I've gotten to where I hardly ever read from my latest-gen small-sized Kindle Wi-Fi. I prefer the touch screen interactivity of the Kindle app on my iPhone4. This makes me think that reading on an iPad would blow the Kindle away, with the only caveats being battery life and nighttime reading where I wouldn't want a back-light to keep me awake.
I have a Kindle, Ipad, and android phone (Droid X).
Kindle:
Pro:
One great thing about the kindle is battery life and how easy it is on the eyes. For reading fiction, it's great.
Con:
It is horrible for technical work--pdfs in particular. If you're like me and you jump around in a book, it's impractical to do so on a kindle given the slow page refresh rate.
Pro:
The nice thing about the kindle app on the android phone is the convenience--when I'm standing in line at the grocery store (or am on the subway), I can catch up on some light reading and have finished a number of books this way that I wouldn't have ordinarily.
Con:
Screensize. I used to use the kindle app on the ipod touch and find the screensize of the Droid X to be a much better experience--but it's still small.
Ipad:
Pro:
The screensize is great and bookmarking pages is intuitive.
Also, for technical books, I can get them in pdf form and
use GoodReader.
Con:
Battery life--for international flights, if you don't have power, you can survive, but the kindle wins with battery life hands down.
I wouldn't give up the Kindle for anything. The E-Paper screen feels much more comfortable on my eyes. Its size is perfect for having it always with me and reading with one hand in bed or on the train/bus. And I don't interact much with the Kindle anyways except turning pages or opening another book from the main screen.
Unless I'm out in the sun, I prefer reading on my iPad to reading on a Kindle -- but since Amazon has the largest selection of e-books, I end up reading on my iPad using their Kindle application.
I vastly prefer reading in a 'night' mode of amber text on a black background to reading on my Kindle. However the iPad had other issues with it, including low res, and iPhone has too little text on the page, in both cases my wrists end up sore either from weight or repeated paging.
I'm hoping iPad 2 is a little lighter, and does have the 2x linear resolution bump. Then it will be quite a good experience.
On the contrary, I've even started using my 3G as my primary internet device, just for basic web surfing and stuff. My eyes feel more relaxed than they have in years.
iPad hurts my wrists after about 15 minutes. I have the first gen Kindle, and I like how lightweight it is, plus it has a memory card slot, and I can read it in total brightness.
Anyone else feel this way?