Hi,
i just want to know (objectively) if the kindle is good for reading. I have seen that you can also get newspapers via subscription.
Now i know that a device like that is perhaps not wow with Linux or the community, but i am actually interested. Not really for books, but for news and, well, perhaps books.
If someone uses it, a inside thought would be nice.
I don’t have a Kindle but a Sony. It takes some getting used to but you can read books on it comfortably. What I like is that you can cram a whole library onto it for travelling, including PDFs that you have downloaded or created. I don’t read newspapers though. Journalism these days isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on so I just get the important news from public websites.
You can treat it as a USB storage device or you can use something like the free Calibre software to manage your collection. It also has a built-in MP3 player. I believe the Kindle has 3G.
If you are looking for user reviews, I’m sure a web search will find you lots since this is not a technical topic and ordinary people have posted their comments online elsewhere.
On Sat, 30 Oct 2010 23:06:02 +0000, yester64 wrote:
> Hi,
> i just want to know (objectively) if the kindle is good for reading. I
> have seen that you can also get newspapers via subscription. Now i know
> that a device like that is perhaps not wow with Linux or the community,
> but i am actually interested. Not really for books, but for news and,
> well, perhaps books.
> If someone uses it, a inside thought would be nice.
I have a Nook, which is based on Android. I really like it, find it to
be very good for reading.
Given a choice between a Kindle and a Nook, and being of an open
platforms mindset, I prefer the Nook any day over the Kindle.
It also supports more file formats than the Kindle - and is fairly easily
rooted (the newer hardware isn’t as easy as the older hardware, the
change was fairly recent).
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
I seen that their will also have color nook. Interesting.
Well, for me it will be only a Wifi reader since i don’t want to pay AT&T again.
I am not sure about how to read a book on a device like that (i am an old school reader who loves the smell of a book), but from time to time it can be good.
So if i understood you right, you can also use other formats with the nook. Have to think about it.
Thanks for the insight.
On Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:36:02 +0000, yester64 wrote:
> I seen that their will also have color nook. Interesting. Well, for me
> it will be only a Wifi reader since i don’t want to pay AT&T again.
Same here, I got the Wifi-only version of it. I can do a wifi tether
with my rooted Android phone if I really need connectivity. Though with
the 3G version of the Nook, you don’t pay a monthly charge for access -
you just pay the extra $50 up front - but that 3G connection is only for
the store app, not for browsing the web too (so I’ve heard).
We’re interested in looking at the colour version, but the eInk display
is really easy on the eyes.
> I am not sure about how to read a book on a device like that (i am an
> old school reader who loves the smell of a book), but from time to time
> it can be good.
> So if i understood you right, you can also use other formats with the
> nook. Have to think about it.
>
> Thanks for the insight.
My wife wanted one because her eyes are weird, and changing the font size
is really nice for that. I usually read either at extra small font size
or at medium font size - for me it depends on the lighting conditions.
There are definitely some things you need to have in real “dead tree”
book form, though - we’ve got many that we are going to keep that way,
even though some are available as eBooks.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
yester64 wrote:
>
> Hi,
> i just want to know (objectively) if the kindle is good for reading. I
> have seen that you can also get newspapers via subscription.
> Now i know that a device like that is perhaps not wow with Linux or the
> community, but i am actually interested. Not really for books, but for
> news and, well, perhaps books.
> If someone uses it, a inside thought would be nice.
>
>
We’re a Kindle (2) family. We own two Kindle DX’s and one Kindle 2. These
are the 2nd gen devices from Amazon.
There are two primary benefits to the Kindle line IMHO
-
e-ink display
-
internet (sometimes) anywhere
Other solutions might give you an LCD or OMLED display… but nothing beats
the Kindle in true sunlight conditions. It’s like a book printed on heavily
recycled paper… that is, the pages are gray instead of near white.
Another possible benefit, albeit perhaps strange, is that you can lay a
kindle on a photocopier and make a copy of what it has displayed.
The Kindle does handle PDF files… .and they have improved the handling of
those… it’s not perfect… but I’d say it’s “good enough” for use now.
The web browser has also improved considerably… so Internet anywhere is
“better”… but no, it’s not even as good as the worst “smart” phone. But
still… if you don’t have a smart phone (anyone who can afford a smart
phone can buy a truck and a large power cord with a mainframe sitting in it
to follow them around with a direct laser site high speed Internet connect).
Other solutions, like an iPad are both expensive AND force a monthly data
plan. The Kindle is semi-high priced with FREE 3G data. If that matters.
Book wise, Amazon has a ton of titles. Obviously, BN would say they MUST
have the largest array of titles… so if titles matter, it’s probably a
toss up between the two right now… with (perhaps) the favor falling toward
BN (if for nothing more than that they SAY so).
My wife and daughter and I all use the SAME Kindle/Amazon account (this is
allowed) which allows us all to read from the same set of purchased books.
However, I’ll be honest… I mostly download PDF’s to mine and use that.
That includes copies of Linux Pro Magazine (for example… for those with a
digital subscription).
With regards to “subscriptions”, there are Amazon subscriptions for news and
magazines and such (nothing “good”, but the typical fare)… but my trials
of those were VERY lacking. It’s like typical ebook scenarios where the
“rich” illustrated content is totally removed and you get basic text in a
straight format… so it’s NOT the same as “reading the morning paper”.
In fact, most Kindle material is that way. Of course, you could argue that
lack of color display makes it “uninteresting”, but the gray levels are
there and I do like being able to see the pics and diagrams (for example)
that are shown when I use it with my Linux Pro PDFs.
The Kindle has a VERY basic mp3 player… so… if you’re not into the
controversial “speak my book” feature, you can listen to tunes while you
read.
The Kindle has some limited book marking, but no good “note taking”
options… this is a pretty major deficiency in the device. I’m thinking
the Kindle 4 (or whatever it will be called) might have a touch screen or
some other convenient way to jot notes and save them. Being able to overlay
markup of some sort and save them contextually would really help the device.
Especially if there was a way to share those overlays… AND, of course, for
me, allow that for PDFs as well.
The Kindle overall is a mixed bag. Cheap if you consider the lack of
monthly data plan (if Internet (sometimes) anywhere) is interesting (again,
those with smart phones need to turn away now… ).
Need a portable large scale library that will follow you to the beach… get
a Kindle. Need the ability to check out a new book while still on the beach
(sometimes)… get a Kindle.
Is the Kindle an “open” device? NO. Are the formats open? NO. Is Amazon
friend or foe? Debatable… sorta like Google in that regard, but probably
not quite as “nice” as Google.
BTW e-ink isn’t peculiar to the Kindle, the other e-books use it too. No way you will get the long usage per charge with standard laptop displays.
On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:52:30 +0000, Chris Cox wrote:
> There are two primary benefits to the Kindle line IMHO
>
> 1. e-ink display
>
> 2. internet (sometimes) anywhere
>
> Other solutions might give you an LCD or OMLED display… but nothing
> beats the Kindle in true sunlight conditions. It’s like a book printed
> on heavily recycled paper… that is, the pages are gray instead of near
> white.
I find this to be a huge benefit on the Nook as well - the e-ink display
is really easy on the eyes. We are talking about looking at the new
Nook Color, but it isn’t e-ink, so while the interface looks really good,
I don’t know that we’ll actually buy one. We’ll probably wait a year
before deciding.
My new phone has (I believe) an AMOLED screen, and if it is that, it’s
not very hard on the eyes either, but for reading I prefer the e-ink
display.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On 2010-11-03 15:52, Chris Cox wrote:
Thanks for your write-up, it is interesting.
> There are two primary benefits to the Kindle line IMHO
>
> 1. e-ink display
>
> 2. internet (sometimes) anywhere
Evventually I might buy one of those, but the “small detail” is that
they are designed to work in the USA, I understand. The internet
anywhere is not that “anywhere”.
The other “detail” is about durability of the books you buy. A paper
book can last centuries - what about an ebook? Can you move it easily
from a device to other, even after the device breaks down? Meaning
backups, and DRM.
I think there are two types of e-readers. One has DRM or equivalent, and
is designed to buy content from, I think only one company (Amazon?). The
other is open, and can only read open content, because it lacks the DRM
bits, or because distributors do not sell for that device.
This is important, because the reason for me to buy such a device is to
be able to buy books in English (I live in Spain), without limitation
and without having to pay for long distance transportation (I have
bought second hand paper books for a dollar, then ten dollars for
shipping). So the idea of buying electronics books is interesting to me.
Which brings other questions, of course. Can the books and devices be
bought outside of the USA? How about backups? How about Linux, perhaps
it requires Windows for the shopping and uploading to the device.
…
> The Kindle overall is a mixed bag. Cheap if you consider the lack of
> monthly data plan (if Internet (sometimes) anywhere) is interesting (again,
> those with smart phones need to turn away now… ).
It seems nice but that it could be nicer 
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:19:31 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Evventually I might buy one of those, but the “small detail” is that
> they are designed to work in the USA, I understand. The internet
> anywhere is not that “anywhere”.
That’s not really a technological limitation, it has to do with tax
collection more than anything.
If I use my Nook outside the US and purchase a book from the online store
using the device, how does the country I’m in collect tax? Answer: They
don’t, unless B&N registers with that country’s tax authority and submits
payments on sales that take place in the country. If they don’t, and
they get caught, they would have to pay a huge fine.
Global tax law has a lot of work to do in order to account for purchases
on the Internet. It hasn’t kept up with the technology, and so we have
seemingly stupid restrictions like this.
It’s the same reason I couldn’t use Netflix in the UK - because Netflix
doesn’t have a tax presence in the UK, but as I’d be paying for the
service there, the UK government would be entitled to VAT.
Because of the significant legal challenges that take place in dealing
with that, most companies opt to just restrict their area of distribution
rather than having to hire tax experts in every country they might do
business in. It becomes a cost/benefit analysis.
> The other “detail” is about durability of the books you buy. A paper
> book can last centuries - what about an ebook? Can you move it easily
> from a device to other, even after the device breaks down? Meaning
> backups, and DRM.
Yes, there are options. A paper book can also get wet and be destroyed
in a fire - an eBook can be re-downloaded to a new device if the device
is destroyed, and it doesn’t cost anything extra to do so (at least not
from B&N).
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:19:31 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> I think there are two types of e-readers. One has DRM or equivalent, and
> is designed to buy content from, I think only one company (Amazon?). The
> other is open, and can only read open content, because it lacks the DRM
> bits, or because distributors do not sell for that device.
The Nook can read both DRM’ed content from the B&N store and supports
more open formats like PDF and un-DRM’ed ePub, so can also use files
from, say, Project Gutenberg.
However, I currently cannot buy from Amazon and use on my Nook reader (or
vice versa). If both companies were smart, they’d share a format.
> Which brings other questions, of course. Can the books and devices be
> bought outside of the USA? How about backups?
Yes, they can be brought outside the US and books on them can be read
outside the US. Just the purchasing needs to take place in the US (or
country of origin, maybe a better way of putting it).
> How about Linux, perhaps
> it requires Windows for the shopping and uploading to the device.
Don’t know about the Kindle, but the Nook is based on Android, shows up
as an external hard drive (two, actually) on a Linux machine. All
purchases can be handled directly through the device, so there’s
absolutely no Windows requirement.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
Its getting really confusing for me.
Ok, there is the e-ink display. Got that. Makes sense.
I am not sure if i care really if its android or something else. A truely free OS is perhaps desirable but i don’t think there is one.
What might be more important to me is, if i can download html pages and store them on the device. Like collection webpages with usefull information that you can look up if you need them. Does that make sense?
3G free? SO that means i don’t have to pay AT&T a monthly fee? Wow, nice. Altough Wifi might be good enough for me. At least i can still sit at Starbucks and buy a paper or book and download it. There are so many hotspots now.
As the subscription were mentioned. I have seen that i can get at least the FAZ over Amazon. But no other german magazine. Well, that is here in the US at least. Would be nice to get the ct’ over amazon.
Yes, but you do this by converting the page to PDF so that it doesn’t need lots of files hanging around for the HTML to render. You can easily print to PDF or you can use an online free service called web2pdf that can be accessed via a plugin (only for Chrome and Safari but Firefox support promised soon last I looked).
The Sony I use has an OS based on Montavista embedded Linux, but I have no desire to hack it. It’s just an appliance for me.
yester64 wrote:
>
> Its getting really confusing for me.
> Ok, there is the e-ink display. Got that. Makes sense.
>
> I am not sure if i care really if its android or something else. A
> truely free OS is perhaps desirable but i don’t think there is one.
> What might be more important to me is, if i can download html pages and
> store them on the device. Like collection webpages with usefull
> information that you can look up if you need them. Does that make
> sense?
>
> 3G free? SO that means i don’t have to pay AT&T a monthly fee? Wow,
> nice. Altough Wifi might be good enough for me. At least i can still sit
> at Starbucks and buy a paper or book and download it. There are so many
> hotspots now.
The Kindle has 3G… BUT… it’s slow. You see… rendering fancy pages (not
all of which are supported on the Kindle browser) is VERY slow… so in a
way, 3G doesn’t really matter. Again, it’s really a nice convenience when
nothing else is around (e.g. your smart phone).
>
> As the subscription were mentioned. I have seen that i can get at least
> the FAZ over Amazon. But no other german magazine. Well, that is here in
> the US at least. Would be nice to get the ct’ over amazon.
YMMV… IMHO, I like the full magazine and not something that looks more
like an OCR-to-text version. Pictures and diagrams are important and in
most cases, that’s just not there with the electronic Kindle news and mags.
Kindle (and many other e-ink readers) is definitely a better fit for book
reading.
I think i misunderstood the definition of free 3g. Its needs your cellphone, right. So you pay for it anyway.
Or, it does have its own sender/receiver chip. I got confused. 
What is more important, and i forgot that, if you buy any other ereader, can you buy over amazon or do you need to go with the particular dealer. So if you buy a nook you need to buy from B&N.
I checked some other alternatives. One is purely german, the other available everywhere but i never heart of it.
eSlick Reader
txtr Reader
Hard choices, but i think one wants to go with either Amazon or B&N reader. I have seen the Sony a couple of times, but i think it was a little more expensive.
On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 22:36:02 +0000, yester64 wrote:
> 3G free? SO that means i don’t have to pay AT&T a monthly fee?
Correct, but at least with the Nook it’s only usable by the store app,
not the web browser. So I’m told, anyways, I don’t have the 3G option.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On Thu, 04 Nov 2010 01:36:01 +0000, yester64 wrote:
> I think i misunderstood the definition of free 3g. Its needs your
> cellphone, right. So you pay for it anyway. Or, it does have its own
> sender/receiver chip
Nook has its own tranciever, and I believe that’s the case for the Kindle
as well.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
yester64 wrote:
…
> I think i misunderstood the definition of free 3g. Its needs your
> cellphone, right. So you pay for it anyway.
> Or, it does have its own sender/receiver chip. I got confused. 
NO… the Kindle is a connected (in the USA) to (I believe) Sprint’s 3G
network (it will fallback if 3G isn’t there).
It’s something that nobody has EVER seen… a FREE UNLIMITED data plan (with
the limitations of the device already mentioned).
>
> What is more important, and i forgot that, if you buy any other
> ereader, can you buy over amazon or do you need to go with the
> particular dealer. So if you buy a nook you need to buy from B&N.
> I checked some other alternatives. One is purely german, the other
> available everywhere but i never heart of it.
> ‘eSlick Reader’ (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/)
> ‘txtr Reader’ (http://reader.txtr.com/start.html?L=1)
>
> Hard choices, but i think one wants to go with either Amazon or B&N
> reader. I have seen the Sony a couple of times, but i think it was a
> little more expensive.
IMHO, it’s like Apple. You can buy an alternative, or the “real deal”.
Kindle works… it’s the #1, it’s still #1 and my guess is that it will be
#1 for at least another couple of years.
The bigger question is… do you WANT a Kindle? I’d say if you read books
like crazy or like carrying around your PDF library EVERYWHERE… then it’s
a reasonable device. Having the ability to hit (the slow rendering) 3G
(sometimes) Internet while on the go… is just a nice bonus.
I know when I went to Greece and Turkey earlier this year (obviously no WWAN
access via Kindle there), I preloaded some maps and books about Greece and
Turkey… it was nice to have and easy to carry with me. When visiting
ruins and stuff, it really helped to see where everything was and directions
to go that others didn’t know about.
The Kindle2 (not sure about newer) doesn’t have Wifi capability only
WWAN… so if that’s important it might not be the right fit.
Here is a handy resource for the e-book shopper: Comparison of e-book readers.
I have a Nook and so does my wife. We bought nooks because they use epub format (which is what all the public libraries / schools are using b/c it is an open format) and we liked the touchpad navigation. Once we got the nooks, we discovered the OTHER great advantage: FREE BOOK FRIDAYS. Every Friday Barnes and Noble gives away a free ebook, and they’re often big names, not just public domain stuff.
Good luck!
On Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:06:01 +0000, polycarp wrote:
> I have a Nook and so does my wife. We bought nooks because they use epub
> format (which is what all the public libraries / schools are using b/c
> it is an open format) and we liked the touchpad navigation. Once we got
> the nooks, we discovered the OTHER great advantage: FREE BOOK FRIDAYS.
> Every Friday Barnes and Noble gives away a free ebook, and they’re often
> big names, not just public domain stuff.
Yep, that’s something I take advantage of as well. One downside,
though: The B&N coupons are not good for eBooks. But the prices are
much lower (generally) on their eBooks anyways.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C