Cheap e-book readers discussion

bobmccluckie

Totally agree about the free download of Calibre. I have over 400 non Amazon sourced books on my Kindle all converted in seconds to kindle format by Calibre.

Mo99

Hi everyone,

I am new to this site but felt like i had to mention the eReader i brought the other day, i was looking for a relatively cheap eReader that had an e-ink screen as the tft ones affect your eyes after a while and i stumbled across this one on the Waterstone website,

Elonex 621EB 6" eInk eReader

It was 79.99 and it can read a variety of ebook formats including epub, MINO, Pdf. I Think its one of the cheapest out there that has an e-ink screen.

I think it was well worth the money. Hope someone will find this helpfull.

patrick0

I'd like to buy a Kindle but as the existing one has been out for a while, I'll wait a few months for the new one. I've seen predictions of March and July for the Kindle 4 release date.

Anyone know any better?

Will be interesting to see what the screen is like on the new iPad too.

MasterOfNinja

Hi. Just to add a bit to this conversion. People might look at the e-reader's price and go for the cheapest but I want to argue a few points about why not to do that. Just to declare I own a 3rd generation Kindle (the one that's out now that you can buy from amazon, but also tesco/john lewis etc.) and I love it.

Before you buy an e-book reader judge whether you really really need one. If you read a lot of books and/or travel a lot the answer may well be yes.

You then have the question of what e-book reader to buy. I would recommend an e-Ink screen as the screen is suited to printed text. I would discount the cheap colour readers as for reading they won't be great.

After that the question is what e-Ink reader you want. There are 2 main camps here: the amazon kindle (the most popular type linked to amazon's store) or everything else (e.g Sony) which is linked to ePub+Adobe's Digital Rights Management (DRM) software

I will now argue why I think the Kindle is the best solution.

Now there's an argument (for another thread) about DRM but I would argue amazon's is better and less restrictive, and that I just don't like adobe's software and limitations. True with the Adobe option there are multiple stores but there is no real competition and from the whole experience (and philosophical) point of view I would go with the kindle.

There are a lot of arguments why the kindle is a closed format. Amazon has the closed azw format, but also .mobi which a lot of other stores use. It can also do text and pdf files (as well as some other types). People like to argue that the other ebook readers are more open and that they can read the epub format, however all book stores will make you buy things with the DRM format making it somewhat useless.

I also would argue if you have other phones etc. the kindle is better in that it is a system. If you buy a book once you can read it on your kindle, on the kindle software for your iphone/ipad, and software for other phones and for pc/mac. Using the kindle will allow to finish reading on one device and pick it up from the same page on another machine.

Furthermore amazon are committed to getting books out, and supporting the kindle. There are free books for the machine via amazon. Plus you can get other types of free books and load it onto the machine manually (although they won't auto-synchronise as they're not specific kindle books). Amazon is constantly improving the software - today I got a new update which allows me to tell people about books via facebook. Plus on the horizon is a book lending feature (which is already available in the US but we're still waiting).

Overall I wanted to say I was pleased with my kindle and overall as a system (and an experience), plus the fact you can buy a book once and read it on iphone/kindle/computer, I have to recommend it even it is slightly more expensive.

KevinLawry

A second hand palm from ebay can be picked up for a couple of quid (the one I use is a Palm tungsten C - one is just closing on E-Bay for £9)

Combine that with a free program called plucker here and you have a functional e-book reader - project gutenburg supports it, there is software around to do conversions, and palm battery life is very reasonable. I used to have a couple of very old palms I picked up really cheap just so that I could have more than one book open in front of me at a time.

It won't suit everyone, new books don't tend to come out in plucker format, but I have had great holidays reading out of copyright books and if you have a palm or microsoft based mobile 'phone you can even combine your e-books with your phone.

Works for me, see if it works for you

Yelseleneri

Asda's. Never had one before so can't compare, but this is easy enough to use and serves its purpose. Very small and light so perfect for holiday reading - will never replace a good book though.

Yelseleneri

ksh123 wrote: »

Anybody got one of the cheap ones? Are they any good?

Perfectly adequate.

stphnstevey

KevinLawry wrote: »

A second hand palm from ebay can be picked up for a couple of quid (the one I use is a Palm tungsten C - one is just closing on E-Bay for £9)

Combine that with a free program called plucker here and you have a functional e-book reader - project gutenburg supports it, there is software around to do conversions, and palm battery life is very reasonable. I used to have a couple of very old palms I picked up really cheap just so that I could have more than one book open in front of me at a time.

It won't suit everyone, new books don't tend to come out in plucker format, but I have had great holidays reading out of copyright books and if you have a palm or microsoft based mobile 'phone you can even combine your e-books with your phone.

Works for me, see if it works for you

What size is the screen? Presume not eink? Can you read PDF's?

StumpyPumpy

People like to argue that the other ebook readers are more open and that they can read the epub format, however all book stores will make you buy things with the DRM format making it somewhat useless.

Actually, this argument shouldn't be dismissed so easily. I have a Sony reader, my brother a Kindle. They have some different features but generally speaking are very similar and you could argue for either side. I think it is just a personal choice - for instance, the fact that the Kindle has a keyboard taking up quite a bit of space on the device was a deciding factor for me, for someone else it might be a plus - but the lack of ePub support on the Kindle also entered into the decision and as the Sony supports it, I can get the latest blockbuster eBooks for free from my local library should I wish (UK Libraries use the ePub format with Adobe DRM) My Kindle toting brother can only buy them from places like Amazon.

+1 for Calibre by the way it is by far the best eBook management software I have come across.

stphnstevey

StumpyPumpy wrote: »

Actually, this argument shouldn't be dismissed so easily. I have a Sony reader, my brother a Kindle. They have some different features but generally speaking are very similar and you could argue for either side. I think it is just a personal choice - for instance, the fact that the Kindle has a keyboard taking up quite a bit of space on the device was a deciding factor for me, for someone else it might be a plus - but the lack of ePub support on the Kindle also entered into the decision and as the Sony supports it, I can get the latest blockbuster eBooks for free from my local library should I wish (UK Libraries use the ePub format with Adobe DRM) My Kindle toting brother can only buy them from places like Amazon.

+1 for Calibre by the way it is by far the best eBook management software I have come across.

How do you get ebooks for free from the library?