ebook readers

[tricia]

I,m thinking of buying an ebook reader . I just wondered what you thought of them or had any advice re purchasing

thanks
Tricia

[strep98]

I have a sony, but it dosen't seem to hold a lot of charge. Very good instead of big heavy tomes, but I miss turning a page (but that is just me)

[Biscuit]

i do not know a lot about the charge etc but with my daughter we went for a non kindle - that has been good because it means she can download books from different websites including the local library (free of charge) i think it was called a sonos or something and she can also download music and movies.

hope this helps.

[tricia]

Thanks for those comments

Tricia

[LAT]

My son got a kindle for Christmas. He decided it was what he wanted for a few reasons - anti-glare screen being one of them (useful when sitting in the sun). He seems very happy with it, but to be fair hasn't used it much at all yet. He wanted it as he is about to go travelling round the world for 4 months. Amazon also offer a lot of classics for free download to the kindle.

I'd look up various options online and read other people's reviews and comments. Then you should be able to decide which advantages and disadvantages matter to you.

[tricia]

I am veering towards a Kindle because of the offer on the classics. I like sir Walter Scott and one of his books The Talisman is now out of print, but it is available on kindle

Tricia

[LAT]

Collected my son who'd been away for a week and he says he is very happy with his. I had hoped to have a little play with it but am running out of time before I go away on Tuesday and he will have left for his travels by the time I get back.

[tricia]

Hope you have a great trip to Japan - enjoy the experience

Tricia

[chazzie]

Yes - enjoy that trip LAT - dont work too hard!

[Wulfruna]

Have a good trip, LAT - hope all goes smoothly with the journey and that you have a great time out there.
How long will you be away? Might you be able to log in and send us any reports/pics do you think??

[LAT]

Thanks for the good wishes.
I get back Feb 5th. With luck I will have internet access at the hotel so I may get on in the evening which will be midday/early afternoon in UK.
I hadn't thought about it before but maybe I will take a cable to attach my camera to the computer - I'll see what I can do as I certainly hope to do a bit of sightseeing next weekend.

[SparkOut]

I say this as a technophile generally - those of you who have seen through the tears in the cloak of anonymity will know I do "computers" for a living. (Well, not really a living, but I'm not quite dead yet.)

I have never been the remotest bit interested in electronic books. I like reading and although I have precious little time for it, I much prefer to turning real physical pages to viewing on a screen. So I was not really able or ready to offer any insight into ebook devices. I can tell you that Amazon publishes Kindle ebooks in a particular format that is not immediately compatible with other devices. Other devices use other formats for their publications. There are different sources of both free and paid-for content for both systems.

I know Mrs S's uncle has a kindle, which is good for him because he has had brain surgery and so he has concentration problems and loses his place a lot, and the matt screen is helpful for him not to be distracted with glare, plus he can hold it easily, magnify areas and generally feel more comfortable with reading again than he can do with a book nowadays. I cannot say what the other devices are like, but despite the situation which suits my uncle-in-law, I was still not interested in ebooks.

However. For my birthday I got a new phone - it's an HTC Desire Z, with Android as an operating system. (Think iPhone but not made by Apple and not tied to the closed system. On the iPhone "there's an app for that" but what many people don't know is that Android also has a huge collection of apps.)

So I downloaded a Kindle app for the Android. AND I downloaded an alternative ebook reader called Laputa. I deleted Laputa after I ALSO downloaded CoolReader, which is another (of many) free apps for reading ebook content. With those two apps on my HTC I know have a very nice small screen reader, which between them can handle pretty much any format of ebook I want to bother finding - of which I have discovered a lot of free stuff, and many things of the sort that "I really would like to read (or reread), but would never have gone and bought, or sought out at the library." There is also plenty of content to buy, as well, often at cheaper prices than the paper versions (because the distributors don't have the printing and binding, storage, transport and retail shelf space to pay for).

While trying to massage the book formats into one or the other, I also downloaded a PC version of the Kindle reader. What is interesting about that is that when you source your ebooks from the Amazon Kindle Store, you can sync it with whichever reader you are using at the time. So you can have a physical Kindle device, a mobile phone app on your Android or iPhone, etc. and a computer app on your desktop pc, and your laptop, and they will all have a copy of the ebooks which you can read, and it will know the place where you have got up to when you finished reading last, whichever method you were using to read. What is MORE interesting though is that I also found a free program called Calibre which can convert (non DRM encoded) publications from one format to another. So epub formats can be converted to mobi for reading on a Kindle, and mobi formats can be converted to epub for reading on other devices (or dozens of other formats).

So, you can probably tell that (although I would still prefer reading a "book" with real paper pages) I am happily ready to recommend ebook devices generally, and - given the subjective anecdotal reasons of my uncle-in-law's use, and the fact that there is lots and lots of content "out there" that can be downloaded in Kindle format or converted to Kindle format, as well as the stuff that comes from the Kindle store too, I would probably be inclined to suggest a Kindle is the most convenient actual device, were I to actually go and purchase one. Which I'm not. So I'm not really qualified to make any recommendations, and I certainly don't have any experience with any other devices which would make me suggest that you shouldn't buy one of them instead.

Inside the Amazon Kindle Store you can browse the free classic collections, and the main source I know for free ebook content is http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page but there are lots of others if you search, such as Feedbooks.com, Manybooks.net and smashwords.com

If you find any books that you can download for free, but are not sure if they will work with whatever reader you have, then let me know and I will show you what you (or I, if you get really stuck) can do with Calibre.

[Redfraggle]

WOW Sparkout Now that was cool

[MBH]

Sorry I'm no help on this thread. The nearest I come is reading Harry Potter (and other) Fanfiction on the computer.... or if I'm really desperate to find out what happens next I've been known to use the Internet link on my phone with the 1-inch by 2-inch square screen

[tricia]

I have now purchased my Kindle, and so fa I am very happy with it. I have used it to purchase and store the classics...so far I have fot Homer's Oddysey and Illiad, the complete works of shakespeare( the way some of the puzzles are going I think I will need this} , Complete works of sir Walter Scott, Jane Austin and robert Loius Stevenson. The cost you ask ?..... I have spent a little over £2 to download all of these books

Tricia

[giraffe]

I am contemplating possibly buying a Kindle for my husband for Christmas, but I know nothing about them. Some of them seem to have keyboards at the bottom and some don't. I thought you read them, so what is the keyboard for?

Also what are the different makes like?

[tricia]

If you have one that has 3g capability you can use the keyboard to order. I also have a crossword dictionary and a thesaurus on mine so I can check for a specific word. Also I have the complete works of shakespeare on it - so when I was doing rhe couldron puzzle I sede the quote to get to that place in the text. Mainly I use it to read

Tricia

[tricia]

If you have one that has 3g capability you can use the keyboard to order. I also have a crossword dictionary and a thesaurus on mine so I can check for a specific word. Also I have the complete works of shakespeare on it - so when I was doing rhe couldron puzzle I sede the quote to get to that place in the text. Mainly I use it to read

Tricia

[giraffe]

He has internet on his phone and is never parted from his laptop, so doen't need to use it for anything other than reading. Will he need a keyboard?

[tricia]

Probably not - just the forward and back key plus the select keys to choose the books

Tricia