E-Readers

Mickwreay

Mickwreay

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Mick
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Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has bought/used an e-reader?

I am looking at buying one for my son who travels a great deal but has limited baggage allowance.

Points I'm looking for info on are:-

1. Battery life
2. Ease of use
3. Cost & ease of downloading books
4. Choice of books

I have looked at loads of reviews but always like to get opinions from "real" people

Mick
 
I purchased an Amazon Kindle 3G about a month ago. I love it.

1. Battery life is excellent - I use the reading light (an additional accessory) almost every night, and usually leave the Wireless + 3G on. I get about a week's battery life, and more if I either don't use the light or don't turn on the Wireless.

2. It's simplicity itself to use. There aren't many controls, so you can't do much wrong. Amazon state that the idea of the Kindle is "to get out of the way of reading" and I couldn't agree more.

3. eBooks only cost a little less, generally, than physical versions. Sometimes they even cost a bit more. Partly, this is because digital books are subject to VAT - print books aren't - which adds an automatic 17.5% to the price. Generally they aren't much cheaper, but I find that books for the Kindle are a lot cheaper than their equivalents for the Sony e-Reader from Waterstones. There are also hundreds of free books for the Kindle - almost all of the classics, and lots more. Downloading is easily done from the Kindle Store - just push a button to access it on the Kindle, search for a book (or browse) and push another button to download it. It's linked straight to your Amazon account, and if you delete things you can always download them again from the site.

4. You won't find a bigger choice than through Amazon. If anyone is going to make e-readers successful, they will.

I wholeheartedly recommend it - I travel a lot, and get through a book a week - it saves me lots of time, and I love the convenience of never being without a book.
 
I have a Sony E Reader pocket edition and I LOVE IT! My lovely OH got it for my christmas gift last year.

Battery life is great - took it on a 10 day holiday this year and didn't need to charge it once... read at least four books over the ten days.

Very easy to use - I find it completely intuitive and have no complaints.

Price-wise - as standard I don't find it much cheaper than buying an actual book but there are often offers on and it's not too difficult to get a good deal. Downloading the books is simple - I have used WHSmith and Waterstones websites and you just click and download to your library. Setting up the software that came with it was also very easy and didn't take long at all.

Choice of books is good and I think it can only get better.

Honestly - I havn't used a Kindle but I know they get great reviews too. I don't think you will go far wrong with either and they will both be a revelation for someone who loves reading and travels a lot. I think it's a great gift idea :thumbs:
 
Battery life on any eReader that uses e-Ink will be great, the thing to look out for is file type support, the more file types it can read the better the choice of books will be. At the very least you will want txt, html, ePub & PDF along with the proprietary type it may have.
 
Steep said:
At the very least you will want txt, html, ePub & PDF along with the proprietary type it may have.
Click to expand...

Kindle supports everything except ePub. It's all to do with licensing and a format war with Adobe, but I'm sure they'll get it sorted eventually. I worried about it before I got my Kindle, but once I did, I couldn't really care less about formats.
 
When it comes down to it, any format that is not drm protected can be converted to any other format quite easily.
 
Wife has the first Sony and loves it.....just bought our daughter the Kindle and for the price and usability it beats the Sony. :thumbs:
 
I changed from having a Sony PRS600 to a new Kindle 3g when they came out and while I already loved my Sony ebook, the new Kindle is even better !
 
I'm using my ipad which I'm also typing on here with and think its pretty fantastic!
 
Mickwreay said:
Well,
Thank you all, certainly some in-depth reviews above.

Food for thought, I did think the price per book would be a good bit cheaper than a hard copy!

Many thanks,
Mick
Click to expand...

If you have a "good mate" like towershot, books are cheaper. :nono:
Try here for 33,000 free books. Ok they may not be the latest top 100 but there are some classics there if you hunt around.

Bought OH an e-reader about 3 years ago. Still going strong and she uses it daily. Causing little to no problems in that time I have neglected to keep up with the present crop of readers. Did all my research here and still go back for a browse every now and then.
 
Kindle 3G - had it two months and not had to charge it yet.

Plenty of free books on Amazon, even more on the www

Can download direct to your device using wifi, or to your PC/Mac and use a USB cable to transfer.

I must admit I did expect new releases to be cheaper than they are - a lot of publishers obviously think the latest installment of a series will still sell well.

New series/stand alone books are very cheap
 
I had a Sony 505 for 18 months and read at least a book a week on it, never had one problem and found it so much more convient than paper books.

Bought the new Kindle 3G last month though as i decided to try the new type of e-ink screens their using and wanted a faster screen refresh. Spent a while debating between the kindle and the 650 but in the end decided the keyboard was handier for seaching for a book than the touchsceen, also the 3G could come in quite handy, havent used it much so far but the web browswer seems to work well.

Depends how keen a reader you are but i`d recommend an ereader to most people just for the convenience. The mobileread forums are a great way to find out some more about them, i read through them a lot before making my mind up on which model.
 
going to get myself a kindle 3g next week, great thread - swayed my decision to defo get one
 
I have the Sony Touch e reader - i read a lot and thought I'd only use it on holiday, for convenience, and would miss the feel of a book. I was wrong. I love it, it's so convenient. The only thing that bugs me is that new books aren't that cheap - none of the 3 for 2s you get in Waterstones.
However, there are hoardes of very cheap books if you can be bothered to have a trawl online, which has meant I've read stuff I just wouldn't have come across before.

I can't say how long the battery life is, as I charge it regularly, well before it's run down.
It is very use to use - if you can read then you can use a reader.
The inital set up was a faff (but Christmas day, as it turns out, is not the best day to be trying to download software - who knew?).

I do sort of miss reading a great book and then passing it along to someone else to read, but generally, it's fab.
 
Can anyone tell me how well does the Kindle handle PDF's? I've got a lot of study material that is in PDF format that I need to get through whilst on the trains to work, also what about PDF's/books that have graphics and diagrams? How well are these displayed on the Kindle?
 
PDF depends on how it's been saved/encoded. I've some PDFs that display with tiny print and others that are just fine on my reader so I guess it's a matter of try it and see.
 
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