IPad vs. Kindle. Who Wins?

which device is better, with many pro-Kindle reviewers calling the reader less distracting, while the Apple camp cites the iPad’s multi-purpose nature as a selling point.

An iPad “does so much more — games, photos, videos, email,” wrote Fred Vogelsteinin Wired. “I might eventually ditch my laptop for it too.”

GigaOm also sees the Kindle as a defunct device. “The Amazon Kindle is dead thanks to the rich media capabilities of the iPad as well as the full software-based keyboard,” Stacey Higginbotham wrote.

But are those bells and whistles distracting to those who just want to curl up with an e-book? Brad Stone wrote on Bits that the Kindle “will continue to be the best device for lovers of long-form reading, period…when you read a book, you just don’t want to have email, Twitter and the ESPN Web site beckoning from the browser.”

Price tags are another frequent point of comparison.

Mashable’s Josh Catone pointed to the iPad’s $499 price, only $10 more than what the Kindle costs. “While $489 might be too much for just an e-book reader, $10 more for a device that does a whole lot more may be worth it to a lot of people,” he wrote.

TechCrunch said that in the long run, consumers won’t base their decision on the price difference. The Kindle “is nearly half the price, starting at $260 versus $500 for the iPad, although the cheapest Kindle DX with an equivalent 9.7-inch screen is $489. That is pretty close already. What happens when the price of iPad-like devices trend down to a point of consumer indifference?”

On CNet, David Carnoy argued that the iPad’s launch could be good for Amazon’s e-book business. “Sticking books on there for $13.99 instead of $9.99 isn’t going to work and will just play to Amazon’s hand,” he said. “That may just mean a lot of folks will end up buying an Apple device to read on, but turning to Amazon for their e-books, whether they be black-and-white text-only affairs, or the fancier color, interactive stuff that’s certainly coming to the Kindle Store by the end of this year.”