E Book Thingie

[LostWander]

I have notice your all tech savvy, so I am hoping you can point me in the right direction about an e book. If you can point me in a direct to read up on the different type, I would be much appreciated. Or, experiences about them. I just really want something wireless and allows for pdf. O and I want to be able to read books on it of course.

[Shadowwolf]

How much are you looking to spend and how versatile do you want it to be?

If you just want an e-reader, wait for the Kindle Fire. Cheap, powerful, color, and pretty versatile. ($199) The downside to using this is that all your books will need to come from Amazon, it wont support the B&N Nook app or books off the Google app store if I am not mistaken tho I am not 100% certain of that as the device does run Android, however I believe its a heavily modded version of it for Amazon as its not 3.x, its 2.2. Someone told me you need to root the device to get the Nook app on it.
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Fire-Amazon-Tablet/dp/B0051VVOB2

If you want mobile computing and have a bit of money to spend, for about $150 more you can have a standard Android tablet that runs 3.x and soon 4.x, which I would strongly suggest the one I have, the Asus Eeepad Transformer (TF101).
This thing is awesome and it is a lot better than the Samsung Tab 10.1 plus you dont need to buy a carrier contract with it. Plays 3d games, runs damn near anything under the sun, has a MicroSD slot and an HDMI out port, fantastic color screen, long battery life (i mean real long), Bluetooth, wifi, gps, camera on front and rear, the works. I paid about ($350) for the 32GB model which is about $250 cheaper than the Samsung Tab 10.1 32GB and is better in many ways (longer battery, nicer screen, MicroSD slot, etc) that the Samsung doesnt have.

The nice part of a generic Android tablet that isn't specifically an "e-reader" is you can download the Amazon Kindle app, the BN Nook app and get books off Google too. This way you arent limited in any way and all those apps are free, the books cost, but you then can have the freedom of buying from whomever you choose.

http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/

Now both of these need a Wifi connection, either a public one, or a portable one like your phone working in Access Point mode if you have an Android phone or a portable Wifi device like the Samsung 4G LTE (http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-LC11ZKAVZW) and stuff.

If you want a reader with a carrier connection built in, youre going to pay likely $100 more for it plus carrier monthly costs and youre going to be limited in what you can buy. I would look at your local Best Buy and take a peek at the tablets they have, the larger stores tend to carry a lot of models.

Stay away from the Blackberry Playbook and HP Touchpad. They are both crap and dont compare.

I would highly suggest staying away from an iPad as well. Yes its all the hype, but...you are jailed into what you can do with it by Apple unless you jailbreak it and then it voids the warranty, plus they are usually double the price of Android tablets and even the iPad2 isnt as good as some of the cheaper high end Android tablets out there. Nothing wrong with the devices themselves, I just dont see the logic in paying $699+ for a tablet just because it has a nifty Apple picture on the back.

[Lord Entropy]

You can get a basic Kindle for $80, which is really good, but it is just an ebook reader and doesn't doe PDF's natively.  You'd have to convert them I think.

Another option is a smartphone.  If you need a new phone anyway, it might be a good time to upgrade.

[Air]

Pdf's can be done natively on kindle's.  Text may look very small, if it isn't kindle formatted.  It doesn't do the epub format though, which the nook does do.  There's the new touchscreen kindle wifi for about $120.  I have a kindle and am enjoying it a great deal.  The one issue with kindle fire's is the battery life is only 8 hours.  If all you want is to read books, get a touchscreen kindle.  If you want to be able to browse internet on and other stuff, than get a kindle fire.

[Lord Entropy]

Thanks for the correction Air.  It's been a while since I've looked at Kindles.

[LostWander]

Thank you for the information. I am looking at these as a Christmas present.

[Zario]

I wasn't too keen on the concept of giving up paper, but I had Best Buy rewards to burn so I bought a Kindle.  I instantly fell in love with it.  The best part?  No backlight.  I know it sounds strange, but after spending all day looking at monitors, playing WoW all night, etc, my eyes would be strained.  The Kindle does feel like you're reading print instead of a screen.  Some PDF's with multiple columns or fine detail don't show up that well, but PDFs formatted as books work just fine. 

Plus, if you happen to come by free ebooks like the Gutenberg project or if they fall off the back of a truck, you can use free software like Calibre to covert from any other ebook format into one that the Kindle can read.