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Tablets and e-book readers for that special graduate (pictures)

Looking to reward a new graduate with something cool, high-tech, and useful? Of course you are, and tablets and e-book readers fit that bill almost perfectly. Here's a compilation of the most appropriate for your needs.

Eric Franklin, David Carnoy

May 3, 2013 10:11 a.m. PT

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Google Nexus 7

The Nexus 7 remains the best small tablet around and, starting at $200 for 16GB of storage, it also pushes the limits on value.

$1,000 at Amazon

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Apple iPad Mini

The Mini's screen isn't anywhere near as sharp as the current-generation iPad's, but it's lighter and thinner, and has full access to Apple's world-beating App Store. This includes plenty of educational apps (whisper: and games).

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Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9

This is the Kindle Fire to get. Even more so now, given its recent price drop to $269. The Fire HD 8.9 has direct access to Amazon's considerable cache of books, movies, TV, shows, and music. It also has the most powerful, clearest-sounding speakers of any tablet.

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Google Nexus 10

If you can afford to go a bit higher with your budget, the $399 Nexus 10 is the best full-size Android tablet. It also has the sharpest screen of any tablet on the market, and its recent updates have improved performance significantly.

$359 at Amazon

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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (with Special Offers)

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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (with Special Offers)

The Paperwhite has that integrated light that Kindle aficionados have been waiting for. It also has a capacitive touch screen rather than the IR-based touch screen found on competing touch-screen models, plus the Paperwhite's screen is a higher-resolution 1,024x768-pixel display with 212 pixels per inch that can render text and images more crisply.

more info

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Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch

The Nook Simple Touch is a major advancement over the original Nook. In many ways, it's exactly the e-reader we've been waiting for and was hinted at when Sony licensed Neonode's infrared touch technology to finally solve the problem of trying to craft a touch-screen layer on top of an e-ink screen.

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