Reading on a Kindle vs. an iPod Touch

Since getting my Kindle in August, I have become a fiction-reading machine! I am loving it. The odd part, that I didn’t really analyze, was that BEFORE the Kindle, I was reading mostly non-fiction.

I never really thought about why I made the switch, but a friend of mine pointed out that he prefers fiction on the Kindle because fiction is strictly linear. With non-fiction, he says he likes to jump around within the book, and physically highlight and hand write notes in the margins. Hmmm. Interesting. I think for me, it’s not so much the FIRST time through (which I probably do do linearly) as much as it is for the repeat visits. Search doesn’t always work when you can’t recall the exact terminology used. Flipping through paper pages sometimes just works better for this. Anyway ….

Now fast forward to March, when I got an iPod Touch and installed the Kindle app on it. The first thing I noticed was that at night, when reading in bed while hubby is trying to sleep, the iPod throws off much less ambient light than the Kindle clip-on light. So I started reading from the iPod at night.

The auto-sync feature is the “da bomb!” I can not get over how wonderful it is to read the same book on two devices, and have each one sync (politely, first asking my permission) to the last page read. The ONLY downside, is that now I am leaving the wireless “ON” on the Kindle, which I never used to do, and this does use up more battery life. But turning it on/off at the beginning and end of a reading session (just for the sync to work) was too much trouble.

Everyone asks me, how can you read on that tiny iPhone? (It’s not actually a phone, ’cause we can’t use AT&T and besides that I can’t type on it, so it would never be my primary mobile email device!!!) Anyway, the point being that people think the screen is too small to be comfortable. But it’s not! Somehow it just works .. with that wonderful finger swoop or tap to change pages.

And because the iPod is smaller than the Kindle, I found it easier to use on an airplane. Plus I started listening to music while I was reading … using my noise-blocking ear buds…. and that was an added plus on the plane. As I am typing this, I realize I COULD simultaneously listen to music and read on the Kindle. I just never have loaded my music on the Kindle. The iTunes interface is my default for my music, so it just naturally ends up on my iPod instead.

So, even though I prefer reading on the Kindle because it’s easier on the eyes, it has a built-in dictionary, and a larger screen, the last time I traveled, I only brought the iPod (and left the Kindle at home) because of its convenient small size.

Which brings me to the next question. Lots of pundits are asking if the iPad will overtake the Kindle as the def acto ebook reader. In my book? No way. The size is much too big, and whole advantage of the Kindle is that it is SMALLER than a book. And the advantage of the iPod is that it is SMALLER than the Kindle. So there! Amazon Kindle rocks on both the Kindle and the iPod. The end!