Marco's eReader Roundup (Kindle 4, Kindle Touch, Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Touch)

This is the first time I have heard this... you would think they would market that ability more.

It has seemed to me that the Kindle is the device with the most lock-in whereas the Kobo has the least (it uses Adobe's DRM scheme, which at least has a tool which lets you move your content from device to device). I'm less sure about the Nook.

Second, it has never really been completely clear to me what would happen to my content were one of these companies to go out of business. Any thoughts?

Finally, since the review mentions periodicals, I think it would be great to review the periodical retention policies of the devices. I have a friend who has a Kindle and complains bitterly about its periodical retention scheme-- about how it always wants to age out (and remove) old issues of a magazine (which you have to tediously disable issue by issue), and how, once gone, you can never regain access to periodicals you once had. Want to re-read that New Yorker from last year on the upgraded Kindle you just got for Xmas? You can't...

[Posting as a non-ereader owner who keeps trying to figure out which one to get; I have used my phone as a client with Kindle and Kobo stores]

However, there is one thing that could really be improved: typography. The default setup is not particularly good for English text--manageable but subpar--and is even worse for Russian. It's still readable, but they do not wrap long words with a hyphen leading to an annoyingly ragged margin.

If they fixed the typography, the experience would be even better. I know this because I took several of my books and reformatted them using LaTeX (I had way too much time on my hands :)), which does wrap words and generally produces a much better-looking result. The LaTeX books were significantly easier to read than the Kindle ones--I think they were even a little better than what I expect of most paperbacks. However, they also take up more space and take more effort to make.

So, since my only issue can be fixed by changing the ebook format, and isn't much of an issue at that, I think its safe to say getting an ereader now would be a good bet.

Could you elaborate a bit on your reformatting? Does typesetting it in LaTeX make each page a fixed width? Do I understand correctly, then, that you wouldn't really be able to resize the text?

It's a bit crazy to me that algorithmic typesetting isn't a lot farther along than it seems to be. Hyphenation doesn't seem like that hard of a problem. Am I wrong? I guess the demand just isn't really there?

TeX does automatic hyphenation, and a ton of other magic, so the technology is there. However, it might be too intensive for an ereader--it would probably take too long and kill the battery life.

I also suspect there is not much demand--reading English novels on the Kindle is perfectly fine. It could be better, but you'd only realize if you read a better book. Russian is more of an issue, but I don't think Russians make up a big part of the Kindle market. I don't even know if it's sold in Russia.