Once upon a time, there was a Kindle. Its owner spent many a joyful hour perusing through the latest mysteries, literature, and other fine books purchased through Amazon. Then one day, a package arrived for the Kindle’s owner. It was an iPad. The Kindle was sad because the owner did not read on the Kindle for a long time after the iPad arrived. But that all changed soon enough, and the Kindle was so happy! The Kindle/iPad owner divided any free time equally between the two devices, and they lived happily ever after.

You’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Why would you still want the Kindle once you’d gotten a shiny new iPad, especially when you can download all of your Kindle books using the free Kindle app? I’ll tell you. Many people initially classified the iPad as an e-reader. While it can display books, it’s not the best at displaying books. It is, however, pretty awesome for lots of things: viewing pictures, playing a ton of cool games, checking email, browsing the Internet, doing some work-related things, even listening to music. The Kindle can’t really do any of those things, but it is above-and-beyond awesome at one thing: displaying books. The screen of the Kindle is made from something called eInk, which basically means that the pages will look a lot like the pages in an actual book. This also means that you can use the Kindle in brightly lit situations, such as reading outside on a sunny day (conversely, because the iPad is backlit, you can read on it in the dark, while you can’t with the Kindle). And because the iPad is meant to be used for lots of different things, it’s a bit heavier than the Kindle, making it less-than-comfortable to hold for long periods, like when you’re (duh) reading.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the iPad. If you’re looking for something that can do many things and have lots of uses, I will be the first to recommend it. But if what you want is a dedicated e-reader with millions of titles to choose from, the Kindle should be your choice.

But my point in writing this is that they can happily coexist. Both of their batteries last a really, really long time, which is great when traveling. Some prefer the reading experience of the Kindle, but still use the iPad for work-related things or just for fun. The iPad is also great to hand over to the kids while mom or dad gets some reading time in with the Kindle. Frankly, you just can’t go wrong with both!