Kindle Questions

50Twuncle

I am considering purchasing a Kindle Ebook reader - but am confused...
According to a report in "Computeractive" - you can ONLY download books from Amazon.
What about the free alternatives - such as Project Gutenberg ?
Do Kindles have a memory card slot or would I be limited to downloading books ?
If I did buy one - does the 3G one, actually allow browsing the internet ? ie Accessing email - for life - for free ?

parallax_20

According to the information given by Amazon, you can load free book from Internet Archive, Open Library, Project Gutenberg, and ManyBooks.net. Read here about Free Books. There are probably more unlisted sources that could be used.

It doesn't look like Kindle has any expandable memory. It has 4GB built-in memory of which 3GB is available for user content.

3G is only another mode of accessing the internet for data. Be it, for browsing or downloading new books. The cost of using 3G is chargeable and costs will depend on which mobile operator you choose to go with Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, etc... So unless you need internet access on the move and are willing to pay for the privilege, I would stick to WIFI.

Have a read of the Kindle product page on Amazon. It should tell you all you need to know. Also read of the Kindle thread here for more views.

thetope

You can download books from other sources and transfer them to your kindle. There is a program called Calibre which converts all sorts of text file formats into those suited to the kindle.

Re the 3G - you don't have to source your own sim card, it comes inside the kindle and gives you "free" internet access. However, it does state that the web browser is "experimental" and has "limited capabilities". Obviously the kindle is limited by what its screen can show, so you can't play videos, flash etc. However you can check some providers (not all) internet mail and use facebook, twitter etc. As it is experimental though, Amazon have left themselves with teh opportunity to withdraw free use at a later date

parallax_20

Having no real experience of Kindles or reading books , I just made that assumption about 3G. But thetope is right. It is apparently free based on a colleague who also has one. And its claimed the cost of the books purchased factors in the cost of delivery, which probably explains the free element of the 3G. How Amazon has formed this agreement with the mobile operator I have no idea.

So I think I'd stop there.

bigphil30uk

I use the Calibre software to download the daily news from The BBC and The Daily Mail, for free.

Glad

I've got a kindle and found great useful info on UK Kindle Users Forum
Amazon also has a kindle chat forum

asc99c

Have you also looked at the Sony Reader? It has a memory stick slot, and can read standard text files and PDFs as supplied by Project Gutenberg, in addition to standard e-book formats. To me it also looks substantially nicer, and is a more similar size to a book.

steve1980

If you have an iPhone you can have the Kindle App.

Don__2

Hi - I was recently given a Kindle as a birthday present and I absolutely love it.

The 3G is a nice feature, but unless you absolutely MUST download books on the move, I'd say that the wireless version is just fine - it's also more likely to save battery life and is 30% cheaper.

You definitely can download ebooks from Project Gutenberg - all the books there give you the option to download in Amazon format, then you can transfer to your Kindle by USB.

Amazon also do a semi-decent job of providing some public domain books for free, which you can directly download from the site.

One final tip (which I got from the Amazon Kindle forum) - on the main site do a search in the Kindle store using the text:

-domain

Then sort the results by price. This will show you all the non-public domain books which are available for free, which is fab! I got several very useful, new books using this.

Happy reading.

Fifer

steve1980 wrote: »

If you have an iPhone you can have the Kindle App.

There's a Kindle app for many devices, including Android phones. However, the main advantage of a real Kindle is epaper, which you lose out on by using a normal LCD screen device.

50Twuncle

Thanks all for your advice
I am going to order a 3G version