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Comment by SoftwareMaven | Hacker News Reader

I totally agree. I really like my iPad for a lot of things, but it has been disappointing for pleasure reading of books because it is just too heavy.

Given that my primary use case will be reading, I now have to decide between a Kindle Paperwhite or the iPad Mini, with the one additional input that my kids would love to have another iPad in the house.

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Get the Paperwhite. It's wonderful to read on, in any light. I've had a Kindle Keyboard, Kindle DX, iPad, Nexus 7, and Kindle Fire (original and HD), and the Paperwhite is far and away the best device. It also fixes a ton of the refresh-related issues with the recent Touch generation.

The only downside is PDF viewing, which you should still leave to device with more serious CPU and some auto-crop and fancy scrolling support (e.g., by quarter-pages).

So I've only ever had the keyboard version and was wondering about the page turn buttons. Are they gone in paper-white? Do I have to reach across with a second hand and swipe to turn the page? Because if that's the case I won't be getting one.

Part of the good thing about the kindle is that I can just hold it still and keep reading, especially useful in bed.

You can just tap the screen to turn the page on a touchscreen Kindle. Very easy to do with your thumb.

Wonderful to read on -- unless you're reading kindle books that involve mathematical symbols. In which case, forget about it.

I wonder how well PDFs render on it.

They render fine, but the page speed update is just a bit too slow, particularly if you read PDFs that have frequent references to figures that are 2-3 pages distant from the referencing text.

If my primary use were reading, I'd get an ePaper-based eReader. No LCD screen can compare for readability, and the battery life is through the roof.

I have a Kindle Paperwhite and it is awesome for reading. I gave up on the iPad for reading a while ago.

I was convinced the iPad Mini was for me, until I just looked up the Paperwhite. However, I read a lot of articles and rely on Reader or Pocket. Does the Paperwhite support any such functionality?

You can configure InstaPaper to email your cuttings file to your Kindle account's email address whenever you add a new article to it. This works with any Kindle device (including the Kindle app on iOS or Android).

I use a Kindle for reading simply because of the lack of distractions. On the iPad I see notifications every time someone posts on Facebook, every time I get a new e-mail... it's hard to lose myself in the book.

Why don't you simply turn off notifications? Or even better, enabled the 'do not disturb' mode in the settings app?

I was running into the same problem, and ended up sending notifications for non-essentials to the lock screen but not elsewhere. It's made extended reading much more manageable.

Why don't you read in full screen mode then?

"Facebook would like to send you push notifications." - Do Not Allow

I have the nexus 7 and will be getting the new iPad 4thgen to replace my 1st gen. I love the Nexus but the mini looks great. The only worry I would have is that the bezels on the vertical sides look almost look to thin. Even when reading with the nexus I sometimes inadvertently change pages and I think this could be a greater problem on the mini. So for reading I would need to try it first.

According to Apple, iOS is capable, on the iPad mini, of recognizing whether your thumb is resting on the narrower border, or tapping on the interface.

"Rethinking the screen meant we also had to rethink the software behind it. iPad mini intelligently recognizes whether your thumb is simply resting on the display or whether you’re intentionally interacting with it. It’s the kind of detail you’ll notice — by not noticing it."

Source: http://www.macstories.net/stories/ipad-mini-our-complete-ove...

Thanks for pointing that out. It shows Apples focus on the user to consider something that would be easy to over look.

I love my iPad (2) more than any gadget I own (including my beloved 15" MacBook Pro that has really changed my life), but think of your poor eyes and get the kindle thing. Fixing your eyes (if, after hours of developing on LCDs, you spend a few other hours reading on one) is in order of tens of thousands of dollars.

I love my Kindle, but it's almost impossible to read PDFs on.

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