Best eReader for school?

I think a lot of people would be distracted by an ipad. Also, a kindle has an e-ink screen so you wont get eye strain, and if you get the 3G version you can get downloads anywhere without wifi or monthly fees.

Crappy school if you ask me. They're just telling you to go out and buy an $800 device because it's required. Textbooks aren't that expensive and they work fine. I doubt many parents are just going to go out and spend that kind of money for school supplies. Why can't the school supply the devices?

The Nook Color isn't an option?

Here, maybe I can save your school some trouble, as a study was recently released on this very subject: http://www.telegram.com/article/20110517/COLUMN01/105179924

But now comes an interesting new study that finds Kindles and e-readers may hinder our ability to absorb certain information. At the University of Washington, 39 graduate students were given Kindles and their use was monitored. By the end of the school year, nearly two-thirds of the students had abandoned the Kindle or used it infrequently. Of those who used it regularly, according to researchers, “some attempted to augment e-readers with paper or computers, others became less diligent about completing their reading tasks, and still others switched to a different and usually less desirable reading technique.”

The researchers explained that a printed book provides cues about a book’s structure and contents, and we make a “cognitive map” of the book while we read it:

“When we read, we unconsciously note the physical location of information within a text and its spatial relationship to our location in the text as a whole ... These mental images and representations do more than just help us recall where ideas are located in a given text. We use cognitive maps to retain and recall textual information more effectively, making them useful tools for students who are reading academic texts to satisfy specific goals.”

Without these maps, according to researchers, the students took longer to locate information and they had less “mental energy” for other tasks.

In other words, there's something about a physical book that e-readers aren't able to completely reproduce. Perhaps as readers evolve this will change. But if given the choice, all things being equal, I think I'd get the iPad. Or maybe I would get both, since the kindle is about the price of a college textbook.

I would say that the Kindle would be better if you are just going to be using it for books as that is all it is good for and there is no glare and a longer battery with it. However the iPad will be able to do more things besides just books like taking notes or whatever.

Really, it just comes down to which device you want to use. And what you will be doing with the device.

Well what other things would you want to use it for?

Kindle is just Books.

But iPads have a lot more things you can do on them.

ipad for more than just books

kindle for long energy life