Episode 188: The Best Ereader?

The Pulp Writer Show

In this week's episode, I take a look at different models of ereader devices and try to determine which is the best one. I also reflect on the experience of watching the Super Bowl for the first time in several years.

This week’s coupon is for the audiobook of GHOST IN THE RAZOR as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of GHOST IN THE RAZOR for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code:

WINTERRAZOR

The coupon code is valid through March 1st, 2024, so if you find yourself needing an audiobook to break up the winter doldrums, we’ve got one ready for you!

TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 188 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February the 16th 2024 as I record this, and today we are looking at the best ereader devices. I also talk a little bit about what it was like to watch the Super Bowl for the first time in like 20 years. Just a little word of warning, there is some fairly substantial construction noise going on the street outside that may intrude in the background. Additionally, yesterday the computer I use for recording for received a Windows Update that messed it up rather severely, and the processor is constantly maxing out, which means it makes a loud fan noise. So if you hear hissing noise in the background, that is what is happening. I just haven't had time to fix it yet, so between the construction noise and that hissing noise, we are going to have an adventuresome podcast today.

Before we get to our main topics, let us do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is going to be for the audiobook of Ghost in the Razor, as excellently narrated by narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of Ghost in the Razor for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: WINTERRAZOR. That is WINTERRAZOR and that will be included in the show notes. That coupon code will be valid until March 1st, 2024. So if you find yourself needing an audiobook to break up the winter doldrums, we've got one ready for you.

Now let's have some updates on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling, the second book in my LitRPG series, is now out and you can get it at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. After a year’s worth of sales data from the first book, I have concluded that LitRPG really does seem to perform best in Kindle Unlimited and audio so that is where it's going to go. It's currently in Kindle Unlimited and hopefully we should have audio in a few months, but we'll see how that works out and remind you that it’s at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. I'm not sure how long the series is going to be. I am leaning towards making it a trilogy and wrapping it up with the next book, but we will see how Leveling performs for the first 30 days it's out in the marketplace and maybe it would merit becoming a longer series, but if it sells at the level I expected it to, I think it will probably be trilogy.

My next big project will be Ghost in the Veils, the second book in the Ghost Armor series with Caina, and I am 8,000 words into that, putting me on Chapter 2 and hopefully that will come out towards the end of March. It does need to come out before April because that's when I have a recording slot scheduled for it, so it does need to come out by then, so it's going to come out by then.

I'm also about 26,000 words into Wizard Thief, the second book in the Half-Elven Thief series, and hopefully that will come out fairly quickly after Ghost in the Veils comes out. I am also writing the outline for Cloak of Titans, which would be the eleventh Cloak Mage book, and that will be my main project after Ghost in the Veils and Wizard Thief are out. In audiobook news, recording is underway for Shield of Storms, and hopefully that should be out in March sometime, but we will see how things go.

00:03:17 Reader Comment

Before we get to our main topics, let's have a comment from a reader. James says: having just finished the Dragonskull series while waiting for Cloak of Titans, I thought how great it would be if there’s a short story about Gareth’s return home with Niara would be. His mother's reaction would be precious. Just starting on the Sevenfold Sword series. I love all your books and you have totally taken over my Kindle.

Thanks, James. I am glad you have enjoyed all those books. In answer to your question, that is a fairly major part of the plot in Shield of Storms, where Gareth and companions return home. Just the difference is in the Shield War series, Gareth and his friends aren't the main characters. They're supporting characters and Ridmark is one of the main characters.

00:03:57 Thoughts on the 2024 Super Bowl

Now let's talk about something a bit uncharacteristic: The Super Bowl. I did something I haven't done since the early 2000s, and I watched the entirety of The Super Bowl last week. The reason I did that was that some family members wanted to watch it, and I had no objection. So I watched The Super Bowl. Though to be fair, when I say watched, what I really mean is I had it on in the background while playing Icewind Dale on my iPad for the most part, along with some Skyrim on my Switch. I admit that when I was younger and more insufferable, I would make a point of refusing to watch The Super Bowl. Then I realized such an approach was self-defeating. Professional football is no better or worse than any other form of recreation. Additionally, connecting with people socially is not among my strengths, and very often sports discussions are the low hanging fruit of easy social engagement. That said, I don't exactly pay close attention to professional sports, so here is what I found interesting about The Super Bowl as an outsider, so to speak.

I think an observer completely unfamiliar with American culture and professional sports, upon watching The Super Bowl, would conclude it was a 3 1/2 hour block of commercials infrequently broken up by two-minute clips of football. That said, the Christopher Walken commercial was the funniest one and also the one with Dunkin' Donuts. The NFL may not be a cartel in the strict legal definition of the term, but we all know it's totally a cartel, which is a pretty sweet position to be in because you have massive corporations like Apple and Verizon shelling out big bucks. So it's the Apple Music Halftime Show or the Verizon Pregame Show or whatever.

I do think from an objective viewpoint that it is rather surprising that football became the predominant sporting event in America. And I think the reason has to do with the football commissioners rather foresightedly seeing the potential of broadcast television in the 1950s and the 1960s. American football, if you look at it from the outside, is this really weird mutant form of rugby with a lot of arcane terminology and non-intuitive rules, and compared to soccer or basketball, it's just a very slow and plodding game. There's 15 seconds of action and then everyone stands around for two or three minutes. It's time for a commercial break, brought to you by Verizon. Soccer and basketball are much faster paced If American football is the imperial system, then European football/soccer is the metric system that everybody else in the world uses.

I suspect to really appreciate American football, you have to get into it as a child and grow up with it so all the weird rules become second nature, which is probably why the NFL embraced Taylor Swift so much this year, which did annoy some long-term NFL fans who are not fans of Swift's music. I don't really have an opinion on Taylor Swift one way or another, since I mostly listen to computer game soundtracks, that is my preferred musical genre. But like I said above, I think to really appreciate American football you have to grow up with it. Football doesn't quite have the cultural hegemony it had in the ‘80s and the ‘90s. It's still massively popular, but more and more parents are keeping their kids away from playing it because of the danger of long-term head injuries or because of all the many sketchy things the NFL has done over the years. Though, to be fair, it's not like FIFA is a paragon of business ethics either, so you have more young people who don't grow up with it and therefore can't be bothered to pay attention.

But Swift is popular with the young people, and the NFL desperately wants more of the young people watching the games. I don't think the Super Bowl or the NFL season is scripted in advance, but I can definitely see how people come to that conclusion, partly because the NFL's broadcasts are so slick and media savvy that they feel like they should be scripted. I think it's mostly because the human brain has this tendency to see systems and order where there is in fact, nothing more than chaos. Though this year's Super Bowl game was so dramatic, with the Chiefs squeaking out a win in overtime, that it feels like it should have been written in advance.

Finally, are football and professional sports the modern “bread and circuses” like they had in the Roman Empire? Maybe. But if they are, is that necessarily even a bad thing? If you look at history, every large civilization has had games and public spectacles as part of the maintenance of social and public order. Some aspect of human psychology really seems to require it. There's lots to criticize about the NFL, but it's certainly better than a lot of the stuff the Romans got up to or early medieval tournaments, which were mock battles that sometimes escalated into actual battles that turned into actual local wars. Perhaps modern professional sports or a more efficient and usually more bloodless method of public spectacle.

So I don't really have any grand conclusions here, just observations from an outsider’s perspective made while watching the Super Bowl and mostly playing Icewind Dale on my iPad, though I am pleased to report that in Icewind Dale during The Super Bowl I defeated an ogre with a bunch of Level 1 characters and my thief and my cleric both leveled up during the game. When I talked about this on my Facebook page, my readers had some good comments, so I thought I'd read a few of the few of few of them here.

00:09:11 Reader Comments on the 2024 Super Bowl

Our first comments from William, who writing from the perspective of someone in the UK, says: I've seen the Super Bowl described as one of the great shared cultural experiences of the US and one of those times you can enjoy American football even if you're not really into the sport otherwise. It's one of those times you get together with family acquaintances you have few, if any common interests with. I think that's true and that's some good insight there.

An opposing comment comes from reader named Mary, who says: I grew up breathing NFL. My sons played football through high school. As an adult, I watched consistently until I moved to an area without many services. Went four years without TV. Ordered a new streaming device and service. I hoped to bring some of those great memories forward. My goodness, what a disappointment. The commercials are heavily pharma-based or bad food. Gambling is another frequent advertisement. You're correct, the advertising is the point. I spend most of my free time reading, a much more immersive experience. Cancelled my service today with relief. So we can also see that the emphasis on ads during The Super Bowl and I think during regular football games as well, really does turn off some viewers. I definitely approve of reading as someone's main form of recreation, though I admit that might be a bit of self-interest on my part.

00:10:24 Main Topic: Best ereaders for 2024 in the US

Now let's continue on to our main topic: the best ereaders available for 2024 in the US market. A couple of notes before we start. This is not sponsored. There are no affiliate links here. I'm not getting paid for anything I say here and these are just my opinions and research we are talking about on the show today. Because technology changes so quickly, I want to emphasize that this is current information or current information to the best of my ability as of February 2024, and since I'm based in the US, this mostly applies to the US market. It's definitely a good idea to do your own research when you're buying an electronic device, especially regarding specs, and especially if you have very specialized needs. The information was pulled together with a lot of help from my podcast transcriptionist by combing through user reviews and looking at testing from popular magazines such as Consumer Reports, Wired, PC Magazine, Good Housekeeping, and similar magazines.

So I suppose we should start with the obvious question. Why have a dedicated ereader when you can easily read ebooks on your phone or tablet? An ereader does have several advantages that you don't get with a phone or a tablet. For one thing, it's lighter. It's easier to use with one hand, which, depending on the size of your tablet or phone, may be impossible. It also helps with eye strain if you're using a dedicated grayscale ereader. It doesn't have a backlight or it has a much weaker backlight than a tablet or phone will have, and therefore it is generally easier on the eyes, though that can vary from person to person. And it can also help you to focus on reading and minimize distractions, because if you're reading on a tablet or a phone, you might get a lot of notifications coming in from text messages or emails or social media and all that, all of which can pull you out of the book you are trying to read. So if you are a serious reader and you don't mind reading ebooks, it can be definitely worth your while to have a dedicated ereader.

So let's look at the most popular model of ereader, which of course in the US and several other countries is the Amazon Kindle. In general, Kindles are superbly integrated with the Amazon ecosystem, but they generally don't work well with non-Amazon or non-Kindle products. I've run into that a few times myself on my Payhip store (which hopefully you will visit soon to get your discounted copy of the audiobook of Ghost in the Razor). I often have to include several different kinds of file formats to work with whatever generation of Kindle people might be using. Additionally, if you use your local library’s ebook service and they use Libby, not all Libby books are available for Kindles. A couple of times I've run into that, where I want to check out an ebook from Libby and it turns out that it's not available for Kindle, which is kind of disappointing because then you have to read it on your phone, which defeats the purpose of this episode.

For specific Kindle models, the Kindle Oasis seems to be the high end one, and because it has the strongest backlight, it is considered generally best for reading at night. The Kindle Paperwhite seems to be overall the best reviewed and most popular model. It is lightweight. It weighs less than half a pound and it is waterproof. It has strong reviews from many review publications like Wired and Good Housekeeping and has a major fan following. Finally, the perhaps most esoteric Kindle ereader would be the Kindle Scribe. It's the biggest one, designed for note taking. So that's something that interests you that might be worth investigating, though it would be harder to hold the Kindle Scribe with one hand.

After the Kindles, probably the most popular model of ereader in the US is the Kobo family. I'm a big fan of Kobo. Most of my books are available on Kobo, and most of them are also in Kobo Plus, their subscription program. In general, Kobos are best for people who do a lot of side loading, which involves taking ebook files and loading them manually onto your device and people who want a lot of customization. The one weakness of Kobo is that we're not entirely sure how well it will work with the various library services. The OverDrive app is being retired in favor of Libby and Kobo relies heavily on OverDrive because Kobo's parent company, Rakuten, used to own OverDrive for a while until they sold it off. So with OverDrive going away in favor of Libby, it's sort of an open question how well Kobos will integrate with library services in the future.

Additionally, it's important to note that audiobooks and magazines from Libby are not presently available for Kobo devices. Hopefully that will change in the future, but that is the case right now. For specific models of the Kobo, Eclipsa is considered the best for people who like to take notes and annotate the actual pages, and it has the feature where you can convert handwriting to type text and then export those notes to Dropbox. The Kobo Clara model is the budget option that still has waterproofing, which is different from the Kindle base model, which doesn't. The Paperwhite does. I don't think the Oasis has waterproofing, but the Kindle Paperwhite does. If you are one of those people who likes to read in the bath and you drop your ereader, hopefully it will survive the immersion till you get it out of the water. Clara does have that waterproofing feature.

The most popular model seems to be the Kobo Libra and it's best for those who are not locked into the Amazon ecosystem or another specific vendor. It has a very loyal cult following. It has physical page turn buttons, for those who prefer that feature, and it is highly regarded for its screen clarity. It also has very good battery life, which again is one of those strengths of ereaders over phones and tablets, which tend to be charging every other day, especially because the Libra settings allow you to easily shut off the Wi-Fi, dial back the lighting, and so forth to extend the battery life.

So Kindle and Kobo are the big ones, but there's a couple others we should address. One of them is the Nook Glowlight, which is the current ereader available from Barnes and Noble. The tricky part with Barnes and Noble is that while they do have ebooks, it is not really a priority for the the company's current management, which has chosen to focus primarily on physical bookselling and which has apparently kept Barnes and Noble from going bankrupt. So good thing. But they're not hugely as interested in ebooks as they used to be. The Glowlight is best for those who have a lot of Barnes and Noble gift cards to use, since that's a popular present or who already have a lot of ebooks from Barnes and Noble. Unfortunately, it does not integrate very well with public library software like Libby. It can be done, but it is a lot of work and not nearly as easy as it is with the Kindle or the Kobos. And there are complaints of system problems like it's difficult to set up or prone to freezing.

Another popular but niche ebook reader is the Onyx Boox Tab, which is a tablet with a color E ink display and the picture quality resembles color newspapers (for those of you who are old enough to remember when newspapers had color pictures). It has a loyal cult following, especially with comics and manga readers, and it has good note taking features. However, the big weakness is it is expensive and costs around $600.00 USD.

Now, while we've mostly focused on dedicated ereaders, the truth is that tablets can in fact be very good ereaders if you know what you want and you know what you want to use them for. The advantages tablets have over ereaders is that they are more versatile than ereaders. And if, like nearly all of us, you are on a budget and limited what you can spend, which, let's be honest, is true of everybody, it may make more sense to buy a device that can do many things instead of an ereader which can do just one thing. Tablets are also good for those who aren't committed to a single source for their ebooks. You can easily download apps for all of the main ebook stores on an iPad. You can have the Kindle app, the Barnes and Noble app, the Kobo app, and a bunch of library services such as Libby and Hoopla, and you can enjoy them all on one device.

Tablets are also good for those who enjoy reading manga or magazines often because if you have a color display, you can see the illustrations that come in a magazine or an ebook that has a lot of color illustrations, like a technical manual or a history book that has a lot of color plates, and the larger screens minimize the need for constantly zooming text. This is something I have done myself. I have a Kindle Fire HD-10 and I also have a bunch of various PDFs I bought from the Pathfinder company from a Humble Bundle and it's a lot easier to read PDFs in color on a Kindle Fire than it is on a dedicated ereader because you can move around the page easily. The screen is big enough you can see most of the text. You can see all the illustrations in color. It's really nice.

So let's take a look at the specific families of tablets and nowadays, for all practical purposes, there are three major tablet families. The first and the most successful one is the iPad. Everyone knows what the iPad is. It's the best device for those who want to use it for web browsing, media use, and ebook reading. The iPad Pro models are rather overpowered for normal reading and web browsing and media use. They're also quite a bit more expensive. The base model iPad is the cheapest it's ever been. I think as of right now, as of this recording you get a base model iPad for about $329, which while a lot of money, is still significantly cheaper than has been in the past. And it also is a very capable device that can do everything we've listed above.

The second major family is the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is generally well regarded and is the iPad's chief competitor, and it gets high reports for reliability and performance from all the reviews. You get access to the full Google Play Store so you can install a bunch of apps and you can get all the different ereader apps and all the different library apps on Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The third major tablet family is Amazon Fire tablet line. I have one and I'm quite happy with it. It's better for those who play games or watch videos heavily, since it's very strongly tied into Amazon's media ecosystem. So it does make a pretty good portable video player if you are tied into Amazon's Prime Video ecosystem. It's not as convenient for sideloaders, and the biggest weakness of the Amazon Fire is that you only have access to Amazon's curated App Store. You don't have access to the full Google Play ecosystem, which is a lot bigger and more vibrant than Amazon's App Store. Very often you will find popular Android and iOS apps that are available for regular Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy or for the iPad are just not available on the Amazon Fire. So I'd say overall that's it’s biggest weakness. It is possible to install the Google Play Store on the Amazon Fire, though, it does take a bit of finagling, and given the rumors that that Amazon is planning to develop its own operating system for its Fire tablets, that option may go away in the future. So that is something to bear in mind.

And I thought it would be interesting to wrap up the show by sharing what I personally use for ereading and what my podcast transcriptionist personally uses for ereading, since she did most of the research for this episode and helped me pull it all together. The transcriptionist’s favorites that she likes are the Kindle Paperwhite for outdoor reading. It's easier than eyes on the eyes than the tablet screen. She prefers the iPad for magazines and books with lots of color photographs, like cookbooks.

For myself, I do most of my reading on a Kindle Oasis that I bought before COVID broke out in 2020, which, given the amount of reading I did during COVID, turned out to be a really good investment. After four and a half years, it's still going pretty strong and I'm hoping to keep on using it for several years to come. For a tablet, I have an iPad that I use pretty regularly. I do some reading on it when I have some with a lot of photographs, though for most color reading I have a Kindle Fire 10 that I got for editing because in my final stage of editing my books, I use it to read the book aloud to catch anything weird and hopefully fix any lingering problems, but it's also really great for viewing full color PDF files because you can load the PDFs on the Kindle Fire and then they show up in your library. It's very easy and convenient and smooth to read them on the Kindle Fire HD-10. So that is what I personally use for ereading.

So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes of the show with frequent transcripts on https://thepulpwritershow.com. Speaking of transcripts, I'd like to once again thank my transcriptionist for helping me to do the research for this episode. So if you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.