Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

At Teleread Ficbot has reviewed a bunch of eBook stores – it’s a pretty good post and it makes you wonder how to compare eBook stores when there are so many possible criteria.

What are the main criteria to review eBook Stores?

Two main criteria instantly jump to mind -

1. Price – Probably the most important criteria. 
2. Range – If the book you want isn’t there then what’s the use.  

At that point you can probably pick a winner. There are, however, lots of other criteria that can make a difference.

Additional Criteria when reviewing eBook stores

1. Ease of getting the books – If it takes a lot of effort and time to download the books and get them on your reading device then the total price becomes too high.  
2. Ease of navigation and buying – Again, we don’t want to spend ages finding and buying a book or worse – get stuck and not be able to buy the book.
3. Ease of finding new good books – This encompasses recommendations and reviews and other means of finding a good book. Consider Amazon and its dozens (sometimes hundreds) of customer reviews – that’s a huge advantage over any other ebook store.
4. Device Integration – How well does the eBook store work with your device? The Kindle Store is optimized for the Kindle and works great. With Kindle for iPhone you have to buy via the Safari web browser.
5. Formats – What formats does the eBook store sell books in? Can you read the ebook across various devices?
6. Add-on features and add-on value – Does the book come with text to speech? What about sharing between family members? What other value-add features are included?
7. Wishlists, Reminders, and Alerts - It’d be great to get price alerts, new release updates, reminders for favorite authors, and be able to create wishlists.
8. Coupons, Promotions and Deals – It seems to work for some people. They’d rather have a $14 book discounted to $11 than a $9.99 book.
9. Aesthetics – It makes a difference if the store is well laid out and uses the right colors and is visually appealing. 
10. Reasonable or no DRM – For some it’s imperative that an eBook store sell them books without DRM. There can also be a problem when an eBook store has unreasonable DRM or too many anti-piracy measures.

We can knit all these criteria into a composite picture of what a store offers. Price and range might be the two most important factors – However, they need a good set of supporting qualities to make them shine.

How do you compare two stores?

It’s hard to compare the Kindle Store with the Nook store – They are tailored to different devices, they are different experiences, and you can’t use books from one store on the other device.

Yet we still review and compare them – taking the shortcut of comparing on price and range.

Option 1: Compare device and store as a whole

This is what we default to -

• Is the Kindle Store on the Kindle better than the Nook Store on the Nook?

At the moment Kindle gets a massive advantage because of lower prices. If you want an eReader and the best prices you probably want to buy a Kindle and you probably want to buy eBooks from the Kindle Store.

Option 2: Compare only stores that sell for your device

Perhaps you have an iPhone. Then you get a lot of options -

1. Kindle for iPhone – Best prices and the best range. 
2. B&N eReader – Pretty good prices and pretty good range. The LendMe feature. 
3. Stanza – The best eReader software.  
4. Various other options.

Here again we see that it’s not a simple decision – the eReader software factors in. Stanza has the most options, Kindle for iPhone is the simplest, and B&N and others have their own unique advantages.

The eBook store is hard to compare on its own – There’s always a device or a piece of software or a website attached and there are myriad factors.

People ought to review and compare eBook Stores BEFORE buying a device

The biggest takeaway for me is that anyone considering an eReader should compare eBook stores before buying an eReader. Once you buy one eReader you’re locked into the options each eReader provides.

1. With the Kindle you get the Kindle Store and DRM-free PDF but you don’t get ePub and DRMed PDF is ruled out. There are some stores that do sell DRM free eBooks so it’s not that you’re forced to buy from the Kindle store.
2. With the Nook and the Sony Reader you get locked out of the Kindle Store and get all the ePub stores. The Nook even has access to books sold in the Sony Reader Store.
3. A few of the smaller eReaders are open to most formats – They are, however, locked out of the Kindle Store.

Factoring in what eBook store options you have at the beginning of the process ensures there are no nasty surprises down the line.

Filed under: reviews Tagged: | ebook store review