E-Book Reader (3 Viewers)

[Gambra]

I really want to get one of the new Kindles. Price point is just right too. I've been trying out the Kindle app for Android and it's pretty great though the Android screen is a little small.. There's a program called Calibre that you can put any ebook format you have and convert it to a Kindle friendly format. If things like The New Yorker get added to the Amazon UK Kindle store when it's relaunched, I'll be buying one instantly.

Also, for anyone who knows how to operate IRC file transfer #bookz on Undernet.org has pretty much everything you'll ever want. Even books that have just been released.

 

[Lili Marlene]

I'm currently this close to ordering the new Kindle.

Why should I opt for Sony Shaney?

I'm also a bit worried about feeling incredibly lame reading one of these. Srsly.

 

[ann post]

i thought i'd never say it john, but have you thought about an ipad?? just i read that it has a kindle app floating about.

 

[Lili Marlene]

iPads are backlit aren't they? Hard to read with? You can probably do one of those iphone things and make the writing white and background black, i'm told this makes it easier.

Also, financially I can't see myself getting an ipad.

 

[Gambra]

iPads are pretty expensive and I wouldn't feel comfortable taking out a 500 quid piece of kit that's a little too large to be reading on a bus or something. It's backlit as well which would make reading for more than an hour or two hell.

 

[Ferox13]

Whats the battery life like on the E-readers - I think iPad is about 8 hours (depending on use)...I imagine kindle is ALOT more than this.

 

[Gambra]

Amazon claim it's about a month battery life without using the wireless. I'd believe it, it only uses battery to actually change the pages and to download books.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Why should I opt for Sony Shaney?

i really have no idea. i thought they made it difficult to put pirated stuff on kindles, but maybe not. also, this - LOL! i dont know if any of the others do that kinda shit but maybe they do. I guess if you dont allow your kindle online then amazon cant be interfering with it

 

[Lili Marlene]

Yeah that's actually pretty funny but, at the same time,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle#Remote_content_removal

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener stated that the company is "… changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances."[85] On July 23, 2009, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos posted an apology about the company's handling of the matter on Amazon's official Kindle forum. Bezos said the action was "stupid", and that Amazon "deserve[d] the criticism [it] received."[86]

not very often you'll get a big company like this admitting they shouldn't have done something. I CAN THINK OF A CERTAIN ONLINE PAYMENT PROCESSOR WHO WOULD NEVER MAKE A STATEMENT LIKE THIS.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Yeah that's actually pretty funny but, at the same time,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle#Remote_content_removal



not very often you'll get a big company like this admitting they shouldn't have done something. I CAN THINK OF A CERTAIN ONLINE PAYMENT PROCESSOR WHO WOULD NEVER MAKE A STATEMENT LIKE THIS.

i just dont like the fact that they can do it, but maybe all of them can

 

[Lili Marlene]

So I got one of these.....

 

[ratmonkey]

Word of advice here. Just because the name sounds like kindling doesn't mean you should use it to start the fire.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

So I got one of these.....

Ooooh! Do go on...

 

[Lili Marlene]

Well it's grand to read, no problem with that. The E-Ink stuff is the coolest thing ever, maybe the closet comparison to what it looks like would be one of those projector plastic pages on top of a slightly off-white sheet. I'd say the 'page' is a bit smaller than I hoped but sure you can change the size of the text.

I got some free books from their store, took about 30 seconds to download on 3G, haven't tried the wireless yet. I used that Calibre programme Gambra was on about to convert some other ones I found googling and it seems to be working without a hitch. There's nice touches to it like when you switch it 'off' it randomly chooses a picture of an author or a painting or something and displays it like the cover to a book. The ability to check wikipedia is nice as well.

My main worry is that, like a lot of people I think, when I'm reading academic texts for college I tend to underline stuff in what looks like a haphazard manner; I have a half formed bracket, underline, big asterisks, circled asterisk etc. (depending on how important they are ) methodology to draw my attention to specific bits in a specific way for re-reading purposes and I wonder how natural it will feel to add e-notes to pages. It'll take some getting used to.


I also still wonder if i'll feel a bit of a tool sitting in a public place reading one of them, I imagine myself sitting next to a grizzled old man in Howth with his worn penguin classic and just feeling like such a douchebag.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

is it a kindle?

 

[Lili Marlene]

It is

oh, here's this BTW

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/hardware/2269525/amazon-kindle-vs-sony-reader

I'm gonna go see what thumped looks like on the web browser

 

[Lili Marlene]

Bit of a mess quite frankly.

as I was saying, the Sony reader's ability to have this

is the one feature I'd really like on this thingy. But with no wireless and the fact that it's out of my price range (i'm already pushing it) kind of meant the kindle won.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

im still more tempted by the sony although the price is a bit much. how many euros was your kindle?

 

[Lili Marlene]

*cough*

well anyway, we'll see how it goes. Just having a look at some of the videos of the annotations in action and it doesn't look great. The touch screen itself is damn cool though. Worst case scenario I wasted some money.