[Closed] e readers / Kindle type things

The wife has one. Loves it.

e-books are not vat exempt though (in the UK) so don't expect the books to be cheaper.

If you get a 3G Kindle you are buying e-books over the Internet, so your location is surely irrelevant?

Unlikely - 3G will mean that they know your exact location. (similar to wifi admittedly unless you rig up a proxy)

Aye - but that doesn't affect the price of the book you are buying.

I don't know. Amazon don't ship Kindle's over here and if I buy books to be shipped to DK then I pay DK VAT on them. I am not sure that I can buy the books at all. For example, itunes doesn't rent out TV or movies or sell english or US ibooks in Denmark as far as I can figure it out.

Katie has a Kindle and loves it. I'm impressed as well - I'd actually say it's a better way to read books than paper.

Can't you buy one in the UK (or at least from Amazon UK? - i've got an Amazon.com account and whilst there are things they won't supply it's fine with a lot of goods). Once you have an account set up (which MIGHT need to be with a UK credit card/address) it won't matter where you are.

There's loads of content available free either because it's out of copyright or on download sites etc

+1 for the Kindle. Got one for the OH at Christmas and she loves it, fantastic bit of kit. Dunno about you locale-specific queries though, sorry.

i've got a kindle. One swift torrent and it's got 1000 books on it. if you can register it to an address in the UK, i don't think you'll have any problems - I've only got the wifi one but I've bought books when I'm in some very odd locations, via the kindle, and they've been delivered immediately.

They've got a browser built in, so if I was buying again i'd get a 3g for the ability to check email\whatever (albeit very slowly) for free wherever I am in the world (within reason).

No experiance with the competitors, but the 'full circle' approach of the kindle/store makes it a good option

My wife loves her 3g Kindle. She gets asthma from reading books more than a few months old so it's great for her.

There's loads of content available free either because it's out of copyright or on download sites etc

[url= http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page ]Project Guttenburg[/url] is a good example of this.

I have one too, love it, have always read lot & house is full of the damn things - this keeps them in one place. Very easy to read, I think easier than a paperback.

I just had to send my first one back as it had hairline cracks from the bottom corners of the screen. Great returns policy, they called to check what had happened to it, 24 hrs later a new kindle was waiting for me and I have 30 days to get the old one back.

Can't recommend them enough, although it would be nice if there were more books for it, I keep finding ones I want that are not ebook ready (yet)

I've got a kindle...I'm on my 3rd, although not out of choice, the damned things keep breaking. The last two kept on freezing and not waking up...and the current one is showing similar symptoms too!

I guess I must be unlucky though as other people I've spoken to don't seem to have any issues.

But I like it anyway...i commute by train in London and I've tried reading books but could never be bothered to carry it around. The kindle is lighter than large books, and certainly lighter than hardbacks. Also you don't need to turn the page...just press a button, so it's more 'one handed' than a regular book.

I've read a lot more in the past 6 months than I have for a long time. This probably highlights why Amazon have been so good with the replacements when I had problems...no quibbles, they immediately sent a replacement as soon as I reported an issue which arrived 2 days later. Then I ship back the faulty one in the same box.

They make much more money on the books than they do on the readers!

I've got a Kindle, and as a fellow ex-pat I'm "stuck" with Amazon.com shopping, not Amazon.co.uk. TBH it hasn't really been an issue so far, there're more than enough books on .com to keep me going. I haven't found anything that's only available on .co.uk and not available on .com.

It's great for reading, very comfortable, in a lot of ways it's a great improvement on a real book - lighter, can carry loads of books around, pdf reader, etc. Get the official cover with built-in light, too.

Quick question......If I buy a Kindle with my Amazon account,can I give it as a present to somebody and they use it registered to their account? I'd be surprised if I can't but just want to check before I get it.

Yeah, you just de-register it when it turns up

Ta Very much 🙂

Amazon and the Kindle is now starting to suffer from the plague of agency pricing. Most books are fairly cheap but the newer ones are now more expensive than the hardbacks.

For example, the new Bond book from Jeffrey Deaver is about 80p more expensive on the Kindle than the hardback, both from Amazon. I find it surprising that the dinosaurs that run the publishing companies can't see that this is hurting their industry, as most people simply don't buy the book at all or download it from somewhere else.

Another fan of the Kindle here, although I'm a fairly recent owner, thanks to my wife buying me one for my birthday.

It's much nicer to read on than the ipad, especially outdoors, but even inside, I find the e-ink screen much kinder to my eyes. My dad-in-law bought me the nice leather case with the little light on it which is perfect for sitting in bed reading with the lights off. I think the only thing I might have asked them to do differently was put a more tactile 'rubbery' texture on the back, as I find if I have to hold it for a long time in my admittedly large hands, I find my fingers start to feel a bit crampy. This is much less of an issue with the case on, and my wife doesn't find it a problem at all with her smaller hands.

With Kindle location-fiddling, what most people are trying to do is appear to be in the US because there is more choice and cheaper prices there than in other markets. A lot of Aussie Kindle users do this, for instance. You just need to register with a US address and it's all OK - don't need credit card, I hear.

But there is occasional and apparently uneven enforcement even though IPs etc can be instantly known. Anecdotally, sometimes people are banned from buying from US store and told to buy from their own; other times it's a temp ban; other times, nothing ever happens.

On one hand, I'd love the kindle - on the other hand, I can get secondhand books for pennies on Amazon marketplaces now compared to Kindle editions for full price. Hmmm...

...friend who has just come back from backpacking says that 3G Kindle was great for free gmail/wikipedia/basic web browsing everywhere he went, which is a plus...

Buy an iPad and then you can buy books from anywhere, including Amazon.

It's also more versatile than a Kindle Reader.

I have an ipad but I can't get the books I want from itunes and you can't read for very long without serious eyestrain.

Kindle v's iPad

I've got both, and it's very dependent on what you want it for - as a lightweight, easy on the eyes, ebook reader with an exceptional battery life, the kindle wins hands down. I use the ipad for all sorts of stuff, but reading books, especially in natural light, is not one of its strengths IMO.

There's also a massive difference in price - Kindle is £111 for the wifi only version, against £400 or more for the iPad.

I would agree that getting a tablet (Yes, there are other tablets out there, folks! 😉 ) represents a far more versatile option, even with the price differential.

Buy an iPad and then you can buy books from anywhere, including Amazon.

It's also more versatile than a Kindle Reader.

But having read books on both the Kindle experience is much more pleasant - easier on the eyes, lighter to hold, better battery life.

You can register up to 6 devices to a Kindle account and they all get to access all the books. It will sync the 'last read' point across all of them as well so you can, say, read a few pages on your iPhone if you've left the Kindle at home, then pick up where you left off.

I have an ipad and it doesn't compare with a kindle for reading. Low battery life and eye strain are part of it but you can't actually see the screen in sunlight.

Tablets are not an alternative.

locationising: you could always get a UK proxy service and download everything through your computer using the proxy. That way you could get UK online TV too...

I would agree that getting a tablet (Yes, there are other tablets out there, folks! ) represents a far more versatile option, even with the price differential.

A more versatile option, yes, but then again a mobile would would be even more versatile.
Even though convergence is possible, it's not always the best solution- essentially because a Kindle is designed to do one thing only it does that really really well. It's bloody difficult sitting by the swimming pool reading a tablet- a Kindle mimics a convention small paperbook really well, with the advantage of being lighter and easier to carry. Sure there's disadvantages (no colour, it breaks if you sit on it) but if you're reading novels, it's pretty damned good.

Amazon 3g does work world wide and I can buy any books from UK Amazon wherever I am. However I suspect this might need to be linked to a UK credit card...

Having got both in the house, I'm pretty sure that most people who suggest an iPad or other tablet instead of a Kindle have never used a Kindle. It's a difficult concept to 'get' until you've played with one; certainly I'd have said the same thing until I'd actually used one.

+1 5thElefant
Lucky enough to have both Ipad2 and 3g kindle. Kindle wins everyday. easier to read, battery life+++, and smaller lighter etc.
get the 3g as you can (just about) use it for mail and surf if you need.
Kindle syncs brilliantly across devices as well.

I think I'm going to go for the Sony reader (the PRS-350 pocket one) and see how I get on. Looks like I will have plenty of buying options without being tied to amazon or apple (have an ipad anyway)

I've got one and I'm in Holland. Just the wifi model, no 3G. I got it shipped to my parents address in the UK and picked it up there. I've bought a couple of books whilst abroad from the UK store without problems. Apparantly, if you do it too often you'll be asked to transfer your kindle to an amazon.com account. Payment made with my Dutch credit card has worked without a problem but I have had an amazon.co.uk account for several years and purchased with a NL credit card before.

The UK has a seperate publishing arrangement (and I wonder if its against EU law regarding free flow of goods and services) and this means that if you're in Denmark, Amazon wants you to get one from the US.

Getting epub books from torrents and converting them to mobi using Calibre works fine, according to a friend of mine.

As Konabunny pointed out, downloading through a UK proxy will work, but I've done that without a proxy from NL without problems aswell.

Its a great device. I also had one from Bookeen (Cybook Opus) and the kindle is much much better.