Nook/Kindle/Kobo/Sony - What is the best e-reader

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Nook/Kindle/Kobo/Sony - What is the best e-reader

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

IRQ posted:

I really don't get why anyone buys the 3G Kindle unless they don't own a computer at all or something, but to each their own. I can't imagine needing a new book RIGHT THE gently caress NOW or needing to access the internet on a really really bad browser and being away from a wireless network my desktop or netbook or smartphone, which I never am anyway.

Actually I don't think I've even used amazon to transfer books at all. Calibre

I use the 3G on my Kindle every day to study during my downtime at work, check weather, look things up on Wikipedia/Google, and occasionally check train schedules. 50 USD is cheap as hell for lifetime 3G access, and conversely I can't imagine wasting so much more money on a smartphone with data package.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2010 07:49

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:24

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

IRQ posted:

I get unlimited everything for $30/month.

With the same tremendous suckitude that is Sprint's network that the Kindle 3G has. Thing is, I'd pay for that either way every month (what the hell use is a phone with no email?!), even if it was twice as much, whereas I saved $50 once not getting it on the kindle.

I guess it's just a matter of what people carry with them anyway. To me it was a very clear waste of money, but if you have a dumbphone or something but carry your kindle everywhere I guess it makes sense. I don't see how anyone could do that but it's all good.

Yeah, it's really a case-by-case thing, which is why it doesn't really make sense for people to ask which one is better. I have the absolute cheapest phone possible (like 15 USD/month) which in my country includes free unlimited email, so I haven't really seen it as worthwhile to get a smartphone. If I were in the US with its terrible SMS messages on regular phones, I would probably have ended up with a smartphone and a wifi Kindle by now too. Also I use trains or buses every day, so I'm never without my Kindle. And I've never actually been out of 3G range since I bought the thing, so I guess my coverage here must be better than Sprint.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2010 08:26

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Well, the reason I said it felt fragile was that it felt fragile.

It's very thin, very much made of plastic, and feels like if you drop it, it's gonna snap in twain.

In comparison, I love my 505 since it's made out of milled aluminum. I think I could club a coyote to death with it and still load up a book to read, plus it came with an awesome leather cover.

The nook, however, just feels heavy. Not entirely "tough", but it doesn't feel like I am going to snap it if I sneeze while I hold it.

If I could get a sony with the nooks replaceable battery and the kindle3's screen and 3g/wifi, I would be a happy man.

I agree that the Kindle 3 feels flimsy. Until I got my cover, I was really worried about breaking it all the time. But with the leather cover on it, it's pretty much perfect.

Also I just discovered that Anki Online works on the Kindle's browser. I think it's surpassed my computer as my most-used electronic device at this point.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2010 14:22

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Liberty_MI posted:

Ok i am an American living in Canada.. I was going to pick one up at my US address. so I figured I would have a look at Kindle for my laptop..

Looks good.. then I went to some books and it says I cannot buy the book in canada without sending them a copy of my passport? WTF is up with this crap?

I'm also American but I haven't been back to America for years. I got mine delivered to Japan, have used it exclusively in Japan, and never had a problem with it. My Amazon account was created in America and I'm using an American credit card. If you're using a Canadian credit card, that's probably the problem. I just had to choose America as my country of residence somewhere along the line.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2010 11:23

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Death By Yogurt posted:

Awesome! I've got a Nook myself but I've been wanting to get one for my brother and sister for Christmas.

Also by chance does anyone know where to get a good epub of all of Shakespeare's works? I tried the one on Gutenburg, but there's no table of contents so it's kind of hard to navigate.

Full tables of contents, good formatting: http://www.feedbooks.com/author/494

Ara fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Nov 22, 2010

# ¿ Nov 22, 2010 17:27

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

taters posted:

here's how the kindle in canada thing works. amazon doesnt have a the license to sell every book in every country. if the book you are trying to buy isnt licensed in canada you get the error described above. however if there is proof on file that you are a us citizen who happens to be in canada for whatever reason theyll sell the book to you. to avoid books that you cant buy in canada, browse on amazon.ca. also change your account settings to reflect the country you are in or you cant buy anything. do it here https://www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle

i can answer most kindle question if you have any, i've worked for kindle tech support. i dont know as much about the other ones.

So why haven't I needed to do anything similar in Japan? Is it because there are no Kindle books on amazon.co.jp?

# ¿ Nov 23, 2010 22:20

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

IRQ posted:

Probably eats a lot of battery though.

I just use a lamp.

I use the light on the official case all the time and it really doesn't use that much power. I probably use the light for half an hour to an hour every day, leave wireless on all the time, and read for 2-3 hours per day, and I still only charge the thing about once a week. The light is LED so it uses really little power. I love that loving case.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2010 09:08

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

IRQ posted:

I charge like every 5 weeks. What is so inconvenient about a lamp?

I guess I should further specify that using the light or not makes no difference in how often I charge it. The wireless is what eats up the battery. Even if it were the light, is plugging the thing in once per week really more inconvenient than using a lamp? Especially when I regularly read with the cover's light in 3 or 4 places that don't have a lamp.

Also, why does this thread still exist?

Ara fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Nov 26, 2010

# ¿ Nov 26, 2010 15:34

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

USMC_Karl posted:

As a total aside, if you travel a lot or live in a non-English speaking country the Kindle is the best thing in the world. I love mine to death.

This is one of the best advantages that I haven't seen mentioned for me. I pay about 25% of what I had been paying for English books. No import markup and I can pay in USD, which is worth about as much as raw sewage right now. Thanks, terrible US economy!

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 13:38

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

muscles like this? posted:

Good to know, downloaded.

You'll need to look up how to strip the DRM from them if you want to convert them, can't convert DRMed files.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2010 06:44

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

muscles like this? posted:

Is there any way to tell how much memory space you have on a Kindle?

Also, its kind of weird how they don't have any obvious way of telling if you have the 3G version or not.

It says the amount of free space at the top when you open the menu from the home screen. Also, it says whether it's 3G or not on the settings screen.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2010 09:48

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Lascivious Sloth posted:

Or you can get it here (free): http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1184

http://www.feedbooks.com/book/73/the-count-of-monte-cristo might be the unabridged if the other one is abridged, though they probably both are unabridged

# ¿ Dec 29, 2010 09:32

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

z0331 posted:

Do you know if there are any particularly good Kindle-available Dostoevsky translations and if they're much better than the free ones?

I love this translation of Karamazov (Andrew MacAndrew). Just don't read any Constance Garnett translations for anything and you should be all right.

edit: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazo/translations.html

# ¿ Jan 4, 2011 17:47

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Fire In The Disco posted:

Nook and Kindle owners:

Kaplan is offering a bunch of free e-books until Jan 17 (I think).

Amazon's link: http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1294436...3Akaplan&page=1

B&N's link: http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com...-_-kaplan_promo

This book says "Ages 10 and up" on the cover. Babies having babies :smith:

# ¿ Jan 9, 2011 07:48

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Snuffman posted:

This is a somewhat odd question, but I figure it was better here than the e-reader thread in IYG since its more about the books.

How do "oddly" formatted books read on the Kindle? Specifically I'm referring to "House of Leaves" style stuff.

Now, I know, I know. Any person with half a brain would say that "The House of Leaves" would be impossible to read on the Kindle. I agree! I've also read it in dead tree, and I'm just using it as an example.

Specifically I'm curious about Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen and Steve Hall's Raw Shark Texts.

I'd sample the books but neither samples get you far enough into the text to see how they handle the "odd" formatting. There's one review on amazon regarding "Raw Shark Texts" that mentions that its nearly unreadable but it also mentions 2 kindle versions available (I see one )

Actually, which leads to a side question in that reviews would indicate that City of Saints and Madmen goes all "House of Leaves" but I've seen nothing to really indicate it. Is it really that out there? I was hoping for a Mieville-esque romp mashed up with some Gene Wolfe literary-ness and House of Leaves oddness.

Pretty sure Amazon lets you refund your ebook purchases for a couple days for any reason, so you could just try it and return it if the formatting is bad.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2011 09:25

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Masonity posted:

The kindle wins, hands down, for one simple reason.

If your friend finishes his current book (or all the books he bought to take with him in fact) while sitting on a beach in Southern France, Barbados, Jamaica or Spain, or while sitting in front of a log fire in Canada, Norway, the Alps or Scotland, he's either;

Kindle: Able to buy a new book there and then, via the Amazon Kindle store, through the device itself.
Sony: hosed. Has to go out and socialise with real people until he can get to a PC, internet connection and a USB wire.

It's too bad that ebook readers can only hold one book :saddowns:

I mean I love my Kindle and I love its 3G, but that's not a very good argument. You can always load up on books from Feedbooks as backups when you finish up all your bought stuff.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2011 08:52

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Chaglby posted:

My Kindle 3 has developed a hairline crack in the case at the lower right hand corner of the screen. It looks like a similar crack is beginning to appear on the left side as well. This seems to be a fairly common issue, there are threads about it on the Amazon support forums. I plan to RMA it, but I was thinking about waiting a while in case this is a defect that they may repair. I only bought the thing a few weeks ago.

Anyway, my question is, does Amazon ship NEW kindles as replacements, or refurbs? I don't like the idea of getting a refurb for something I just bought.

Oh hey I have the same crack in the lower right! It's gradually gotten longer over the past month or so, but I'm kind of worried about how long it'll take for an RMA to Japan. I use the thing for a couple hours every day, so I don't really want to be without it.

I think that crack might be there because I generally hold it upside-down over my head with my thumb right under the screen, which would put pressure on the right spot to make a crack like that.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2011 09:49

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeah, that's why it's complicated, it's a book I've downloaded from manybooks.net but that isn't in the kindle store. Also, for some reason my windows 7 desktop is incompatible with the kindle USB cable and won't show the kindle in My computer (even with a replacement USB cable). I can transfer books by copying them to a usb drive, then to a second computer running windows XP, then from that computer to my kindle, but that's a royal pain.

Why would you bother doing this instead of just mailing it? Do you not have a wireless network?

# ¿ Feb 27, 2011 07:49

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Well, I was wondering if there was some more direct way. I tend to download a lot of books at once, ten or twelve at a go, and when I'm getting them from somewhere other than the kindle store, like Manybooks.net or wherever, transferring them all via email is cumbersome -- the easiest way is via cable.

Anyway, though, problem solved; today I was *given* a Kindle 3 by my soon-to-be-in-laws. And the cable on that one works fine! Now I just have to figure out which of the 800-odd books I have on the thing I should transfer over, and which to backup/archive. . .

Just for future reference, if you use Calibre you can bulk-email as many books as you want. If you're using a Gmail account it will stagger them every 5 minutes so that it doesn't start bouncing them like it used to.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2011 11:01

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

BELL END posted:

Can't argue with this since Amazon.com doesn't seem to let limeys view its catalogue; a search for George Orwell in the Kindle Store brings up nothing for me except study notes.

Maybe it is only a UK thing where ebooks are more expensive than paperbacks...

If it's novels you're after, this looks good: http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/eBooksProductDetails.aspx?productID=OD00299741410

# ¿ Mar 13, 2011 00:48

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Flatscan posted:

Yeah, your honeymoon is not meant to be a good time to catch up on your reading. Priorities, dude.

http://www.amazon.com/Vatsyayana-Tr...00028494&sr=1-1

# ¿ Mar 13, 2011 16:02

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

IRQ posted:

You don't have a library system where you live?

I have a friend who works at a library in Florida and she said that less than 10% of the customers actually look at books, they just come to look at Myspace and porn on the computers. It would probably be better not to have a library at that point.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2011 18:39

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Toebone posted:

Have you tried doing a full reboot? Hold the power switch for about 30 seconds.

You can also just go to the settings and hit menu and then restart.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2011 06:54

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

SlightButSteady posted:

What do you use it for? I use Calibre, it's a million time better.

Probably to read books...? The reader in Calibre is godawful, plus you can't add to/retrieve your highlights from your Kindle. Plus Calibre won't sync to your Kindle's current page. The reader in Calibre was only intended for preview purposes, I'm pretty sure.

edit: My Kindle for PC is working fine, sorry.

Ara fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Mar 31, 2011

# ¿ Mar 31, 2011 06:39

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Packard Goose posted:

I've heard crazy rumors that Amazon won't ship Kindles to APO/FPO addresses, which I cannot fathom being true.

My last concern is, is if my Kindle store region is set up for the US, will I be able to download books while living in Germany? I live here because I'm stationed here and I'd *hate* to drop money on a Kindle and not be able to buy books because I'm not living in the US.

I bought my Kindle from the Amazon US webpage, had it shipped to a Japanese mailing address (not even an APO, so I think you'll be fine), have used it almost exclusively in Japan, bought books only from Japan, and never had a single problem, not even a "confirm you're American" thing. I'm using an old Amazon account that had lots of packages mailed to US addresses in the past and using my US credit card with my old US address. If you have a pre-existing Amazon account, they probably won't even hassle you about where you're connecting from. Actually it probably has more to do with using a US credit card.

I set my default address as the same as my billing address in the US, although obviously they have my foreign address, too. Just remember to absolutely set your registered country for your Kindle as USA, not Germany.

Contrast this to the absolute nightmare I've usually gotten with online purchases with a foreign credit card that lead to me sending profanity-laced emails to ebay support and boycotting them forever (they made me wait two weeks for a response about why I couldn't bid on anything and then told me that I was committing fraud and to send like 5 separate forms of ID including bank statements and my birth certificate) or just being outright unable to purchase things without trading tons of emails and identity verification. I love Amazon so, so much.

Ara fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Apr 10, 2011

# ¿ Apr 10, 2011 17:18

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

RobattoJesus posted:

This is the worst part. I hate the current screen savers so the ads would at least inject a bit of variety into things, and I wouldn't have to explain to non-Kindle savvy / illiterate people why I have a picture of "Some old woman" (Harriet Beecher Stowe) or "A moderately attractive sex offender" (John Steinbeck) on my kindle.

If they made it so existing users could opt-in (and opt-out whenever) and get say $2.50 / month kindle store credit I'd be tempted.

Of course the best option would be to allow us to change the loving screen savers.

I used the screen saver hack the day I got my Kindle and changed them, it really isn't hard.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2011 11:28

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Cartoon Man posted:

We see ads all the time as we browse the web and ignore them, would we be able to do the same in the middle of reading a book?

I've been using Adblock or similar for a good 10 years or so now, and when I have to use a public computer with Internet Explorer it's actually really jarring for me to see ads everywhere. I'm not able to ignore them at all, although apparently people manage somehow.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2011 12:58

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Fire In The Disco posted:

I might try 600 x 800 ones just to see how they look. I don't care if there's a border all the way around them if they're not all stretched out.

edit: Yaaaaaaaay it worked. Now, anyone know if you can continually add more pictures without uninstalling and reinstalling?

Yeah, if I remember right you just have to reboot it (a real restart) for the new ones to show up. It's been a long time, though, so I could be remembering wrong.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 04:11

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

IRQ posted:

Does it greyscale color pictures well?

Depends on the picture (some of them need some tweaking or they come out too dark), but actual black-and-white photos look better than I'd thought the Kindle could display. Certainly way nicer than any of the blurry images that get included in ebooks. Here's I think the best looking one on mine, if anybody wants it.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ¿ Apr 15, 2011 04:54

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

zmcnulty posted:

In contrast, I just ordered mine a few days ago, and here's what happened:
1. I ordered a Kindle + some Blu-ray movies
2. I realized I could probably get the Kindle shipped to Japan, given that they even advertise it on amazon.co.jp
3. Tried to change shipping address, couldn't, I suspected because I had the movies on the same order (and they don't ship those outside the US)
4. Canceled the Blu-ray
5. Tried to change shipping address again, still couldn't.

In retrospect I should have just done a standalone order of the Kindle, shipping to Japan to begin with. Oh well. So I'll just get it when I am back in the US in May.

Somewhere along the line they quietly switched the Kindle 3 so that there was an "international" and "US" version, at first there was only one version that shipped everywhere. You'd have had to find the other version on the Kindle US webpage to get it shipped over here. Canadians were complaining a while back because they could only get the international version but it was shipping in a month while the domestic one was shipping immediately.

If you search for the Kindle on amazon.co.jp, it links you here, which is the one you would've needed. As far as I know the hardware is identical, but mine is from before they split them up so I don't know if the 3G radio is different or anything.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2011 10:23

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

zmcnulty posted:

I can understand Sprint vs. AT&T within the US, but how does that impact usage outside of the US? Obviously they wouldn't advertise "global 3G" for the US version if it could only be used within the US, right? You mentioned restrictive portals, so does the US version use less restrictive portals, or what? I am getting the impression that the "international version," although it ships internationally, is actually stunted in the content that it can access. Is this accurate?

edit: Looks like the Intl edition is only available in black! Guess I will be one of the few people in Japan with a white one...

My Kindle is the global version from before they divided it into US and international, but it works fine for everything and everywhere on 3G in Japan. I've got my registered country on it as the US. Also during that period the white one shipped over here too, maybe it wasn't very popular so they dropped it. Anyway besides at Narita I've never seen another Kindle besides mine.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2011 03:48

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Arnold of Soissons posted:

I need more info about both of these please.

I have Calibre.

Go under "fetch news" in Calibre.

http://foosoft.net/mangle/

# ¿ Apr 16, 2011 04:50

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Levitate posted:

don't have a smartphone (but might get one in the fall) and I commute like 2 hours a day. You use it for internet browsing?

I use it a ton for Anki and it's good for that. I wouldn't want to use it for long periods of web browsing since it loads pretty slowly, but I don't know how speeds are in the US. If you want to read internet articles, better off using Instapaper or something to load stuff in advance.

Really, for the minor price difference I think lifetime 3G is well worth it.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2011 15:45

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

neongrey posted:

Augh! I just bought the thing on the 16th! And it just got here this past Thursday!

If you email support and ask nicely, it's POSSIBLE that they'll give you one. Amazon is seriously that good, I've heard of them doing similar things in the past.

# ¿ May 1, 2011 05:23

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

quote:

Most impressively, the PaperPhone uses no power when nobody is interacting with it.

That's some phone, it doesn't even need to connect to its network and keep the connection going so that it can receive calls :hurr:

# ¿ May 6, 2011 15:16

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

modig posted:

And now we are locked in, since we can't transfer books from the nook to a kindle. (Is the Kindle actually any better?)

Having used both, yes, it really is a lot better. I hate the Nook's interface and I really like the Kindle's. If you did get a Kindle, it would take all of 5 minutes to strip the DRM and use Calibre to convert your books to mobi files. epub and mobi are meaningless since they're so easy to convert between.

# ¿ May 7, 2011 03:49

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Undeclared Eggplant posted:

This worked for me, but it's not truly random - it randomized the order, but now it cycles through the same "random" order each time. I'm guessing that's as random as I'll be able to get it, though.

I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think it generates a new randomized list each time the Kindle is restarted if the random file is present.

# ¿ May 11, 2011 15:08

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Ddraig posted:

It may be good, but $60 good? That's almost half the price of the kindle itself.

Obviously it's a matter of personal preference, but for me yeah it's $60 good.

# ¿ May 24, 2011 15:10

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

muscles like this? posted:

I recently messed around with Mangle and despite being a little wonky it works surprisingly well. So much so that I'm surprised no manga publishers have gone digital distribution yet.

The resolution on eink screens is still kind of low to be able to comfortably read manga on without redoing the typesetting to make the fonts bigger and all. When I tried it before, kanji were mostly legible but a lot of detail was lost due to the resolution and it was hard to read some characters, and furigana was almost totally illegible. Plus you can get nice, printed volumes with bigger pages than the screen is for 100 yen at the Book Off, I think there's very little incentive to get manga in ebook format.

Also yeah, nobody in Japan has an ebook reader. Kinokuniya's webpage has an ad for them on the front, so I guess they're making some headway, but I've never actually seen one in the store or anything.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 21:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:24

Ara: Oct 18, 2003

Willsun posted:

S-so I'm not getting the old screensavers back then?

Sorry, that's kind of the whole point of the "Kindle with Ads" or whatever it's called.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2011 07:39

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Nook/Kindle/Kobo/Sony - What is the best e-reader

«‹›2 »