Video Comparison of 4 E-readers + another Nook and Kindle Face-off

Len Edgerly's whimsically titled Wolf Hall Tournament of Ereaders video is a comparison of features and functioning of four e-readers and is the newest feature at his The Reading Edge site, which has interesting reports and interviews in connection with the many e-readers available currently.  Here's the direct link to Len's blog report with embedded video.

 To get the larger version of the video, click on the top left image or the link at the left.

 Len loves e-readers and buys them to try them out, not waiting for review copies.  In this case, he also bought 4 copies of the "Wolf Hall" book because the alleged 'standard' of ePub between books with digital-rights-management added to the book files is not quite standard yet.  Nooks can read Sony books sometimes but not vice versa, Adobe holds the DRM reins, and the book vendors tend to add something a bit different to theirs.  Despite talking to customer support at a couple of e-book stores, there was no support given to Len for using other vendors' files on the e-readers.

The 4 e-readers reviewed for effectiveness of functions are the Sony Pocket Reader, the Kobo Reader, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and the Amazon Kindle 2.   The Sony PRS-600 has known glare and contrast issues due to an additional layer for a touch screen, and Len did not keep his, so it's not included.  Also, it doesn't have wireless at all, for the higher price.  The Sony Pocket Reader and the Kobo are on a more equal level as they both have no wireless to speak of and no basic study features such as inline-dictionary, searches for a character, highlighting or notes.   The Sony Pocket reader has long been popular for its "pocket"ability and easy-to-read contrast-ratio, but the Kobo has a slightly larger screen.

Seldom do online gadget reviews go into how the advertised features actually function and even tend to not mention basic ones like the dictionary, search, and annotations many like to use with an e-reader.  The few I have seen that do discuss functioning include the recent Laptop Magazine report on the Kindle DX Graphite and one on Sony readers by Willson Rothman of Gizmodo.
  A favorite for its description of how Kindle features work, in general, is by boygeniusreport.com, done for the Kindle 2, which Len uses for the video comparison.  And there's one by Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica actually describing how the new software update's features work.

  That's especially what I like about the video.  Len lists features important to him and shows HOW each is implemented on the two e-book readers that have screens unimpeded by an extra layer of glass and which happen to be the two leading e-readers in sales today -- the Nook and the Kindle 2.

  There'll be a new Nook soon (Nook 2 and the new Kindle 3 (and UK Kindle 3) in late August.  We know what the Kindle 3 will have but have no idea what the new Nook 2 features will be.  In this video, you'll see how each handles (1) dictionary look-ups, (2) searches for a character's name or mentions in a book, and (3) highlighting and note-taking as well as how to find a highlight or note you made.

  These are key differences and most reviewers have not gone into the functioning of these features vs other e-book readers at all.  So Len has done quite a service here.   It's 28.5 minutes long, so set aside some time to watch it if you're curious about the differences between these models.

  The one thing I'd like in the future is Len using a tripod behind him and showing the full model or full screen as he shows the functioning, because the close-ups can take you out of context, and often the video-camera doesn't focus fast enough when going close-up anyway.  The actual words are not as important as the actions with the screen and sometimes keyboard in full view. Closeups could be added as needed later.

  But I've seen no one else do such a clear comparison of book readers before, showing how features are implemented on each.  And Len Edgerly's presentation is devoid of the 'seller' characteristics you often see with video reports.  He likes what he likes, with reasons given, and is enthusiastic, but he's also fair-minded and open and an e-reader/gadget addict who cannot have enough of them :-).

  The surprise for many is usually the password-protected, private webpage we have at Amazon (if we approve server backup of our annotations) that shows all our highlighting and notes for each book we download from Amazon, in chronological order and copyable to a text file so we can edit the notes in a separate document, and of course is printable.
  It's really an amazingly helpful private webpage which I never saw mentioned in college pilot studies feedback.  In fact, students in those studies reported difficulty with just highlighting (which I find easy to do).  What i like is you can UNhighlight too :-), something hard to do with a physical book.  But notes typed in are slow-going with that keyboard.  However, I prefer it to a hard, flat-surfaced virtual one.

  Now that the annotations webpage has been modified by Amazon to include the Facebook and Twitter features, I should add that the most useful first page there is the one listing your books, showing which ones have or don't have annotations, etc.  Here's a sample of a page showing a selected book and annotations for it.

Len has written about the Wolf Hall video in conversations on Twitter and in comments at Youtube and feels he should have mentioned the Nook's "Lend me" feature, which is better than no lending feature but, if the publisher allows the feature, the loan of a Nook book is restricted to one loan ever, for each book, for 2 weeks max.

  Kindlers compare that with how the account-sharing plan is implemented at Amazon, in which a book can be shared among 6 devices on an account, with no mention of 'household' or 'family.'  Kindle Customer support helps with the how's of registration and deregistation of other individuals' Kindles on your account, and many spouses use the feature, so that one book can be read at the same time by both for one purchase.  One would have to put a lot of trust in anyone who uses that account as the account owner is responsible for all the charges.  There is a long-running Amazon Kindle forum thread on how Kindle-owners use the feature.

  Where the Nook and Kobo shine is the ability to borrow public library e-books - a rich feature for a city with a large collection of these (New York City) but less exciting in many other areas.  Check with your local library.  I wish Amazon had the fortitude to work out arrangements with libraries.
  That's a primary factor for some, but if it's not very important on a personal level then how an e-reader works will be key.  And Len's video will give you a very good idea.


E-reader Faceoff: Kindle or Nook? Here's a Written Comparison
Also appearing last night is a short article by Mark W. Smith for Free Press (freep.com).  An excerpt:

' The big difference here is the Nook's small color touch screen at the bottom of the device. The Kindle features a physical keyboard and a handy five-way rocker button for navigation. The Nook's color touch screen is nice, but the navigation can feel disjointed as you touch one screen to move the cursor on another. And the bright color display can be distracting while you read. '

He has good advice on choosing wireless options and lists unique advantages of each e-reader over the other.


Kindle 3   (UK: Kindle 3),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Macmillan hard cover books return

NY Times: Macmillan Books Return After Dispute.  Brad Stone and Motoko Rich report on the end of negotations, though it's not clear what was successfully negotiated.  

They write:

' So what did Amazon hold out for?  The company would not comment, but it is likely that Amazon demanded that no other e-book vendors, such as Apple, get preferential access to new titles, or any kind of pricing advantages.
  Amazon may also have negotiated terms into its agreement with the publisher that would allow users of Kindles or Kindle software to lend e-books to each other. '

Emphases mine.  The words 'likely' and 'may' are used to mention concessions, the concepts of which wouldn't have come from thin air.  It seems the NYTimes probably got SOME kind of word but isn't free to say so outright.

Also, while hardcover books are back, the Kindle edition copies have not shown up as of mid-Friday evening.

OTHER NEWS REPORTS - Follow links for full stories
1. Why (And How) Apple Killed The $US9.99 Ebook

' Publishers joining Apple’s iBooks store are turning their back on Amazon and its vision of the flat $US9.99 ebook. Apple forced the music industry to charge 99 US cents per song, so why are they helping publishers set their own prices?

To screw Amazon. '   [From Gizmodo.com]

2. Apple iPad Helps Publishers Get Better Price from Amazon

' Gizmodo reports that the move could mean the end of the $9.99 book.  The conventional wisdom is that publishers will set the ebook prices first proposed by Apple—from $12.99 to $14.99.  I suspect that Penguin and Simon & Schuster will follow suit and that Amazon will be forced to migrate to the agency model and match Apple pricing.'   [From beforeitsnews.com]

3. Epicenter The Business of Tech Panacea or Poison Pill:
    Who Gets to Decide About $10 E-Books?

' Hachette has become the third major publisher to publicly denounce Amazon.com’s $10 e-book model.  It joins Macmillan and HarperCollins in what seems now like the death blow to a price point that had less to do with the inherent value of the content than it did with finding a magic number readers could not resist in droves. '   [From wired.com]

It's Friday night and Len Edgerly's The Kindle Chronicles weekly podcast is up, with the final part of the 2-part interview with Forrester's James McQuivey, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.
  The first part is at Len's The Reading Edge podcast, which reports on all e-readers -- this last week's podcasts being especially germane, as mentioned in the last blog entry here. Part 1 of a 2-part interview there is titled "Amazon Brings a Knife to a Mud Fight."
  In Part 2 James McQuivey also shares his thoughts on the Apple’s new iPad's place in all this as well as what the next Kindle may shape up to be. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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The Macmillan and iPad Effect on the Kindle

At a time when the large publishing houses are rushing to charge Kindle customers 50% more for e-books because e-books are "cannibalizing" hard cover sales (yet they like to dismiss them as a tiny percentage of book sales), some Kindle owners -- especially new ones, for whom the $10 bestseller Kindle book price was a lead feature -- have wondered out loud if they should not have bought their Kindles.

In a current forum thread, Kindle owners are asked if they would take an offer at this point to return their Kindles to Amazon for a refund (not that this is being offered but Amazon does have a 30-day return policy).
  The resulting forum discussion is an interesting read.  Click on the link to read it.

A really interesting Listen is this week's edition of the new, weekly Len Edgerly The Reading Edge podcast, which reports on all e-readers -- this week's podcast being especially germane: Part 1 of a 2-part interview with James McQuivey, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.  It's titled "Amazon Brings a Knife to a Mud Fight."  Edgerly mentions that

' He also shares his thoughts on how Apple’s new iPad figures in to all this.

 I’ll have the second half of this interview on The Kindle Chronicles episode 81, which will be uploaded as usual on Friday, February 5.  In that portion, James will discuss what he and his teammates at Forrester are calling “The Kindle Flame,” by which they mean the next generation of Kindle that might, if it gets certain things right, set the eBook market fully ablaze as opposed to merely kindled." '

I also browsed news articles analyzing the effect of the last week on Amazon and the Kindle.  Here are excerpts from a few:

BARRONS - "Amazon's Overblown E-Book Tussle" Excerpts:

' We believe concerns over the impact of the potential change in e-book pricing and Apple's (AAPL) iPad launch have been overblown.

Even if all of the publishers move to the agency model, which is unlikely, we still expect Amazon to capture a large share of the e-book market. We also expect physical book sales, in which Amazon has a leading market position, to significantly exceed digital book sales for at least the next five years. In addition, the iPad costs two to three times more than the Kindle, and its liquid crystal display screen provides an inferior book-reading experience...
. . .
Among our takeaways is that Amazon will likely sell fewer titles at higher prices and a higher margin from publishers instituting an agency pricing model. Some publishers are likely to maintain the current wholesale pricing structure in order to capture share, which could put pressure on companies using the agency model. '

To read the full article, click the top result of the linked Google results page if you're not a subscriber yet.

PAIDCONTENT - BARCLAYS CAPITAL
- "More Than 3 Million Could Be Sold This Year: Analyst"

' ... according to updated estimates from Doug Anmuth, analyst at Barclays Capital, in light of Amazon’s Q4 results and recent accounting change. Anmuth says he estimates 3.1 million Kindles will be sold this year ((62 percent growth Y/Y)
. . .
- Increased competition from the iPad, but Kindle is significantly cheaper & will continue to appeal to somewhat of a different market given the e-Ink screen, smaller form factor, better battery life, & lower weight.

- While the recent pricing dispute with Macmillan could signal a broader shift toward an agency model of eBook distribution, we believe higher margins will partially help offset the lower volume resulting from higher eBook prices. '

(See the customer forum thread mentioned, for reactions to how they plan to deal with this this.)
  At the general Amazon Kindle discussion forums, you'll see an avalanche of reactions, which include authors from Macmillan adding their input, with the unfortunate result that too many wind up alienating customers via posts that are hostile to the customer reactions to the 50% price increase for Macmillan, and likely for Rupert Murdoch's Harper-Collins as well as Simon & Schuster, all making similar noises to Macmillan's now.

SEEKING ALPHA - Interesting Stock market results for Apple

' Apple’s (AAPL) revenues surged 32% on better-than-expected computer sales. It beat its earnings estimate by $1.60 per share. It even introduced the iPad, a new product it hopes will take market share from Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle. After an initial rally, the stock dropped 5% below where it was before the company announced all this news. '

TUAW (The Unofficial Apple WebLog)
"HarperCollins pressuring Amazon to hike Kindle prices"

I guess the below does again explain why Steve Jobs was so cocky in announcing in that video that Amazon and Apple's iBookstore would have the same prices despite the current $5-lower Amazon pricing:

'...now HarperCollins is putting the pressure on that same site to raise eBook prices from $9.99 up to $14.99 or higher. Amazon finds itself in between a rock and an iPad -- if they don't give in to publishers' demands, they could find themselves abandoned for an exclusive Apple deal, but if they do raise prices, sales will start dropping even before the iPad appears. Jobs predicted about this much last week in an interview with Walt Mossberg, saying that publishers would run afoul of the Amazon store, and Jobs would be more than happy to pick them up in iBooks.

. . . At the Apple event the other week, Jobs said on stage that prices on the Kindle and the iPad for books would be "the same," so while fleeting images of the iPad showed bestsellers at around $10 (which is what Amazon charges), it's possible that Jobs would go with the $14.99 price to woo publishers over to his side. '

[ Methodology: In asking the publishers to raise the prices, as he did, Jobs wouldn't care how few he sold, only the margin for each.  In Apple's case the focus is on the hardware. ]

THEWRAP - "Amazon Slow to Restore Macmillan Titles"

' . . . It's now been four days since Amazon said it would reluctantly “capitulate” to Macmillan, and though the publisher's books began to trickle back onto the site Tuesday, many titles were still unavailable for hardcover purchase directly through Amazon’s store.

Whether Amazon was being passive-aggressive or just lazy isn't clear. But Amazon's snit with Macmillan is just only the tip of the iceberg: Not only has Apple said its iBooks store will charge $14.99, but News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch said on Tuesday's call with investors that he doesn't like HarperCollins' deal with Amazon -- and may challenge the bookseller's discount pricing, too.
. . .
Apple intends to price e-books at $14.99, essentially siding with book publishers in the hopes that they’ll cut deals with the iPad for exclusive releases, putting a dent into the Kindle’s market dominance. ("Publishers will actually withhold their books from Amazon," Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal, "because they are not happy with the price.")

But will Apple’s Kindle-killer strategy work?

That question could ultimately depend on e-book customers. There’s already a small movement organized by Kindle enthusiasts to boycott any e-book that is priced over $9.99.

“I think Amazon has quite successfully burned the $9.99 price point into the brains of digital readers,” said Jason Boog, editor of mediabistro.com’s book industry blog, GalleyCat. “If people are actively organizing boycotts against a certain price point, for better or for worse, Amazon has already won the price war.”

Boog predicts publishers “will be forced to offer a bare-bones $9.99 eBook edition for most books, and then build fancier ‘enhanced’ e-books for tablet computers and sell for a premium price... '

The next week should be interesting. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Amazon should give a $5 credit for $15 Macmillan bestseller books

One of the things noted yesterday in Amazon's white-flag statement yesterday was: "We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms ..."

I wrote:

'What happens between now and "ultimately" should be somewhat interesting... '

In an optimistic mood for a change, I suggested that if there was time for a compromise arrangement, there might be a workable solution and suggested one, and am adding another one today.

1.   The e-book pricing on a Macmillan NY Times bestseller could be $15 for the FIRST month of release and $9.99 after that.   Most would be happy enough to either wait or buy.

    The problem with that is that Macmillan has let it be known that they've wanted a SEVEN-month wait after hardcover release date before releasing an e-book.
    To me, that alienates an entire customer base (much of which is not only not interested in hard-cover books but very active online in fighting pricing above $10 for bestsellers).  I do get the impression Macmillan views e-book customers as very low-value unless they can get them to pay the same prices made for new bestsellers, always discounted heavily -- but in those cases there is a physical book without DRM restrictions and with the ability to loan or sell or even give away that book.

  Worse, Macmillan's John Sargent actually feels that if they delay the hardcover Kindle edition release, these people will go buy a hardcover one.

  Think again.  The one thing that Macmillan earns with that delay is an angry audience that had been eager to pay them, immediately, additional money while not interested at all in buying the mainstay hardcover books.

2.   Amazon, with each Macmillan best seller sold at the proposed $15  (which affects Amazon's marketing ads promising that NY Times bestsellers are, in general, $9.99 in the U.S., could give a $5 credit toward another Amazon best seller or toward a book priced at $15.  They could still, in effect, have a $10 price on those bestsellers.

NEWS TODAY
  ABCNews reports:

' "We are in discussions with Amazon about how to resolve our differences," Macmillan CEO John Sargent told The Associated Press Sunday. He declined to comment further. '

Let's hope they have a solution geared to the customer.

THE ADDED PROBLEM FOR AMAZON WITH THIS SCENARIO
  There really IS a problem for Amazon's marketing and global description of its NY Times best e-book sellers costing only $9.99 (+ $2 outside the U.S.) on the Kindle.  They have always carried a disclaimer along with the marketing blurb:
"New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise" (U.S.)

Now they can awkwardly add "or published by Macmillan."

That's not even entirely a joke.  There are so many Macmillan books (including its imprints) that unless Amazon makes this clear
( via the sudden temporary removal of book-buying capability for a publisher that insists on a bookstore owner becoming only their 'agent' with NO control over how it chooses its own sell-price for its own customers )
on its own new way for the bookstore owner to operate), customers and periodicals would likely blame Amazon for the sudden flow of $15 bestsellers books despite Amazon's advertising of its most popular feature.

  In other words, Macmillan's insistence that Amazon act as an "Agent" for their books, rather than as an independent book store owner, creates a new situation that can hurt Amazon's entire Kindle premise.  With Steve Jobs so heavily involved as is documented, one can wonder if that isn't a main goal.  As we've seen, John Sargent is not e-book friendly.

WIDELY SHARED MISINFORMATION ON NET FORUMS
Macmillan authors are out in force on the forums everywhere, as are people who don't understand the normal setting of prices at bookstores anywhere.

  Some authors think (or were helped in thinking) that their cut is based on a book store's sell-price for a book.
  No, it's based, as I said, on a mutually-agreed percentage of the LIST price set by the publisher when the agreements are made.   On a book with a list price of $25, Amazon is said to usually pay large publishers about 50% of that, or $12.50 (and from this the publisher pays the author).  Note that $12.50 is more than $9.99 of course, but what counts for the publisher/author is the list price.  They still get paid based on the $12.50 figure.

The correct but inappropriate mantra on forums today is

    "The publisher should have the right to set its own prices."

Well, Of course they should.  And the large publishing houses wanting to raise e-book prices do have that right and always have.

I follow publishing forums, and the information is consistent.
  Normally, the bookstore owner buys from the publisher, and the cost, to the bookstore owner, of that purchase is decided by a mutually-agreed percentage of the Publisher-set LIST price.  That is a given.

That is the price the publishing houses always get to set.  And have been setting here.   From that List price basis, set by the publisher, they pay the author also.

The difference:
Bookstore owners set the actual SELL-price for the customers, based on their knowledge of their audience.

 Price it too high and the bookstore has few sales and loses money.

  Price it too low and the bookstore can lose money with low or nil margins.

 The store, though, has the option to offer loss-leaders so they can make money from other items bought by customers attracted to the loss-leaders.  (Regular buyers will note that some stray bestsellers are priced higher but there but I haven't seen much about this on the forums discussions.

Today, I signed up for email copies of Macmillan notes in ONE forum thread and received 486 of them in a short period, deleted them, and cancelled it.

Once more, the publisher AND author are paid according to the publisher's SET LIST price,

The bookstore needs to keep a profitable business and decides what SELL price will work best for it.

I don't understand the narrow-mindset of a few large publishing houses.  All they're doing when delaying e-book releases is *losing* additional money that Kindle customers want to send on release day.

 Money is spent on the Kindle specifically to read weightless books in a personal library, and the e-book purchases are used to justify buying an e-reader in the first place.  The last thing wanted by that segment is a hard-cover book.

The world changes and the publishers should think more constructively about how they will deal with electronic/digital books instead of rushing to lose money for themelves and for the bookstore owner.  Never mind the (e-book) customer (which is the last thing on some publishers' minds these days.

"Why can't it be like the old days?" Time just doesn't stand still for anyone.

The Kindle Chronicle Podcast's Len Edgerly interviews Bred Stone, Technology writer for the New York Times, and discusses the iPad and the launch.

Note that Edgerly has added a new weekly podcast, The Reading Edge Podcast - Conversations about the eBook Revolution Hosted by Len Edgerly.  His podcasts are always informative and entertaining. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!