E Readers

KiwiCrazy

Best way to go is by far a Tablet...

Yolina

John Lewis stocks the Kindle too. Agree about the cashback but personally I'd suggest having a play with one in a store and then order it from Amazon as their customer service is amazingly good. From what I've seen, any issues and they ship a new one out no questions asked, they also email a postage label to be printed for returns and you only send the old one back when the new one has arrived. If only other companies would learn from Amazon CS...

BackOnTrack

KiwiCrazy wrote: »

Best way to go is by far a Tablet...

Not really, you only get a few hours battery life from a tablet in comparison with weeks from an ebook reader, the backlight can cause eye strain making reading for long periods uncomfortable and the glossy screen is almost impossible to read in bright sunlight.

Yolina

KiwiCrazy wrote: »

Best way to go is by far a Tablet...

I guess for occasional readers this is probably fine, but for people who read a lot, it's pretty much a non-starter. I spend enough time in front of a computer screen as it is and I really don't want to read from a LCD screen. As already mentioned the battery life is also a major issue.

cgk1

Yeah, a tablet is a completely different experience - an ereader is a highly specialist device that does one thing and does it very well. I like and use tablets but it's not a sub for my ereader.

aliasojo

[STRIKE]
Just had an email to say that PC World now also stocks the Kindle and covers, so maybe people could check it out there if they don't have a John Lewis near them.
[/STRIKE]

Apologies, already been mentioned.

MsHoarder

23n1th wrote: »

Why would I need a spare ereader?? I would just need to put the book back on the Kindle if it was ever deleted from my account/kindle, simple.
...
Please elaborate how the kindle isn't standards compliant.

Because if Amazon aren't letting you add a book to your account for whatever reason (including Amazon going bust) then you will not be able to read it on your Kindle. This is not to do with

The Kindle doesn't use the generally aproved standard file format. See here for one article discussing this:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/epub-the-final-barrier-for-kindle-adoption/13804

If you look, there are a lot of us with experience in handling software and custom file formats who are concerned about Amazon. Whilst you may be happy that you "can just use Calibre" that makes file handling and ensuring books do not fall into obsolete file formats a bit harder. This is not a good thing!

hubert_cumberdale

get the kindle the screen is amazing its not LCD it uses electric ink so its well good and looks like a real book

it also only uses power as the screen is generated for a split second

not sure if the others use this new system

mttylad

My wife has recently started using the Kindle for the PC reader and loves it, I got her Calibre and over 4000 books downloaded from various sources.

She will be able to keep all her ebooks on her netbook, no matter what format they are and in a few months when she gets her Kindle for her birthday it too will be able to be used to read all her books as AFAIK calibre will convert them and upload them to it.

As for he cost of the ebooks, she has been using readitswapit for ages, but this costs her postage of books at about £1.80 a time.

Whats an ebook cost? so far she has been spending about 50p a book.

Anyone want to buy a pair of Billy bookcases with glass doors? I only put them up last month to store her books in, looks like they may be emptied soon lol

duchy

liam8282 wrote: »

How long are you going on holiday for? You will most likely read one full book, maybe two? I get through at least three books on holiday with long haul flights

If you go to the library for books, swap with friends, borrow off relatives etc. the cost is usually nothing. I like to keep books and reread them

Many places, like my local pub, actually have free libraries where you bring your old books and swap them with other books you haven't read. I'm not keen on secondhand books -often they smell musty-and I don't drink so don't go in pubs as a rule



I did admit I am anti ebooks. :rotfl:

I just don't see the point in them.

If you already have a laptop, why not just download a free program to read ebooks, and take that with you? It's more cumbersome and heavy-the battery time is far lower than a kindle

If you want the ability to store and read hundreds of books, your laptop can do that. I work on mylaptop-if I read on it too-it wouldn't feel like relaxation so much

If you want something like a book, with pages etc, a book can do that.

We're all different