I receive questions similar to the one I got from Donna recently. It involves something that sounds quite important in picking an e-book reader so let’s take a look and see.
I own a Toshiba Thrive which is not actually an e-reader but I can also read books on it, so it will qualify. My wife owns a Barnes & Noble Color Nook.
This question always involves, "which e-book reader can hold the most books?"
For our two, the Nook advertises that it can hold around five to six thousand e-books. It seems that all of them can hold at least three thousand and then it goes up from there. My Thrive could probably hold that many and maybe two or more times that amount. I’m guessing here, but I really don’t want to find out since I would have to buy a lot of books. Yes, I know I can get the e-books and add them to my tablet but again, why?
Now all numbers given by manufacturers can vary in either direction from what they say. No, they aren’t lying but it also depends on how many other items you store on them. All but the purest e-readers have the ability to add other applications to them. Those apps take up room too.
It also gets a little more complicated as far as numbers. If you buy a book from B&N, Amazon or anywhere else, you do not "have" to download them to your e-reader (no matter which one it is) until you are ready to read it. You can leave it in your online "library."
I am amused by the advertising which says you can hold 3,000 – 12,000 (plus or minus) books on the various readers because, well, why would a person want to?
Do some math here. If you are my age, in my 50s, you wouldn’t have enough years left to read 3,000 books.
If you have 3,000 books on your e-reader, pretend you read one book a week per year. We will also say that you skip two weeks a year and don’t read due to vacation, health, etc. That would be 3000/50. The answer is that it will take you 60 years to complete your reading. If your e-reader will hold 5,000 books, that would yield 100 years of reading. I hate to be negative here, but I do not believe that the majority of us will make it that long.
These numbers are just a wonderful marketing ploy. Most people just download a couple of recent purchases and save the rest until they finish the others. Once a book is read you can remove it from your e-reader and it is still kept in the B&N/Amazon account for you to download and reread later if you want to.
Have a great time no matter which you finally settle on.
