eReaders?

don’t know why but I fancy one of these (saves taking loads of books when travelling?) but i don’t know anything about them.

Anyone got one?
Are they worth buying or just another gadget?
What do i need to look for? I don’t think I am too bothered about downloading on the move as I am happy to use my laptop.

Any deals about at the moment?

Thanks

Gooner, only one worth looking at is the Kindle (and the £149 one at that). My bruv and best mate have one. They are very good if you read a lot. However despite being an affirmed gadget freak I won’t be getting one. Instead I shall wait for Ipad V2 in april and get that instead and install Kindle reader software.

Knowing you as the gadget fellow you are I recomend you do the same!

with the kindles can’t you only download books from amazon?

Knowing you as the gadget fellow you are I recomend you do the same!

An iPad is not really a replacement for an eReader. You only get a few hours of battery life and the screen like any laptop is not good in bright light.

With a kindle you can put most formats on it but I think each reader only supports its proprietary formats. So you can’t read Sony books on a Kindle for example but they can both read PDFs.

Gooner, the Kindles are bespoke to Amazon, but they are better than sony in this regard. The £149 kindle has FREE (well paid for by Amazon with no contract ever) worldwide 3G access. My mate who has one was able to download newspapers and books from the beach in Egypt and send emails to me FOC using the google mail function.
The screen on the kindle is much better than an ipad for lots of reading. There are also lots of free/cheap books available on Kindle.

I am not a massive book reader, so think I would get better use out of an ipad or macbook air, but if I was buying then it would be the £149 kindle.

There are also ways of getting hacked/torrented books onto the kindle. I don’t know how to do that though.

My wife has a Kindle and it is indeed excellent

only one worth looking at is the Kindle (and the £149 one at that)

I disagree. I have a Kindle…the cheaper one as I don’t really need the 3G connection as I just download at home. If buying again and was happy to spend more I would certainly at least look at Sony and the others. The Sony one I looked at (can’t remember model) felt to be of a much higher quality build (functionally not sure of the difference).

Got a Sony PRS – 500 in the classifieds 😀

Just bought my eldest daughter a Kindle for Christmas. Really rate it from what I can see so far. A very different proposition from an iPad, and at a very different price. It’s the ‘paper’ screen that really impresses me.

If you always travel with a laptop then you don’t need to worry about the 3G or WiFi that the kindle has. If you want to travel without a laptop and are not organised enough to make sure you’ve loaded up enough books before you go the the kindle is the obvious choice. If I were to get one now then I would go for the Sony 350 as it’s smaller than the kindle and will fit in a pocket more easily and I always travel with at least 1 laptop.
The Sony also reads the epub format which is if you like the mp3 of book files.
I’m tempted to buy one but I’ve got a nice pile of books I’ve been bought for Christmas and if I had a reader I know people would buy me vouchers rather than books. I really like getting books that other people have chosen, I’ve read a lot of really good books that I might never have chosen for myself

Been using a Sony PRS-505 for a while now – got it for the screen quality for which the ipad can’t compete at all.

Read technical PDFs on it but I have to trim the borders down and read in landscape to make it viable – might be interested in the bigger Kindle but the quick looks I have managed at Kindles makes it seem like the screen quality isn’t as good – but I need a closer look.

I got a kindle for christmas. I am seriously impressed with it.

Sod all the other stuff, the screen and ‘ink’ is worth it alone. It is like holding a slim book. It looks just like the page of a book, not like a computer screen.

Plus I have about 10 free classics on there already, a few paid for books and half a dozen pdf’s I imported.

Superb device.

on the last thread on this it was stated that you could easily convert the epub format for the kindle.

there’s a Samsung cheap at Dixon’s just now.

I got one for Christmas great bit of kit and gives me a reason to read a lot of the classical books I should have read, but haven’t because they are all free.
Also handy if like me you need glasses for reading if you forget your glasses you just increase the font size.

Sod all the other stuff, the screen and ‘ink’ is worth it alone. It is like holding a slim book. It looks just like the page of a book, not like a computer screen.

They all have the same kind of screen. It’s what makes it different to a laptop or an ipad.

tons of free stuff on project guttenburgh

Kindle.

Mrs. S hasn’t stirred since xmas morning.

The eink display is magical. Mrs. |S has tried turning the page more than once 😀

tons of free stuff on project guttenburgh

Indeed, and a very quick google search will reveal there are a number of sites out there hosting free documents/books.

Google’s openlibrary currently has 20 million separate documents (although they’re not all books)
http://openlibrary.org/

samuri – Member

tons of free stuff on project guttenburgh

Indeed, and a very quick google search will reveal there are a number of sites out there hosting free documents/books.

Google’s openlibrary currently has 20 million separate documents (although they’re not all books)
http://openlibrary.org/

BUT….and this is a big one for me, with a kindle im assuming that you are completely 100% tied into the amazon store, now i bought 200,000 books in pdf off ebay for 4 quid the other day for use with the sony reader i have, can you use them with a kindle?? I’m thinking not.

with a kindle im assuming that you are completely 100% tied into the amazon store

No, afaik you can upload anything to it that it will read from a PC or other websites. It has a web browser built in too!

I’ve got a Sony reader and it’s pretty good.

I basically use it to read some bulky files I’ve converted to pdf plus some free books from Project Gutenberg (there’s a few historic cycling books on there)

However it is totally eclipsed by the iPad.

molgrips – Member

with a kindle im assuming that you are completely 100% tied into the amazon store

No, afaik you can upload anything to it that it will read from a PC or other websites. It has a web browser built in too!

so if i have a number of books in PDF format on my PC, i can load them onto a kindle??

How well do colour pdf read on a kindle?

pdf download to kindle
just about to buy the Lopes book to Kindle

so if i have a number of books in PDF format on my PC, i can load them onto a kindle??

Yes, & read them as they are
or there are a few apps that will convert them to mobi files which are easier to handle

samuri – Member

tons of free stuff on project guttenburgh

Indeed, and a very quick google search will reveal there are a number of sites out there hosting free documents/books.

Google’s openlibrary currently has 20 million separate documents (although they’re not all books)
http://openlibrary.org/

BUT….and this is a big one for me, with a kindle im assuming that you are completely 100% tied into the amazon store, now i bought 200,000 books in pdf off ebay for 4 quid the other day for use with the sony reader i have, can you use them with a kindle?? I’m thinking not.

are these not just the stuff thats in the public domain

That’s correct, yes.
The point is that the kindle (and obviously other ereaders are available), can have these stuck on them. You then have a small device that makes reading things nice and easy in the palm of your hand.

Got the OH a Kindle for Christmas. It’s a seriously impressive bit of kit.

Contrary to popular belief ^^ you’re not tied to Amazon. She’s dumped PDFs for work on there, and I’ve converted a bunch of ePub stuff to the Kindle’s .mobi format without issue – used a free bit of software called Calibre which is basically iTunes for books.

Stuff you buy from Amazon is DRM’ed so you can’t copy it, but I believe there’s ways round that. I’ve not had cause to explore this yet though.

The thing syncs with Amazon so if you install the Kindle software on your PC or phone, when you move between devices it remembers what page you were on and suchlike.

Also does audiobooks. Battery life is extraordinary (I bought it three months ago, opened the box on Chrimble morning and the screen was running a screensaver; I think it only uses charge when the display changes, so it can hold a static image indefinitely). Readability is superb, you can view the screen from silly angles without issue. It’s thin and light, weighs less than a paperback book.

Can’t recommend it highly enough, if you want an ebook reader it’s the wasp’s nipples.

Wasps don’t have nipples mate, only mammals do. Perhaps you need a book on insect anatomy and life cycles on your Kindle.

oh, one thing I don’t like is they’re crap in low light, but – conversely – very good in bright light

I suppose the natural thing – before you’ve tried one – is expect it the other way around

They are meant to be like books which are also crap in low light 🙂

Molgrips > shush. (-: