Kindle, Nook, Kobo etc

wtalon · Post by **wtalon** » June 19th, 2011, 7:14 am

I'm glad you joined the Kindle train too!

Post by **philchenevert** » June 19th, 2011, 8:34 am

Yeah. I have a Kindle that I got so I can retire to my closet and record in privacy with my Zoom. It works flawlessly for me. Since I listen to gobs of books that I download through Overdrive I am looking forward to later this year when Amazon and Overdrive will reach an agreemen so I can read their ebooks on my Kindle.

Of course I do have a few other things to do while waiting

Kehinde · Post by **Kehinde** » July 10th, 2011, 12:54 pm

Wooot! That's awesome! xD I've had a kindle for almost a year now and have never ever regretted purchasing it. I decided on the Kindle 3rd gen. because it was much cheaper than the nook, (much faster too regarding page turnings and wouldn't freeze up like I know the nook does a lot.) Also, it wasn't a big priority for me to listen to music, watch videos or surf on it- I only wanted to read on it period and that's all I wanted to do with it. The Kindle suited me perfectly and I just love its e-ink technology! If they come out with a newer one I'm definitely going to jump at the chance to upgrade to a newer version. It can only get better.

You're quite right about acquiring more books; its easier for me as well to get more books via Amazon through Kindle. (And their database just keeps on expanding!) The books are delivered automatically via wireless so in 30 seconds the book is there for you to read. No more waiting for any shipping of any sort! And uploading public domain titles to the kindle is so easy. I store all the books I want to read on my laptop and categorize them there before uploading to my kindle.

I used to worry about running out of books to read or where to store them. Now I can take my kindle and all 1,260+ books wherever I go and read anywhere to my heart's content.

The only thing I didn't like about the Kindle were the screensavers they provided you of old and dead authors. lol I guess it doesn't bother some people but to me it was just really creepy. Had to change that the very same day I got my kindle. Now I have my own cool black and white screensavers. xD

jollyrogered wrote:Thanks everyone!!!

I ended up getting the Kindle, because of its good user support, and its e-ink tech, and because I feel that their book base is really expanding. So far I love it, though I had a bit of problem connecting it ot my wifi (apparently, their special characters werent being accepted by my computer), everything is up and running. I can go straight to gutenberg and download a book instantly.

First book Spell of the Yukon by Robert W. Service, most beautiful book of poetry ever.

If you have a kindle let me know, I need book buddies on the web

Hazel Pethig · Post by **Hazel Pethig** » July 15th, 2011, 4:13 pm

I love my Sony touch. And you can download .lrf files from Gutenberg.org. Also you can listen to audio files at the same time as reading and e-book. So if you do proof-listening like I do, you can read along with the text, and mark right on the screen the corrections that are needed. Also, I now have over 1200 books on there with room for about 10000 more! I still love and buy paper books, but the portability and always having a book with me is a big seller.

-Hazel

kattekliek · Post by **kattekliek** » July 21st, 2011, 6:47 am

Kehinde wrote:The only thing I didn't like about the Kindle were the screensavers they provided you of old and dead authors. lol I guess it doesn't bother some people but to me it was just really creepy.

LOL, I really like those! (fortunately the authors are depicted being still alive and some of them even young

)

ExEmGe · Post by **ExEmGe** » July 21st, 2011, 10:57 am

Kehinde wrote:Now I can take my kindle and all 1,260+ books wherever I go and read anywhere to my heart's content.

Providing the ereader does not lock up that is. It happened to me a couple of years ago on the way to France for a couple of days. My only paper book was one with a few short stories which I finished on the first day. The second day? - Well, French telephone directories are almost as boring as English ones.

montmorency · Post by **montmorency** » September 26th, 2011, 5:15 pm

Hazel Pethig wrote:I love my Sony touch. And you can download .lrf files from Gutenberg.org. Also you can listen to audio files at the same time as reading and e-book. So if you do proof-listening like I do, you can read along with the text, and mark right on the screen the corrections that are needed.

-Hazel

That would also be very good for the Listening-Reading ("L-R") method of language-learning/improvement (listening to the target language audio while reading a translation, or variations on that theme).

montmorency · Post by **montmorency** » September 26th, 2011, 5:21 pm

I don't have an E-reader, but I am fairly tempted.

One thing I'm not sure about. Do the competitors to Kindle have access to the same range of books that Kindle users have?

For example, one attraction of Kindle for me would be that all the PD books in German on gutenberg.spiegel.de are available on Amazon as free Kindle downloads. Would there be a way of getting those for the competitor readers?

(That website is not like www.gutenberg.org - you can only read the books through your web browser, there is no way of directly downloading them - All you could do is copy and paste each page into a file on your computer, which I have done for one book I needed on the computer, but it's a tedious and error-prone process.)

jollyrogered · Post by **jollyrogered** » September 26th, 2011, 6:11 pm

I am fairly certain that Barnes and Noble can get onto gutenberg, but I dont know about .de sites. Ich weiss nicht.

Post by **Leni** » September 26th, 2011, 6:47 pm

My piece of advice is: if you're not living in the US or Canada at the moment, or if you are but travel abroad often, stay away from the Nook. I learned it the hard way. There is absolutely nothing in any place in their website saying you can't download any paid books if you're not physically in the US or Canada, but that's how it works. No downloading if you're on a trip abroad, even if you're American. Even at the store I was told it would be ok. I had done a lot of research about functionality and other things, and I decided to get the Nook. I had downloaded some free books and samples for the Nook for PC while I was here in Brazil, to test it out and all that. I bought the Nook when I was visiting the USA in July, it worked wonderfully, I bought a few books and all that.

Then, when I came back home, I couldn't download anymore, and I got an automated message saying there was a problem with my credit card. I tried a different card, I tried in different days, and it turns out the only problem was that I was using a Brazilian IP. Considering there are no warnings on the website, nor on the Nook and that not even their customers service was totally sure (they made me add a credit card with a USA billing address, because they thought the credit card might be the problem), it still took my husband something like 2 and a half hours on the phone for them to agree we had been misinformed and should get a refund. I am still waiting for my refund, though.

Hokuspokus · Post by **Hokuspokus** » September 26th, 2011, 10:25 pm

montmorency wrote: One thing I'm not sure about. Do the competitors to Kindle have access to the same range of books that Kindle users have?

For example, one attraction of Kindle for me would be that all the PD books in German on gutenberg.spiegel.de are available on Amazon as free Kindle downloads. Would there be a way of getting those for the competitor readers?

Yes and no. The problem is that Kindle uses a different format (mobi) then the rest of the world (epub). Bought books have DRM (copy protection) most of the time. You are not allowed to change their format. So books from amazon can only be read on a Kindle and books from everywhere else can't be read on a Kindle.
But the GutenbergDE books on amazon are without DRM. They can be changed to epub and be read on any other device. Changing the format is very easy with Calibre (free) http://calibre-ebook.com/

A real good place for lots of information about e-readers and tonnes of free pd (Canadian) ebooks in English, German and other languages is MobileRead http://www.mobileread.com/forums/index.php?s=847125a0b51f4eccbdf8e22502c98479
Sort of LV for ebooks

montmorency · Post by **montmorency** » September 27th, 2011, 1:30 pm

Hokuspokus wrote:
montmorency wrote: One thing I'm not sure about. Do the competitors to Kindle have access to the same range of books that Kindle users have?

For example, one attraction of Kindle for me would be that all the PD books in German on gutenberg.spiegel.de are available on Amazon as free Kindle downloads. Would there be a way of getting those for the competitor readers?
Yes and no. The problem is that Kindle uses a different format (mobi) then the rest of the world (epub). Bought books have DRM (copy protection) most of the time. You are not allowed to change their format. So books from amazon can only be read on a Kindle and books from everywhere else can't be read on a Kindle.
But the GutenbergDE books on amazon are without DRM. They can be changed to epub and be read on any other device. Changing the format is very easy with Calibre (free) http://calibre-ebook.com/

A real good place for lots of information about e-readers and tonnes of free pd (Canadian) ebooks in English, German and other languages is MobileRead http://www.mobileread.com/forums/index.php?s=847125a0b51f4eccbdf8e22502c98479
Sort of LV for ebooks

Many thanks Hocuspocus!