This holiday season, it will be hard to enter a store without setting eyes on a tablet computer or an e-reader. In both categories, big-name manufacturers — along with some you might not have heard of — are jumping on the bandwagon, trying hard to undercut each other with lower-priced gadgets.
It doesn’t help that so many of them claim to do the same thing. The iPad dominates the field, but there’s a slew of contenders that all run Google Inc.’s Android software, which is already common on smart phones. Meanwhile, the smaller tablets look almost indistinguishable from some new e-readers that hope to unseat the Kindle.
So which to buy? Here are the best options and some advice for figuring out which is the right choice for the person on your list.
E-readers:
Amazon Kindle (Wi-Fi only: $139; 3G: $189)
Pros: The Kindle’s display, which measures 6 inches diagonally, uses “electronic-ink” technology, which makes it easy to read books, newspapers and magazines in direct sunlight. It falls somewhere between an iPhone and an iPad in size and weighs half a pound, making the device from Amazon.com Inc. thinner and lighter than Barnes & Noble Inc.’s Nookcolor, its strongest rival. The Kindle also lasts longer on a charge: up to one week with Wi-Fi on and two to three weeks with it turned off.
Cons: Screen is gray-scale only. The pages are slow to turn, and zooming and scrolling don’t work. Lacks a built-in light source. Clunky built-in Web browser. Doesn’t accept books from public libraries.
Barnes & Noble Nookcolor ($249)
Pros: Displays books and magazines in color. The brightness of the 7-inch touchscreen can be adjusted for comfortable reading in a wide range of lighting conditions. Besides a large library of books, magazines and newspapers, Barnes & Noble sells children’s books with built-in narration tracks. Some books…