philemer

My situation-
1. Take 2 or 3 long trips (1-3 weeks) per yr & 2 or 3 short trips (2-4 days each); usually take laptop and a paperback or two
2. Tired of hauling a 15" or 17" laptop & paperbacks
3. Never owned a Tablet
4. Wife enjoys her Nook HD but won't let me use it
5. Looking at 2 Samsung Nook Tablets that B&N has on sale now- http://nook.barnesandnoble.com/u/Com...OOKs/379003181
6. Would probably subscribe to 2 or 3 magazines

What are the main differences, beside the $150 price & size, between the Tab S2 and the Tab E?

Any suggestions appreciated. We have a B&N store about 5 miles away that I'll be visiting in the next 2 or 3 days.

weekilter

I guess you have to decide what the ultimate purpose of your purchase will do for you. If you are solely interested in reading e-books and whatever magazines you can get through an e-reader or whether getting a "real" tablet makes more sense for you. Keep in mind that if you choose to go with a Nook you are limiting yourself to to the Nook catalog of books which is a lot smaller than the amazon.com Kindle catalog. If the reader can read the e-pub format this somewhat mitigates that since most titles are available on e-pub as well as Kindle format.

If you opt for a "real" tablet as opposed to just an e-reader you will be able to access many more 'apps' than you can on a one purpose e-reader.

An advantage of an e-reader over a real tablet is that e-readers often mostly use "e-ink" displays and these displays are very low power draw and can go weeks at a time without being re-charged.

mia

Both of these are Android tablets with Nook software installed. I believe you could install the same software on any Android tablet.

The 9.6" model would be better for magazines, but otherwise the more expensive 8" model is superior: it's lighter, longer battery life, much higher screen resolution. For long reading sessions the display quality and weight will be important.

Ms mia has done most of her reading on Kindles for a half dozen years. She much prefers a pure e-reader (Kindle Voyage) for reading, and uses her Kindle Fire 8.9" device primarily for email, Wikipedia, Amazon shopping, and as a backup reader.

gfunkdave

I use my Kindle Touch for reading books and my iPad Mini for magazines and everything else. Sometimes I read books on the iPad too.

nerd

You can't install the Kindle app on the Nook tablets?

philemer

My Samsung phone has the Kindle app. pre-installed.

The Kindle Paperwhite is $119 and the Nook GlowLight Plus is $99. For just an ereader would you go with the Kindle or Nook? I don't read a lot of books & most are mysteries-some newer and some older books. Some are available at our library too.

Is the ad-free version of the Kindle an extra $20?

Is it hard to read magazines on a 6" device?

gfunkdave

The Kindle has a much bigger selection of books.

The ad-free version of the Kindle is an extra $20, but it's not worth it. The ads are very unobtrusive and mainly show when the Kindle is off. I would, however, strongly suggest you spend the extra $50 and get a Kindle with 3G/LTE if you do get a Kindle. It's great to be anywhere and be able to get a new book.

I don't use my Kindle for magazines, so can't comment on that. If you want to do anything besides read books, I'd suggest an iPad Mini.

freecia

If you are taking a paperback or two, magazines, plus like to consume tv/movies a tablet might be the way to go if you don't mind reading computer screens vs printed paper.

e-ink looks more like printed paper and has much less eye strain than a tablet. Also, an e-ink reader feels pretty light if you're used to reading paperbacks with one hand.

A tablet would probably have more free/lent book and magazine options. My local libraries offer free lending from Overdrive, Axis360, 3M, Enki, and O'Reilly Safari for books. One offers Zinio for magazines. All of these lenders have free apps or offer open file formats for which free apps exist.

I'm a voracious reader and travel with a phablet (large phone size of 6" tablet) even though I love my e-ink eReaders. Ounce for ounce, a tablet offers more functionality and I'm not packing both.

philemer

Thanks! But what Android tab would you recommend in the 8">10" range?

gfunkdave

I don't know anything about Android tablets, but I do know Amazon has a line of very cheap Fire tablets that people seem to like, especially for the price. They run a customized version of Android, and I think it's not terribly hard to get a mostly full Android experience on them...

freecia

Try the reviews here for android tablets:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-android-tablet/

philemer

Thanks to both of you. NVIDIA looks great for $200. The author likes the Ipad Mini a little better if you are an Apple fan.

patpatpatme

like my ipad but the only downside to the ipads is for reading at night, when its probably better to not be looking at a bright a screen just be fore you go to sleep

chrisl137

Yes, you can, as verified by my sister who is sitting across the room and just installed the Kindle app and downloaded a book from Amazon onto her Nook tablet.

Back to the original question: the real question for me is whether you expect to do anything besides read with the tablet. They generally aren't good for the content creation work that I need a laptop for. Even things like word processing aren't that well integrated-- the apps on tablets tend to be stripped down and don't quite do all the conversions right (e.g. inconsistent behavior with smart and dumb quotes), and sometimes limit how you can get the data in and out of the device.

freecia

I generally think of tablets as a consumption/input device rather than a productive/output device but perhaps the new crop of portable keyboards and large screen tablets will change my mind. Much of my work is more easily completed with a keyboard but sometimes the response time with critical info is key, which is where a smartphone/tablet email & synch'd calendar comes in handy.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...our-phone.html
My phablet has a variety of eBook & video apps, itineraries & trip documentation, offline docs like pocket, sometimes trip related guide apps, and most importantly, a sim slot for a local/roaming sim and map apps. Local data + maps have definitely improved my trip quality.