Lonely Planet vs. Footprint

Just as there are different sorts of travelers, there are also different sorts of guidebooks. Before coming to Chile, I picked up a copy of Lonely Planet's Chile & Easter Island, which has become my Bible when traveling around this country. This book is ubiquitous. The blue cover is so easy to spot in the hands of foreigners in any touristy corner of Chile, although the title might be different: Chili et Île de Pâques, Chile und Osterinsel, etc.

Before going to Bolivia, I borrowed a copy of Footprint Bolivia from the study abroad office. Footprint is well-known for their iconic South American Handbook, which has been in publication through various editions since 1924. (Francisco, my Chilean flatmate, has a copy of the 1957 edition. Some notable differences between the 1957 edition and the 2003 edition: the inclusion of photographs, and the "telegraph" section has been replaced with "telephone and internet". There is also focus on travel by steamship in the 1957 edition.)

I have chosen to review and compare the Footprint and Lonely Planet guidebooks because they are geared towards the same demographic: a younger, more independent traveler who probably has a flexible schedule and doesn't mind foregoing luxury for a little bit of adventure. Older travelers with a larger budget and people who are on package tours would probably not find either publisher to be as well-suited to their trip as, say, Frommer's. For my comparing/contrasting, I am using Lonely Planet's Chile & Easter Island and Brazil; Footprint's South American Handbook 2003 and Bolivia. For the sake of saving keystrokes, from here on Lonely Planet will be abbreviated to LP, and Footprint to FP.

Size: This is an important factor for people with limited suitcase/backpack space. The LP guidebooks are smaller in terms of page size than the FP guides. I found the smaller size of the LP books less of an annoyance when carting them around in my daypack.
Durability: Older editions of LP advertise the fact that the spine of the book is stitched for durability. I am not sure if the newer editions also have stitched spines. I have opened and closed my latest-edition LP Chile & Easter Island hundreds of times, and the spine has not creased nor has the binding begun to separate from the pages. The FP guides seem to have less-sturdy bindings. My South American Handbook is held together by a rubber band when not in use, and individual pages have begun to separate from the rest.
Practical Info: I find both LP and FP to provide a similar quality and quantity of practical info such as travel planning/logistics and very basic cultural/historical info. Both guides contain a chapter on language with basic phrases and very basic pronunciation help, but I really couldn't say if one book's language section is better than another's because I have not had to make use of them.
Layout: Both guides divide countries/regions by political boundaries, and then separate the sections further by town. Further divisions are by category of services: lodging, restaurants, activities, etc. The LP guides use bold headings in the body of the text to separate sections, while the FP uses headings in the margin of the pages. I like the font of the FP guides better than the LP font; it is easier on the eyes.
Style: LP uses a decidedly more chatty style of writing than FP, which can get annoying. I don't want a guidebook to "chirp" at me; rather, it should speak like an all-knowing entity (think "Mirror, mirror, on the wall") which provides help when necessary but shuts up when not needed.
Rating system: I like the FP system of assigning a letter to each place of accommodation. "LL" designates a very luxurious and expensive hotel, while "G" would correspond with (presumably) a straw mat on the floor and a cold shower. This letter system is much more specific than LP's use of "budget", "midrange", and "expensive" categories. I find LP to usually impart a slightly more detailed description of restaurants and accommodation.
Ads: LP touts the fact that it is ad-free. FP has ads, although they are not intrusive, easy to ignore, and probably comprise less than 3% of page space in the entire book.
Maps: The quality of the maps at city-level is similar in both guides. FP's color maps at national level are far better and far more detailed than LP's black-and-white sketches.
Inside covers: LP incorporates a metric/imperial conversion chart on the inside cover of their guides, as well as a few basic phrases in the local language, emergency telephone numbers, currency exchange rates (probably out-of-date by the time you buy it anyway), and a key for symbols used in the book. FP only decodes their letter rating system used for accommodation and has a table of contents on their inside cover.

I don't really endorse one guide over another, but I am slightly more biased towards the Footprint guides because I like the overall layout and style better. Both books are both well-researched and will serve the more independent traveler well.