Readers help bibliophiles keep their eyesight and bring a lot of pleasure from the process of reading. But why do we need this category of electronics if there is a smartphone in every pocket? Or, at the very least, a home tablet for gatherings behind a large screen? ..

Tablet, smartphone or e-reader?

Of course, you can read from the screen of a mobile phone or tablet computer. No wonder a lot of specialized applications have been released for them. More information about common reading programs is described in the material "Overview of the most popular readers for iOS, Android, MacOS and Windows".

If you read from the screens of a smartphone or tablet for a long time and regularly, the risk of damage to vision increases significantly. The negative impact on the visual apparatus is caused by the backlight “peeling” into the eyes and its flickering. Readers have displays that are completely different - electronic ink screens look exactly like plain paper and are illuminated in the dark with soft side illumination.

A clear difference between the readability of text from the screens of the reader and the tablet in bright sunlight.

Due to the principle of obtaining an image using reflected light, the screen of electronic readers is more comfortable for the eyes, does not glare or fade in the sun. The front panel of a conditional "mobile phone" turns into a dark rectangle in bright sunlight, where it is difficult to make out the displayed image.

Monopoly E Ink

With rare exceptions, e-reader manufacturers purchase screens from E Ink Corporation. It has a monopoly on the reading room market. The displays of the same name are based on electronic ink technology - miniature cells contain white and black pigments with different charges, as well as a transparent oil base. When current is applied, some pigments rise up, while others move down, thereby forming an image or text on the screen. In E Ink displays, energy is spent only on turning pages; with a static picture, the battery charge is not consumed at all.

In E Ink displays, most of the power consumption comes from turning pages. When displaying a static picture, the battery is not consumed.

Early generations of "electronic paper" E Ink are gradually relegated to the dustbin of history. You can meet them on board the "readers" of past years. Since about 2013, E Ink Carta panels have been massively installed in readers - black and white screens with the ability to display 16 shades of gray, providing a brighter, more contrasting and clearer image.

A new word in the technology of manufacturing displays for e-books - "paper" E Ink Kaleido. These are color screens for reading illustrated content in the manner of children's books, textbooks, comics and fashion glossy magazines. Similar screens are built from a traditional E Ink panel, on top of which an RGB filter is superimposed - it allows you to display 4096 shades of color. The colors on readers with Kaleido generation displays are reminiscent of color printing on newsprint.

Schematic structure of color displays E Ink Kaleido for electronic readers.

The display caliber of e-readers has grown a lot in recent years. The diagonal of their screen starts at 6 inches - these models are suitable for reading ordinary text books. The "golden mean" for today are screens of 7.8-inch dimensions diagonally. "Readers" of this universal form factor fit perfectly in the hand and fit into a small women's handbag. Home readers are armed with 10+ inch displays for relaxed couch use. On a screen of such a large caliber, it is convenient to read electronic newspapers or, for example, look at battle maps in historical military treatises.

The giant screen of the ONYX BOOX MAX Lumi reader has a diagonal size of over 13 inches.

The best of modern readers combine two control schemes in one bottle: touch and push-button. By tapping on the display, you can quickly change the scale, use the text search function, surf the Internet in browser mode. The buttons, in turn, are convenient for turning pages, plus quick access functions are assigned to them: to dictionaries, an audio player, etc. Purely push-button models will serve as a rational acquisition for schoolchildren and elderly relatives.

Ebooks with E Ink Carta Screen

Backlight

Readers of the current generation are rarely produced without a built-in screen backlight. In devices of the budget link and the middle class, the backlight is usually white. For readers with a higher rank, the displays are illuminated by a backlight with adjustable color temperature. Warm shades relax the reader's visual apparatus and have a positive effect on the human nervous system. Yellow and orange lights are turned on when reading before going to bed.

In models with the function of adjusting the color temperature, you can choose the most comfortable tonality of the backlight.

In color models of e-books, only white backlighting is used. Adjusting the color temperature in them would lead to distortions in the color reproduction of the screen. The included backlight system is the most energy-consuming consumer of the reader's battery charge. But even with constant reading with it, the average "reader" is able to stay afloat for a couple of weeks without energy supply from the outside.

File formats

The more file formats an electronic reader reads, the better for the user, who does not have to look for the right resolution of a digitized book or use the services of third-party converters. Every self-respecting reader should recognize the lion's share of these formats:

  • FB2, EPUB, MOBI are popular e-book formats;
  • DOC and DOCX are ordinary text documents, sometimes books are converted into them;
  • PDF is a document format that is also used for the release of electronic versions of glossy magazines;
  • DjVu is a definite alternative to PDF, tailored for lossless image conversion;
  • CBR and CBZ are popular comic book formats.

In models with a built-in music player and support for dubbing printed publications, it will be useful to support “running” audio file formats.

The more file formats the reader reads, the better.

Memory in the electronic "reader" should be enough for both books and audio tracks. However, the pursuit of hundreds of gigabytes of built-in space does not make sense - an ordinary FB2 book weighs less than 1 MB, so even an 8 GB drive is enough for a reader to create thousands of books. Fans of listening to relaxing music while reading should take a closer look at models with a slot for memory cards.

Voice-reading eBooks

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules

The Wi-Fi module is required for readers to connect to the Internet. Access to the World Wide Web opens up the possibility of launching online stores, downloading books from public resources, browsing, etc.

For models with an audio player and voice reading support, a Bluetooth adapter is used to connect wireless headphones.

The Bluetooth wireless adapter is equipped with "readers" with a built-in audio player and a voice reading function - voiceover of handwritten text. The above module is used to connect to the headphone reader.

operating system

The vast majority of e-readers are running redesigned versions of the Linux kernel, energy-efficient software platforms that have been adapted for reading books as a primary task. Systems with their own add-ons are lightweight and economical. Under the condition of reading 2-3 hours a day, readers on Linux OS calmly maintain autonomy for up to 2 months in a row.

The expansion of the Android operating system has also reached e-books.

"Readers" on Android are essentially black and white tablets(color readers on this "OS" are still a rarity). Led by current revisions of Android, e-books support downloading third-party reading apps from the Google Play Market, making them omnivores for file formats. You can also download and install any other programs from the Google Market, with the exception of voracious games - the weak hardware of readers simply won’t pull the gameplay, and their screens are not designed to draw dynamic scenes.

Android eBooks

Main restrictions

A big piece of the pie in the e-reader market has been "bitten off" by the American company Amazon. However, devices of the Kindle family are a stretch for domestic latitudes, since there is not so much Russian-language literature in the company store. The "readers" themselves support only 6 formats, among which there is no common FB2. They only play audio purchased from Amazon.

Amazon readers read few file formats, and the store for them is dominated by English-language literature.

Much more room for creativity open e-books PocketBook and ONYX. Their proprietary libraries are many times more solid, and their omnivorousness to file formats is wider. Situations with less venerable brands need to be analyzed individually - some of the Android readers work very well, while other models have a number of restrictions on file format compatibility, etc.

One of the most popular brands of readers in domestic open spaces is PocketBook.

Finally, in a separate line , it is necessary to highlight the moisture protection of the body of the "readers". It is useful for reading lovers in the bathroom, on the beach and will save the device from a spilled cup of tea. There are few protected e-books, but the better they are appreciated by the user audience.

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Happy reading!