With a paltry 5kg hand-luggage allowance on a flight I’ve just booked I’m gonna have to get tactical with my packing…

I’ve been wondering what the state of ebooks is for a while anyway; I tried the original Kindle & thought it was a bit lame, so how are they now?

I’m not too bothered about having other functionality, but will check out whatever they’ve morphed into by now. Mostly I’m after something that’ll accept every conceivable format and is nice to read from.

If it also has musty old/brand new book smell that’d be great 🙂

Kobo Aura One. Or cheaper Aura H20. Both waterproof and can read any kind of book you through at them with Calibre and DeDRM.

Aura One expensive but brilliant, H20 cheaper and still good, but smaller screen and fixed colour backlighting.

I have the Kindle Voyage – if it broke or I lost it I’d buy another tomorrow.

The cheaper Paperwhite is the same innards but not as nice in use IMO.

Sure you’re somewhat locked in to Amazon’s ecosystem but for an ereader its not too much of an issue (again very much IMO).

For that leather book look and feel look now further that Kindle cases from Oberon Design – absolutely lovely bits of craftsmanship.

Kindle just works – dabbled with other systems for the flexibility but… Kindle just works.

If you want an ebook that does ‘other functionality’ why not just use ereader apps such as Kindle or one of the others on a tablet?

Personally I’m still using a MK1 Kindle and if it were to die tomorrow I’d get another Kindle straight away.

If you want an ebook that does ‘other functionality’ why not just use ereader apps such as Kindle or one of the others on a tablet?

‘I don’t’

I also don’t have a tablet – probably never will as, for me, they occupy an impractical middle ground between a useful computer and a handy portable pocket thing (smartphone).

Cheers guys, looks like Kindles are the things to have.

Maybe not for Rob Hilton, but if you do have a tablet or want to use your phone, lots of local libraries do free ebooks with their membership. Ours does ebooks, audio books, ecomics and music too.

http://library.doncaster.gov.uk/web/arena/library-download-services

I have an older Nook which takes any format – I wouldn’t enjoy being locked into the Kindle structure.

It is possible to download ebooks from your library, as someone has mentioned above.

It is also possible (not that I’ve tried, Your Honour) to strip the digital rights stuff from Kindle and other books using Calibre, so ebooks that you’ve rented can be kept indefinitely. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do that, though…