Don't like my Kindle!

clinteestwood

I cant understand why anyone WOULD buy the kindle! never buy a proprietary like this, IMO. you are too locked down by them. Furthermore, there are just too many buttons for it to be sensible! I understand the attraction of e-ink and i love the idea of 000's of books all neatly stored in one place, but there are better alternatives out there to the kindle. However, i do completely understand the attraction of free books that are conveniently located on the portal provided by your little device, thats handy and attractive, but still not worth buying a kindle.

scubaangel

Too many buttons? Other than the forward and backward ones when I'm reading I just don't notice the qwerty keyboard at the bottom.

And yes its propietary but there are plenty of software downloads avaliable which let you convert files, plus you can 'email' some types of file to the device and it'll be converted for you. For the time being I disagree that there are better alternatives to Kindle, Sony's my partner and I found were too fiddly to get books on to and he has had issues with his pretty much constantly, other devices aren't as user friendly to actually get the ebooks in to it in my experience.

clinteestwood

scubaangel wrote: »

Too many buttons? Other than the forward and backward ones when I'm reading I just don't notice the qwerty keyboard at the bottom.

And yes its propietary but there are plenty of software downloads avaliable which let you convert files, plus you can 'email' some types of file to the device and it'll be converted for you. For the time being I disagree that there are better alternatives to Kindle, Sony's my partner and I found were too fiddly to get books on to and he has had issues with his pretty much constantly, other devices aren't as user friendly to actually get the ebooks in to it in my experience.

Didnt know that you had those extra services... that is handy. My bro has the sony and loves it and its great build quality. me personally, i just wouldn't buy one that is so tightly controlled.

tanith

clinteestwood wrote: »

Didnt know that you had those extra services... that is handy. My bro has the sony and loves it and its great build quality. me personally, i just wouldn't buy one that is so tightly controlled.

You can also browse the web in the experimental option if you have wireless or 3g. At present its not very easy to use but that will get better with time.. its good enough to just glance at Facebook to catch up or if you are looking for something specific.. I love my Kindle.. it will also store music and for those that need it will read your story outloud to you..

RussJK

clinteestwood wrote: »

I cant understand why anyone WOULD buy the kindle! never buy a proprietary like this, IMO. you are too locked down by them.

I think it's mainly that the pricing of the device itself is very tempting, being a loss leader, also Amazon have the best-priced ebook store for the general market.

Saying that, I agree and it's the main reason why I'm not going to buy a Kindle. It doesn't support the epub standard, and pushes it's own exclusive format with one of the biggest ebook stores. You can't use their store without a Kindle, and you can't use other big stores with a Kindle. We've seen enough of this kind of behaviour in the PC market in the 90s, with big companies using their size as leverage to push proprietary formats and squeeze competitors out of the picture.

jm2926

RussJK wrote: »

You can't use their store without a Kindle

This is not true. Kindle purchases can be sent to a mobile phone, PC, Mac etc. Once on PC you can use Calibre (free software) to convert the files to any format of your choice.

and you can't use other big stores with a Kindle.

This would depend on the DRM of the other stores. I have converted loads of ePub's to mobi format and uploaded to my Kindle (again using Calibre).

RussJK

jm2926 wrote: »

This is not true. Kindle purchases can be sent to a mobile phone, PC, Mac etc. Once on PC you can use Calibre (free software) to convert the files to any format of your choice.

This would depend on the DRM of the other stores. I have converted loads of ePub's to mobi format and uploaded to my Kindle (again using Calibre).

I know this; I was speaking generally since none of that changes the big picture at all.

For the majority of Kindle store users, they'll be locked into using either a Kindle device, or a Kindle app on another devices. For the majority of Kindle users, they'll be using the Amazon Kindle store for their books.

I use Calibre myself, but I consider it an exception to the rule. Conversions are an extra step most people won't take, and one they really shouldn't have to take. It also has its limitations.

(You can hack the firmware of the Kindle to support epub & pdfs as well, but most won't either.)

Be_Happy

Thanks for all the helpful hints and info. I'll give the ideas a try and certainly won't give in yet.

edgex

there are thousands of free books on project guttenburg, some are downloadable in kindle format, others are just plain text.

as for the books being more expensive, thats because ebooks attract vat, physical books dont

soolin

renegade wrote: »

Would not have one even as a free gift. Can't beat the feeling and smell of books. My library has all I need,I can reserve books,read the list of the latest books to be coming in, chat with the librarians, have a cup of tea, what more could you want and at no charge?

My old fashioned library was recentlymodernised and you would now struggle to borrow anything other than a Mills and Boon type book or other lowest common denominator stuff. All the really good stuff has been sold off over th epast 2 years, I know because I did a deal with them and bought quite a lot of stock.