Kindle vs. Overdrive vs. Oyster - an E-reader Roundup

He's an accomplished reader, Shiloh.

I don't know that I've mentioned this on the blog or not, but I'm a complete e-book convert, and have been ever since we left Eugene.

When we moved, packed the books I couldn't live without and hauled them with me to Portland, to Memphis, to the corporate apartment in Richland. I got to reunite with my full library once we moved into the Richland house, but by then we'd been moving and traveling for nearly a full year.

By then, the full practicality of the ebook had set in. I loved having a library on my phone, a book that lit itself, a volume I couldn't lose my place in.

Once we settled in Richland, I got a library card and tried my hand at library downloads. I swapped between the library and Kindle books, sometimes buying books I'd gotten through the library loan because I'd highlighted so many things (Anna Quindlen's Still Life in Breadcrumbs). Between the lack of late fees and the end of hunting down stray library volumes, library ebooks found their place in rotation.

But I still bumped up against the limits of the two - sometimes libraries wouldn't have anything I was interested in, but didn't want to spend the money for a Kindle book as fast as I could read.

Enter Oyster.

And technically, enter Kindle Unlimited. Priced the same, same concept - a library of books to choose from with a single monthly fee. No wait times, no check outs, no expiration dates.

Since the price for both is roughly the same as the average Kindle book, I figured if I got two solid reads out of it per month, a book subscription service would make sense. So I checked out the offerings.

While things may improve, the Kindle Unlimited selection is thin. I looked up authors I enjoyed, and they were either missing or only containing volumes I'd already purchased.

Oyster on the other hand had a wider range of books I'd recognized and meant to read over the years - but hadn't. So - now that I'm using three fairly different reading apparatuses, here are my thoughts - 

Kindle:

Simple to navigate, thoughtful design, and lots of features. You can organize your books into collections, search within books, bookmark, highlight, and look up unfamiliar words.

It's simple to move books in and out of your carousel, though getting a book permanently off requires some work on Amazon.

Really, it's the slickest of the three, and it makes sense why - you're paying for the content. Sure, you can stick to the free and discounted books, but otherwise it can add up quickly.

But if you're dying to read Rainbow Rowell's latest? Kindle is there for you.




Overdrive:

There's a lot to like about library ebooks. First, it's free. Secondly, the catalog changes, and thirdly, you'll also find audiobooks.

So that's fun. It also includes many of the same features as Kindle, such as the ability to highlight text and change the page layout. And while most libraries put limits on the amount of books checked out, you do have the option of returning books early to make room for more.

The downside is that sometimes the library selection can be spotty, or you'll find yourself waiting an age for something that's new and popular.

Also, the app itself is occasionally buggy. Sometimes it'll forget which book you're reading, or start over in the same spot repeatedly, never mind where you actually left off.

But - it's free. So as long as you take the time to look through the catalog and get yourself on the right waiting lists, you'll have a long (but not too long) list of books to choose from.

Oyster:

Don't get me wrong, there are major changes that need to happen. First, the search is clunky. If you're using "Paris" as a search term, there's no way to differentiate between title, author, or subject. 

Also, if you're searching through books for a while, there's no good way to get back to the original screen other than to page back several times.

Books you've been reading are kept in a separate list from the books to your Booklist pile, but there's no way to remove a book. So if you start it and hate it, you still have to look at the cover until it gets bumped far enough down the timeline.

In their promotions, Oyster talks a lot about its aesthetic appeal. And it's true - the navigation pages as well as the reader itself are all very nice to look at - colorful and crisp. But navigating within the book is clunky - you can skip from chapter to chapter, but you can't search for text within the book, or for a specific location or page number.

All of those issues aside, I'm still using it. The catalogue is varied with a nice selection of popular and literary fiction, as well as a number of non-fiction volumes. I admit I haven't explored them much, but I have been impressed with the number of cookbooks I've seen.

I reasoned that it was worth the subscription if I read two solid books a month, and so far I'm averaging three or four.

Overall? I'm using Oyster a lot, and enjoyed using it to read The Hundred-Foot Journey (QUITE different from the film, but certainly worth the read). The library is nice but takes more work, although I'm on the wait list for Gone Girl. And I'm mainly using Kindle to read previously purchased titles, but as soon as the new Susanna Kearsley comes out, you can be sure I'll be glued to it for a few days!

Shiloh, at rest. On my book.

What about you? What's your favorite method of reading? Do you prefer paper or electronic versions?