From what I hear, the computer screen doesn’t even compare to the readers. I haven’t spent a lot of time with readers myself, but the personal reports I’ve heard are quite good. For one thing, you can actually carry the thing around with you, and use it like a book. Even the smallest laptops don’t have that functionality (e.g. you can’t comfortably lie in a hammock and hold up your Macbook Air while you engulf yourself in your Danielle Steel.)
But I’ve heard fatigue isn’t even an issue on the better readers. Some have even said it’s better than physical books. But it’s not even a comparison to a computer screen.
There isn’t much of a physical difference between eReaders and tablets, so the first thing you’ll need to decide is whether you would get your money’s worth out of a tablet (with eReader capability) versus just a reader.
I always check reviews from these sources:
PC World:
PC Mag:
(if you decide on a Kindle…New Kindle? Amazon Rounds Up Best Apps, E-Books, More)
Consumer Reports:
Next, I hear the .epub tends to be easier to deal with on e-readers (or at least some…and depending on what the PDF looks like/how it’s formatted). Mises.org books are being uploaded in epub format all the time. You’ll find plenty. The only drawback is Kindle doesn’t support the format. (And it just happens to be the most popular eReader. Go figure.) But, the original Kindle doesn’t support PDF either (later models do). However, you can convert PDF and epub to a Kindle-readable format.
Wikipedia has a great collection of charts to compare the features and abilities of eReaders.
And here is a comparison of e-book formats.
news: