E Book readers

[milkman]

Looking for something for the wife's Christmas and she's really hard to buy for, don't need anything, but I found out that she would like to have one of these. I know the Kindle from Amazon is rated good, but does anyone know if it comes with any pre loaded booke. Some that I have seen like on HSN or one of the shopping networks comes with a ton of books already loaded.

 

[nikdfish]

None are there other than the user manual. Having said that, there are a ton of free books (mostly out of copyright) that you can "purchase" at Amazon for a new kindle's account & they will be on the kindle when it's delivered.

The latest (3rd generation) kindle comes in 2 flavors- wifi only/wifi+3G & two colors - graphite/white. Wifi only is $139 & wifi+3G is $189. The wifi only version has to be in range of a usable wifi network to connect for book transfers (other than via USB cable). You can turn off the wifi/3G radio to save battery power.

I just picked one up a couple of months ago after having used an LCD based reader for quite a while. Love the e-ink display, no glare, looks very much like a printed page.

If you get a kindle, be sure to consider downloading a free copy of "Calibre". It is a package for managing & translating ebooks into different formats. You can even set it up as a book server which can make your non-DRM books accessible via the network. Amazon is NOT the only source you can use for books for the kindle. Many other sources can provide books in .mobi or .prc formats which the kindle handles with no problem.

Nick

 

[milkman]

Thanks, that's a lot more than I know about them, just starting to look, guess I better get in a hurry.

 

[nikdfish]

If you like science fiction/fantasy, check out the Baen Books website WebScription Ebooks They have a lot of my favorite authors (incl. Dave Weber, John Ringo, Lois McMaster Bujold, Larry Correia, Eric Flint, etc). They have better prices than Amazon - typically $6 for a title, $15 for a webscription group of a half dozen titles. Best of all, their titles are all DRM free ... no constraint on what device you read them on, and they have multiple ebook formats available for each title!

Nick

 

[ronjhall]

Bought my wife a Kindle. She loves it. One draw back in night time lighting. Got a Belkin LED light for wife's after she made her own case/cover. Kindle has a cover that includes a light. Good reviews on it. It is about $60.
Another noted problem is that some users are playing some games. The numbers/letter wear off. Wife does not use that feature. Bought her the WIFI/3G model. Both work well.
She is in the process of getting it loaded with books she want to read. Likes the feature that allow free downloads of first chapter to review books she is interested in.
Family members are giving her Amazon gift cards so she download more books. Christmas for me is easy this year. By her some books to down load. All I have to do is load card info on the Kindle for her.

 

[dmccarty]

Check the fine print on the books you buy. The last time I looked into the books you were only renting the books you buy and in theory the seller could revoke the books. The other negative is that the ebooks for sale can be very expensive. As much money as a real book.

I like books. I read alot. I literally have tons of books. They take up a quite a bit of space. I do like the idea that I could have all of my books on a chip or two. On the other hand you are then limited to a device that can fail and needs power. Danged if you do Danged if you don't.

Some magazines and newspapers are sending their subscribers their issues to the Kindle which is nice.

I know someone with very bad eyesight that has used the Kindle to help them read. From their perspective it is a life changer.

I was skeptical that one could read easily on a Kindle like device(excepting people with eyesight issues.) My smart phone will read ebooks and I downed a book for free that I have wanted to read for years. I did not have any problem reading the book on the little itty bitty smart phone screen. I was really surprised at how readable the ebook was on such a small device. A Kindle would be easy peasy.

I would shop around for the Kindle or other readers. Not sure if HSN will give the best price. We just bought a new TV and I checked quite a few places for the best price. After buying the TV we noticed one of the shopping channels was selling the TV so I watched to see the price. They were much more money that what I could buy online. They were about 40% higher than the lowest price I could find at a good online store. So check prices.

Later,
Dan

 

[nikdfish]

Amazon got some bad press when they "pulled back" a book that had had copyright issues. There was enough of a stink that they have made a very clear statement that it won't happen again; if you buy a book they assure folks that it will stay in your device & account library until you remove it.

Amazon book purchases remain available for re-downloading. If you delecte it from the device it will show up in your "archive" listing, from which you can re-download. Also, you can have mutiple kindles associated with an account (6?). Any device on the account can access any book in the account library. The Amazon DRM does limit use of books to devices associated with the purchasing account.

Baen Books, on their webscription.net site, retains info on your purchases as your account history. At any point in time you can re-download books you have purchased there. As their books are DRM-free, you can download in different formats to read on different devices without having to associate them with an account. They also have a large free library where you can download full version books from current authors for free as samples of their work, betting you will come back & buy books from authors you like.

From what I've seen on the forums, the keyboard wear issue on the kindle was mostly associated with units with "clay" style keys, most have a different style of plastic. People have been getting replacement kindles issued when the problem manifests.

Nick

 

[charlz]

I am not up to speed on the technical differences between the readers. However, I read an article the other day that mentioned briefly that the Kindle does not support the format (epub?) that is used for ebooks in libraries. They prefer you buy the books versus borrow them So that might be a big negative depending on how she likes to acquire her books.

 

[milkman]

Lots of things to consider. I was looking around in the free library, ton of stuff there. I'll have to find out more of what she'll be reading and have her look at what's available.

 

[LostInTheWoods]

Google's getting in on the act, and it looks promising.

What Google's Gotten Itself Into - the eBook and eReader Market, in Pictures: GOOG, SNE, BKS, AAPL, AMZN : Stocks In Focus : Small Cap Stocks and Penny Stocks For Big Returns - SmallCap Network

Would make me think twice about purchasing a Kindle...

"Google's e-books are easily the most universal option; they can be viewed via any web browser. That means only the Kindle is the major device that can't handle (and then the Sony e-reader) that do readers no good of they prefer Google's new offer.

While the Kindle could afford exclusivity at the onset of the reader wars because Amazon hosted the biggest e-book store in the world, Kindle sales are now most at risk among all the major reading devices.

While the actual number of for-pay titles available through Google is unspecified, given the company's marketing clout and deep pockets, it's a reasonably good bet it won't take long for Google to offer more than Amazon's estimated 610,000 book titles for sale..."