kobo ereaders?

dont, they have even more problems than the kindle, i had one of them it was dead within about a week my friends did the same, moved onto a kindle (that died) got a kindle fire (that died) got another kindle fire, its alright, if you get either make sure you have a case for it and dont, for the love of everything, drop it
get a kindle 4 or a kindle fire (the KF is like a tablet, you can do almost everything on that like an ipad)

 

I got my girlfriend the lowest version of the kindle-- the one that just does reading and nothing else-- and it's awesome. We use it every day to read together. It's easy to use, easy to load up with books that I already had as files on my computer, just nice to work with.
I have never had any problems with kindles I've owned previously--except one time there was a weird screen issue, but I called amazon and they sent me a new one that was at my door in two days. It's worth the extra cash. to know that they're good about customer service even though you likely won't need it.

EDIT: and the lowest version of the kindle, the one we have now, is $69 and the kobo mini is ten bucks more. so it's not really cheaper at all.

 

I had one unfortunately they gave me a blinding headache (E-readers in general) so Im sticking with physical books.

 

If you are thinking about getting a Kindle Fire, I'd get a Nexus 7 instead. You can easily put an app on the Nexus 7 so you can read books. If those are out of your price range, I'd get the cheapest Kindle. I never owned a Kobo ereader but I have yet to hear a good thing about them

 

Tablets (Kindle Fire, Nexus, etc) are very hard on the eyes if you are reading for long periods of time. I'd suggest sticking strictly with an e-reader for that purpose. I have a Kindle Paperwhite and it's perfect for reading on the go.

If you do want to get a tablet for the extra features then I agree with castle about the Nexus 7. I use mine for work. A few of my friends bought Kindle Fire's not realizing that it's just an overpriced tablet that doesn't have as good of specs as the other ones on the market.

 

Yeah tablets aren't often made to be good on the eyes and the flicker of an active screen (59~60hz) can really disturb some people not to mention the strain that inappropriately lit screens can do (Bad color rendition/CRI, inappropriate tints, contrasts, etc).

I use a nook touch for novel reading and I like it, it's good and light and I have issues flipping through some books so it makes it simpler. I modded it out with a better android focused UI and I just load epubs on it.

I might get a tablet in a while, but I'd rather get a cheap laptop at this point and use it for pick up writing. Tablets are for fun and I don't really get much of that :icon_sad:.

I'mma want to build an actual good reading light soon, something LED and warm/high CRI. I don't know how people read with those 5mm blue LED clip on lights, they're just horrible. You would think with people caring all about the type of lighting they have on tablets that that they would then pick up and apply it to other lights but nooo. :dry:

 

I actually have the nook simple touch with glowlight and it has been awesome. It's not like the nook color where you can install apps and surf the web and all....just read books.It's light and portable too. Not sure if that's what your main purpose for it will be but if so, I'd definitely recommend the nook simple touch with glowlight.