Why Color eBook Readers Are a Bad Buy

Color eBook readers like the Barnes & Noble Nook Color have hit the markets and are a guaranteed hot buy this holiday season. On paper (no pun intended), they look like a great purchase: they provide all the functionality of a standard eBook reader like the Kindle or the original Barnes and Noble Nook, only with brilliant color that makes it easier to display children's books, magazines, and more. However, I'm not impressed. Color eBook readers are a bad idea, at least as they exist in their current incarnations. Here's why.

Glare is a problem. The biggest problem with color eBook readers is glare. If you're reading outside, you're not reading. You simply won't be able to see the screen. You're going to have similar problems under harsh fluorescent lights. Forget about reading in the subway, where a lot of people like to enjoy a newspaper, or anywhere else where lighting conditions aren't right.

Of course, you might counter that black and white eBook readers aren't backlit, so they need some sort of light for any reading at all. True, but you can buy a cheap booklight. You can't fix a glare problem.

Battery life. Color eBook readers can't compete with the battery life of their black and white counterparts. In fact, they don't even get close. The Kindle and the Nook can get upwards of a week of battery life with their black and white versions, but color versions rarely hit the 8 hour mark.

That's a problem when you're taking a long trip and you don't have frequent access to an outlet.

They don't feel like books. When you read a book, you're really looking for that "book" experience. You might not even be aware of it, but it's ingrained in you; you've got all these great memories of reading novels in bed by the light of a lamp, and you want to get that experience again.

Black and white eBook readers do a pretty decent job, because you need to have a light to read them, the text is sharp and crisp, and that "e-ink" technology turned out to be pretty legitimate. The screens look more or less like the page of a book.

Color eBook readers look like a computer screen. It's a good computer screen, but it's not the experience that you'd want for reading.

I don't want another computer. Color eBook readers are expensive, and I expect a full computer if I'm paying anything over $200 for an eBook reader.

Other readers are the same way, and new versions of the Kindle and Nook will add new features, including games, Internet browsing, and more. That's all fine, but I'd just buy the iPad if I wanted a touchscreen computer. See the Catch-22 here? At a certain point, you can upgrade an eBook reader past the point where it's still an eBook reader.

Of course, everything eventually consolidates, and I'm sure we'll see an eBook reader/phone/computer/camera sometime soon. I'm just saying that we don't need one--black and white eBook readers do the job just fine, they're cheaper, and they're a better choice for book fans everywhere.

Do you think that color eBook readers are a good idea? Post below.