Kirby of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: