After months of deliberation, I finally went out and purchased a Kobo.  It took me a long time to decide to get an ereader in the first place and then I had to decide which one to get.  I’ve explained my rationale many times offline and thought I’d share it here.

Most people know that I have a weakness for stationary and I love collecting printed books. I love holding them, turning the pages, and even love the smell of them.  I’m also a really big reader – I read often and I read everywhere.  I read daily during my commute to and from work, but have a hard time when the book is heavy. I already take a lot to work and carrying a heavy book in my purse wasn’t doing my shoulders any favours.

That’s when I started thinking about getting a light-weight e-reader that I could use while commuting and on-the-go. It would ideally fit in my purse and could carry as many books on it as I want.

I knew I needed an ereader that was both affordable and could read library books. I’ve been trying to spend less money on books this year and my personal rule is to borrow from the library first. Then, if I love a book enough, I can put it on the list to purchase.  I wanted to stick to this rule with my ereader (even more so as I’d rather buy printed books than digital ones) and soon found out that the library offers ebooks in epub format.

The solution ended up being the Kobo. As much as I really like the Kindle and the features it offers, it doesn’t handle epubs and that was most important to me. I would have loved an iPad but it’s above my price range and is too big for what I needed.

So I waited until the new wirelesss version of the Kobo was out and happily picked one up. Now I can read library books on my Kobo and if I love a book enough, I can still put it on the list of printed books to purchase.

I’ve had it for a few weeks now and it’s been great! There wasn’t much of an adjustment period and I’m still zooming through books like I was before. I’ll share my thoughts on reading on a Kobo in my next post.

Do you have an ereader? Why or why not?