Ladies Love Cool eReaders?

By Jake • August 25th, 2011 • 8 Comments

Ordinarily, this type of research wouldn’t interest me enough to post, but this hits home.

Ladies love e-readers; guys prefer tablets — Tech News and Analysis

Just last week, while traveling for the first time with our daughter, my wife announced that she wanted a Kindle.

Her timing was funny, considering she had just bought a book to read on the plane, and we were already traveling.

I asked why she hadn’t told me this prior to our trip. She said seeing other travelers with Kindles reminded her.

Anyway, I was shocked and still am a little. She’s not a particularly voracious reader, although being mother to an infant definitely curtails that activity, and she’s kind of anti-gadget, never showing much interest in either of my tablets.

Being the product guy that I am, I dove into her requirements. Why a Kindle and not a tablet? Turns out she wants to read outside, which reminded me immediately of Amazon’s killer “do” use case commercial.

Anyway, Nielsen’s data suggest a preference by gender and a growing adoption among older users for eReaders.

Do these observations match what you’ve seen?

Find the comments.


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  • http://oracle-base.com oraclebase

    Hi.

    I definitely see this when travelling. The iPad is crap for reading novels, unless you have an anti-glare cover for the screen. It’s not a case of it being occasionally bad. It is more a case of being occasionally readable. Half the time it is more like a mirror than a monitor. Saying that, my glossy MacBook Pro screen is similar.

    The kindle screen is awesome for reading, regardless of the lighting situation. It is so light in comparison to the iPad too. The iPad can start to feel really heavy after a few minutes being held in one hand like a book.

    Don’t get me wrong. I love the iPad, but it sucks in comparison to a kindle for reading novels. To bring balance to this argument, the kindle sucks for reading PDFs. :)

    Cheers

    Tim…

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Haven’t used a Kindle, but agree w everything you said about iPad. The glossy screens Apple favors are very sexy until you get them into direct light, esp. outdoor light. They might have a patent pending to redesig the Sun 
    for their displays :)

    What’s so bad about pdfs on the Kindle? 

  • http://oracle-base.com oraclebase

    That will be iSun…

    As for the PDF thing, the kindle doesn’t deal with well. The quality is OK, but you end up side scrolling a lot, or zooming in an out. Not my preferred option.

    Cheers

    Tim…

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Interesting. I’d find that to be a major bummer. Reading long pdfs in iBooks is definitely preferred to leaning forward and squinting at my monitor.

  • Gary Myers

    The Kindle is smaller (except for the DX which weighs more than the ‘normal’ Kindle’). PDFs are pretty much ‘ready to print’, so if they are made for A4 printers you have all the horrible scrolling or tiny print. A PDF in ‘paperback’ size/proportions works okay but most PDF books and documents just aren’t sized that way.

    The Oracle documentation is available in a dedicated MOBI format which works better than PDFs.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Interesting. After fiddling w my wife’s Kindle for a bit, I’m astounded at the tiny keypad and unintuitive entry and navigation, truly a consumption-only device.

  • Matthew Haavisto

    I’m a Luddite in some respects, and I still like books.  Paper.  Ink.  The feel of the binding.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Nothing against books, but I’m generally against collecting artifacts, books, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, magazines, etc. Anything that allows me to carry more in a smaller format is good, making digital the ultimate goal.