How to pick an e-reader?

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Why couldn't you convert your current collection to a Kindle format with Calibre, assuming you want to buy a Kindle? Am I missing something here?

TheCounselor wrote:

Why couldn't you convert your current collection to a Kindle format with Calibre, assuming you want to buy a Kindle? Am I missing something here?

The main question to that is why do I need to? Even removing the barrier to entry, the Kobos seem to get very similar review scores and I have yet to find a book I wanted that they did not have. Right now the Kobo is still open format and if I switch to Kindle I am actually stuck on their proprietary format right?

I'm not saying I won't switch if it's better, I just don't know what the benefit is. I do like the Audible intergration thing where it will sync the audio book to the spot you are at in the ebook, but I'm not sure how well it works and how expensive audible books are these days.

Go with the device/ecosystem you like better. With Calibre the DRM is a non-concern really.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Go with the device/ecosystem you like better. With Calibre the DRM is a non-concern really.

I'd never heard of Calibre until TheCounselor mentioned it. I didn't realize it was so useful.

Calibre is pretty great. If you're into ebooks, it's a fantastic resource.

Yeah, it's super great.

manta173 wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

Why couldn't you convert your current collection to a Kindle format with Calibre, assuming you want to buy a Kindle? Am I missing something here?

The main question to that is why do I need to? Even removing the barrier to entry, the Kobos seem to get very similar review scores and I have yet to find a book I wanted that they did not have. Right now the Kobo is still open format and if I switch to Kindle I am actually stuck on their proprietary format right?

I'm not saying I won't switch if it's better, I just don't know what the benefit is. I do like the Audible intergration thing where it will sync the audio book to the spot you are at in the ebook, but I'm not sure how well it works and how expensive audible books are these days.

If you like the Kobo hardware, buy a Kobo. My point was the fact that your current collection is on Kobo shouldn't lock you out of a Kindle (or any other device). Even if you buy a Kindle, and future books on the Amazon ecosystem, you can strip the DRM and convert them using Calibre.

The Audible integration works almost flawlessly from the times I've used it. The only times I've run into problems are when I use my wifi only Kindle when I'm out, and then want it to sync in the car before reconnecting. That's not Amazon's fault, though. Amazon routinely has discounts for audio versions when you buy the Kindle version of a book. They deviously present it to you immediately after you check out.

TheCounselor wrote:
manta173 wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

Why couldn't you convert your current collection to a Kindle format with Calibre, assuming you want to buy a Kindle? Am I missing something here?

The main question to that is why do I need to? Even removing the barrier to entry, the Kobos seem to get very similar review scores and I have yet to find a book I wanted that they did not have. Right now the Kobo is still open format and if I switch to Kindle I am actually stuck on their proprietary format right?

I'm not saying I won't switch if it's better, I just don't know what the benefit is. I do like the Audible intergration thing where it will sync the audio book to the spot you are at in the ebook, but I'm not sure how well it works and how expensive audible books are these days.

If you like the Kobo hardware, buy a Kobo. My point was the fact that your current collection is on Kobo shouldn't lock you out of a Kindle (or any other device). Even if you buy a Kindle, and future books on the Amazon ecosystem, you can strip the DRM and convert them using Calibre.

The Audible integration works almost flawlessly from the times I've used it. The only times I've run into problems are when I use my wifi only Kindle when I'm out, and then want it to sync in the car before reconnecting. That's not Amazon's fault, though. Amazon routinely has discounts for audio versions when you buy the Kindle version of a book. They deviously present it to you immediately after you check out.

Alright, so now that I know Calibre exists, the Kindle barrier to entry is now low. I would consider the kobo slightly better due to the HD's screen and all the adjustments for font size and type that Amazon supposedly doesn't do as well. Does anyone know of a benefit in the other way?

I think the audible thing is a big selling point. The question I have now is about the wifi versus the 3G (still 3g ?) version. Do I have to pay for the 3g (I would only use it for syncing in general as I buy my books ahead of trips)? If I got a 3G version would it sync to my audible app on my phone so I could play it while walking through the airport (my most likely use)?

manta173 wrote:

I think the audible thing is a big selling point. The question I have now is about the wifi versus the 3G (still 3g ?) version. Do I have to pay for the 3g (I would only use it for syncing in general as I buy my books ahead of trips)? If I got a 3G version would it sync to my audible app on my phone so I could play it while walking through the airport (my most likely use)?

Not all models offer a 3G-enabled version.

Yes, the 3G version can WhisperSync and download Books over 3G (frankly, it's the main thing I miss about my old K2), but there are charges for some content types and if you're abroad. If you were to, say, convert your Kobo library to .mobi format and then mail them to your Kindle, there could be some charges if it next checked for new content out of a wifi area. For the Audible app I think you'll have to momentarily back out of the book to refresh the last-read location from The Cloud.

Built-in free 3G connectivity uses the same wireless signals that cell phones use, but there are no monthly fees or commitments - Amazon pays for Kindle Paperwhite 3G wireless connectivity. The added convenience of 3G enables you to download books anytime, anywhere, without having to find a Wi-Fi hotspot connection. Your Kindle may use wireless connectivity to make other services available, such as wireless delivery of personal documents, which may require an additional charge. For more information, see Wireless Terms and Conditions

With wireless coverage in over 100 countries and territories, Kindle Paperwhite 3G lets you download books anytime, anywhere, whether you're relaxing on a beach, halfway through a hike, or waiting on the tarmac.

For U.S. customers traveling abroad, additional charges apply for wireless delivery of periodical subscriptions. To avoid any charges, you can always download items via your computer and transfer them to your Kindle using USB or a Wi-Fi connection.

Thanks! I assume if I did anything unusual that I would do it over wifi and not get charged.

So I take it from what you wrote you would recommend the Paperwhite 3G for me then?

I find that 3G is too large a premium at this point, but that's just my perspective.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

I find that 3G is too large a premium at this point, but that's just my perspective.

Wow... $209 without advertisements... Kobo Aura HD it is. Without the 3G sync, I wouldn't use audible... and you are right that is too high of a premium versus the ebook designed for the high end ereader user.

Thanks for the help though. I'll probably be back in a couple of years. lol

I don't find the Special Offers that intrusive. They're not interstitial, and I'd rather have one as the "lock" screen instead of some of the creepy author portraits.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

I don't find the Special Offers that intrusive. They're not interstitial, and I'd rather have one as the "lock" screen instead of some of the creepy author portraits.

Yeah but for 20 bucks versus the not advertisement version I would just add the 20 bucks. I was under the impression that the Kobo Aura HD was the most expensive on the market from all the reviews complaining about price.

I'll put in a counterpoint here. Who needs the 3G? With the wireless, you can connect at home, download a bunch of books for a trip, easily more than you can read, and you're done. When you get to your destination, you could if you wanted use the wireless there (passwords are a pain, though) and grab other books, but you can even more easily just download them onto a laptop and USB them over.

That would put the cost of entry for the Paperwhite back to $119. Who pays $90 for a feature they will use once in a blue moon? After all, it's not every time that you walk through an airport and discover that you can't wait a few hours for a book. It happens, but a tiny bit of foresight will save you about enough money to buy a second regular Kindle for someone else.

The over-riding advantage of the Paperwhite is the screen; don't let that get lost in the other considerations.

Robear wrote:

I'll put in a counterpoint here. Who needs the 3G? With the wireless, you can connect at home, download a bunch of books for a trip, easily more than you can read, and you're done. When you get to your destination, you could if you wanted use the wireless there (passwords are a pain, though) and grab other books, but you can even more easily just download them onto a laptop and USB them over.

That would put the cost of entry for the Paperwhite back to $119. Who pays $90 for a feature they will use once in a blue moon? After all, it's not every time that you walk through an airport and discover that you can't wait a few hours for a book. It happens, but a tiny bit of foresight will save you about enough money to buy a second regular Kindle for someone else.

The over-riding advantage of the Paperwhite is the screen; don't let that get lost in the other considerations.

But the audible syncing is the only thing Kindle has that Kobo can't compete with. I would only need it when I travel (literally walking through an airport, driving to the hotel), hence the need for the 3G.

Don't know if it's been mentioned up-thread, but two huge Kindle features for me are:

1. Emailing books to my devices.
2. Whisper sync between my phone, tablet, and PaperWhite.

Out of curiosity, if I email a file to my kindle, does that let me download and keep synced with the kindle app on my phone? I've got a bunch of non-Amazon books, so I'll probably just keep using Calibre to load them, but it'd be nice to know what the options are. Every once in a while it'd be nice to have access to a book on my phone when I don't have my kindle around.

And I suspect that I'm getting a Paperwhite to replace my K2 this weekend. I think I'm going to have to jailbreak it so I can have Calibre set up collections for me. Anyone have insight into this process? I found a walkthrough for jailbreaking the paperwhite 1, but maybe the process is different for the 2?

Chaz wrote:

Out of curiosity, if I email a file to my kindle, does that let me download and keep synced with the kindle app on my phone?

Yep. Works perfectly. You can set up seperate custom email addresses for each device. The only weird thing is that they'll show up as "documents" instead of books, but they sync fine as long as they have no DRM and are .mobi files.

Wife gave me a paperwhite 2 this morning. Of course, I immediately set to work figuring out how to jailbreak it and get the calibre collections thing installed.

After much horsing around, I get everything in, have calibre export my collections, and go to run the import on the device. Then find out that the newest kindle firmware broke the import plugin, and is waiting to be updated.

Fortunately, the search feature should at least make it way easier to find a particular book than it was scrolling through multiple pages with the old kindle.

I dig this new one so far. Display is way nicer and page turns much faster. It's borderline too small for my fat hands, though putting a case on should bulk it up enough. I like the interface better than the old one, but the inherent problem with touch interfaces popped up when I had to consult the manual to figure out how to do the new "flip through the book while keeping your place" feature. Turns out you swipe up from the bottom. Easy enough, but learning is hard when there's no indication when something will do something.

Then find out that the newest kindle firmware broke the import plugin, and is waiting to be updated.

This is my shocked face. I really don't like locked devices.

Can't you just transfer the stuff in over USB? Calibre has no problem driving my older Kindle DX, and I can just manually stick files on it, if necessary.

No, putting files on works fine. What I'm trying to do is set up custom collections of books in calibre, then use calibre to export the collections to the kindle. That requires a plugin with the new ones. I could create collections on the device, but doing that with over 100 titles sounds awful.

Chaz wrote:

No, putting files on works fine. What I'm trying to do is set up custom collections of books in calibre, then use calibre to export the collections to the kindle. That requires a plugin with the new ones. I could create collections on the device, but doing that with over 100 titles sounds awful.

Do many people have hundreds of books on their e-readers? I think of my PaperWhite as transient. I'll export/email a few books at a time to my Kindle library so I always have a few new books on deck and delete them off as soon as I'm done reading them.

Calibre and my collections live on my mothership pc. It seems like a lot of work to put all of my books on my Kindle.

I'm pretty lazy, so I don't wind up hooking my Kindle up to my computer very often. It's probably silly to have that many books on there at once, but there it is. I might try dropping down to only the one I'm reading. The search on device feature of the new ones is super nice though, and pretty much fixes the sorting problem. On the old Kindle 2, you couldn't do that, so organization was a definite problem.

Over the weekend, I dumped about 180 books onto my new kindle. Last night, I noticed that the battery apparently dropped by 50% over the course of the day, even though it was asleep and in airplane mode. I'm hoping that it was just indexing the books (though why I only saw the battery drop yesterday, I don't know), which could account for it. I checked this morning, and it only had 12 left to index. It should definitely be done with those by the time I get home today, so if they're still indexing, then I've got a problem file or something that's eating battery.

Anyone else run into something like this?

I keep like 200+ books on my Kindle and don't have any weird battery problems. I expect it is just the indexing like you said and once that is done it will be back to normal.

Use of Weapons is a great read.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I keep like 200+ books on my Kindle and don't have any weird battery problems. I expect it is just the indexing like you said and once that is done it will be back to normal.

Got home and still showing 12 left to index. Turns out you can tap the "X left to index", and it'll give you a list of everything that's left to do. I deleted everything from that list except the one I'm reading now, and hopefully that fixes it.

Memories! My wife and I used to have Sony 505s, they were good readers.

Hmm were they in a different format?

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