Let me first confess that I am a dedicated e-book reader.  My only regret is that when I was traveling a lot that they were not available.  I can remember carrying more than one book, both usually hard-copy, when traveling or worse paying full bore retail for a book in the airport. Now when I do travel, which is not nearly as often, I take an e-reader – we will get to the choices in a minute – and can take as many books as I want or if need be purchase one on-line in about a minute and at a discounted price.

While one can read a book on any computer – Kindle and other e-book readers are available for computers – I do not find that very satisfying.  However, I have both a Kindle and my iPad and both are excellent e-readers.  The questions is how do I choose between the two?  Generally at home, with both units available, I use the Kindle.  What is interesting about this is that I do not recall making an actual decision to do that.  As I reflect on the issue it actually becomes quite obvious.  The Kindle is smaller, lighter and the screen is readable in any reasonable light.  On the other hand if I am reading away from home, even if it is at the doctors office while waiting for the doctor (anybody familiar with that?) I invariably use the iPad.  Again, I think the reason is quite obvious – the iPad is much more versatile being both an e-reader and a computer and I can find no reason to carry two devices.  This decision here was a much more conscious one than choosing the Kindle while reading at home.  The iPad has one more advantage, and impacts usage both at home and away, that is reading newspapers and magazines.  As more publications make full representations of their product available for the iPad this advantage increases.  To the point that in some cases I have cancelled the print version.  As an aside if you have an iPad you should take a look at Flipboard (It is available in the App Store).  It is an accumulation of news in various categories, from various sources, and is fully customize-able.

I suspect the question is would I have a Kindle if I had not owned one prior to acquiring the iPad and the answer is more than likely no.  While the Kindle is nice for straight book reading the advantage is not enough to cause me to purchase one if I already had the iPad.