E-readers

[Pinkamena]

So I'm kinda interested in getting an e-reader. Does anyone here have experience with the Kindle ones? What are they like? My biggest concern is not having the actual hardware buttons for page turning, and touchscreen. I'm imagining you cannot even get near the screen with a finger before you've marked text or turned a page when you didn't want to. Because, apparently, God forbid someone would be holding the e-reader with the fingers on the page like a book.

So basically, how are your experiences with the touch-screen Kindles?

 

[Albino Boo]

I run the kindle app on my tablet and its a fairly large movement to turn the page and to mark something you have hold in one place for 3 seconds or so. The only thing that I found annoying was the habit of changing from portrait to landscape at the smallest wooble but you can now lock the screen to one setting.

 

[Vault101]

I;ve only had Kobo ones

it is true that you can't really touch the screen without it turning a page though its not too hard...particually if you have a lighter model

 

[DoPo]

I was thinking of the getting a Kindle, but I had a lot of PDFs, and it seems most e-readers are not good with them. Instead, I went with a tablet - I got a Nexus 7 (1st generation - it was cheap, too). The battery life isn't as good as an e-reader, but I am happy with it. And, hey, I also have the Kindle app. And other stuff, too.

Overall, as I said, I'm happy with it. I don't usually need a larger battery as it lasts enough for me - it's about a week, and it's home every day, as well.

Mentioning this just in case you it might help you.

 

[Hoplon]

So I'm kinda interested in getting an e-reader. Does anyone here have experience with the Kindle ones? What are they like? My biggest concern is not having the actual hardware buttons for page turning, and touchscreen. I'm imagining you cannot even get near the screen with a finger before you've marked text or turned a page when you didn't want to. Because, apparently, God forbid someone would be holding the e-reader with the fingers on the page like a book.

So basically, how are your experiences with the touch-screen Kindles?

Been using an old buttoned base model for two years now, love the crap out of it. the main reason the fingers thing isn't an issue is a case, which you will want, most tend to auto them off so can't touch anything you don't want to.

Mine plays fine with PDFs. the screen is just so much less harsh than a tablet (or PC or phone) because it's not the light source.

 

[Mutant1988]

I'm curious about how good the availability of books and the prices are.

Say I want to buy every single book that Terry Pratchett has ever written. Am I able to? How much would each book cost, on average?

Because yeah, I'm curious about E-readers to, simply because I don't have any space to put books.

 

[Tatsuki]

I was given an E-Reader for Christmas a few years ago, I didn't want one and love to have physical books.

So I HATE how well it works and how weak willed I am, buying books left and right simply because I can. As for Terry Pratchett, you will have no problem getting all the novels he has ever written and the price can vary, but cheaper than buying books and more practical.

One of the main unsung things about it is the fact that there are libraries of free books most people will never hear of which you can get for free not to mention all the classics.

The Kindle specifically, it copes well with random touches and cats trying to sit on it and you can sit with two fingers on it like a book if you really want. If its what you want, I would say go for it but at least demo a shop model first.

 

[Mutant1988]

I was given an E-Reader for Christmas a few years ago, I didn't want one and love to have physical books.

So I HATE how well it works and how weak willed I am, buying books left and right simply because I can. As for Terry Pratchett, you will have no problem getting all the novels he has ever written and the price can vary, but cheaper than buying books and more practical.

One of the main unsung things about it is the fact that there are libraries of free books most people will never hear of which you can get for free not to mention all the classics.

The Kindle specifically, it copes well with random touches and cats trying to sit on it and you can sit with two fingers on it like a book if you really want. If its what you want, I would say go for it but at least demo a shop model first.

Probably a ton of public domain ebooks on archive dot org.

But I'm very happy to hear that I can find all novels of my favourite author. I think I own only 5 or 6 books and the rest I've only read at the library and not in the original English.

Thanks for the information.

 

[Tatsuki]

I own all his books, huge fan of him and the novels.

 

[2HF]

I suggest borrowing one first. They work wonderfully but the experience isn't for everyone. That the convenience of carrying around a library in a pocket is far and away better than only being able to carry one book is indisputable. Equally indisputable is the fact that I don't fuckin care. I simply will not read out of an e-reader of any kind. Carrying a book in my back pocket and actually flipping the pages are important parts of the experience for me. Nothing an e-reader can do will replace that. That's just me though.

 

[EHKOS]

Son of a ***** I had almost everything written out and instead of an ampersand I cleared everything.

I borrowed my mom's Kindle Fire for a few months and it was really good, it also is a weak tablet so if you need the internet or something, it's there. It's an Android system which is nice and it also has an app called Comic Cat available if you want to read comic files.

Personally I went out and got a D01101 model because I was broke and it was amazingly cheap. It uses E-Ink so it's not a touchscreen and you can lay your fingers wherever you like, it runs on a very basic system and it does not have a back light. But it looks more like a book, I suggest you look at it on Youtube or research a bit on E-Ink since it has a very low refresh rate due to the technology.

I had a Nook Color for about a day and it was terrible. I was under the impression it was built by Sony, and if you give a kid a console, then he will have brand loyalty. I was wrong however, and it's made by Barnes & Noble themselves. It requires a special charger that breaks often, the touchscreen went crazy on me a number of times, and there's a magnet on the latch of the SD card slot. (That might actually be fine but since magnets are usually cruel to electronics I figure it will wipe the card, could be totally wrong here.)

Anyway, I can personally recommend the Kindle Fire (refurbished ones are decently cheap) or any Kindle really. Depends on what you want/need and your budget, but I enjoy having one. And the model I have now fits into my shorts pockets.

One last thing, they don't read .epub formats but there's a free program called calibre that I have sitting on my desktop that converts them to the most common Kindle format: .mobi.

 

[bliebblob]

As an owner of one without a touch screen, I can safely say that if you plan on reading a lot of things on it that weren't necessarily designed for it, a touchscreen will probably help a lot. Because when you do, you'll likely have to do some finagling with the zoom level and page orientation to find that sweet spot where it's readable without parts falling off the screen. Without a touch screen you're stuck with tiny, not-so-responsive buttons and drop down menus that give you options like 'Zoom: 150%'. With a touchscreen, I assume you can just flip it sideways and swipe to zoom. ( Key word: "assume!" )

 

[Cowabungaa]

My re-furbished ?50,- Kobo is pretty much the best investment I've made in the last year. I sort of had to to get some books for university I couldn't get from the library but instead I could just put them on my e-reader. Now got a metric fuckton of books put on there I can haul around everywhere.

I love how comfortable they read, I can't imagine reading large pieces of text from a screen and for that an e-reader is perfect. It really does feel like you're reading ink on plastic, it hurts the eyes as much as a regular book does. The only annoying bit is that it doesn't do PDFs well. It plays them, but often the font is so tiny you keep having to zoom in and that works slow and annoying on an e-ink display. But it definitely beats a regular screen that ends up being harsh on the eyes and bad for your sleeping rhythm if you like reading before going to sleep.

The accidental pushing can be a thing, yeah, but at least my Kobo has a large enough edge that it rarely really happens. The only real annoying thing is footnotes and such. I often end up turning a page instead of activating the hyperlink. Maybe there's a certain amount of time I need to press the screen but I have yet to find it out. In the end that issue is still very much worth the trouble though, I can't go without this thing.

 

[Kotaro]

I just downloaded the Kindle app for my iPhone and that's all I need, really. For me, e-books can never really match the sensation of a physical paperback, but for things like, say, the complete works of HP Lovecraft, a printed volume would be enormous and thus an e-book is far more convenient.
I can't speak for the Kindle as a piece of hardware, but I've had very little trouble with the iOS app for it, and I can't imagine that the standalone thing's software would be significantly different.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I own a kobo touch. It's not too bad for turning pages at random, but it can happen wometimes.

Personally, I think if you get one without an e-ink display you are wasting your time...
What you end up with iw a gimped tablet, and at that point you're better off using the apps for regular tablets.

Get a decent tablet, put an ebook app on it... (I have kobo, google books and the kindle app on mine)


Reason is, without the e-ink display, all the benefits specific to an ebook reader just... Vanish.

an e-ink display is much more like reading paper than a standard tablet screen, and believe me, if you read a lot you'll come to appreciate that a lot.

On top of that, the battery life on my kobo touch is like... a month. While something like a kindle fyre, which is bsbasically a poor excuse for a tablet. (seriously, if that looks appealing to you, get a proper tablet, not a gimped one pretending it's something else) has maybe a 10-20 hour battery life at best.

e-ink displays make these devices what they are. Otherwise, get a tablet with some ebook apps...

 

[gunny1993]

IIRC the new Kindle voyage has page sensors on the frame, so you dont need to press the screen, from the reveiws I read the function pretty much perfectly, but I've not sued them myself. My 50 quid Kindle 5th ed has been working too well for me to want to replace it.

A tablet pretty much defeats the purpose of an e reader for me so I couldn't recommend it unless all your read is manga or comics, Only thing I use my tablet for is reading PDFs, which the kindle is no good at due to smalll screen size.

 

[Pinkamena]

Alright guys, I know all the pros and cons of E-ink displays and how they operate, look, and feel. That is not what I asked about. I already have a samsung tablet, but no way am I gonna start reading books off it. It's just not comfortable.
I can't understand why Amazon isn't making models without touch screens. A lot of people are reporting that it's just not working well for a e-readers.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

So I'm kinda interested in getting an e-reader. Does anyone here have experience with the Kindle ones? What are they like? My biggest concern is not having the actual hardware buttons for page turning, and touchscreen. I'm imagining you cannot even get near the screen with a finger before you've marked text or turned a page when you didn't want to. Because, apparently, God forbid someone would be holding the e-reader with the fingers on the page like a book.

So basically, how are your experiences with the touch-screen Kindles?

When it comes to e-Readers, you have 2x two choices to make. The first is whether or not to buy a (dedicated) e-Ink device, or use a phone/tablet/laptop with an app. The second choice, if opting for an e-Ink device, is whether to go with a Kindle or with any other e-Reader.

If you already have a tablet/laptop and don't plan to use it for heavy reading (ie. main function), then you'll probably be okay. As well as saving some money, the apps are more than functional. Being tablets, they also have access to many other apps and thus can serve many other functions (video or music playback, games, comic books, the web, etc). However there are two massive downsides to this approach. Tablets/Phones have "emissive" displays; they emit light from a backlight. This can be quite taxing on the eyes after a period of time. Another issue is battery life...these devices tend to last approx. 9-12 hours on a full charge, thus need frequent recharging. Another downside is that they become much harder to use in bright light, such as outdoors in sunlight.

Dedicated e-Ink devices have phenomenal battery life. Since they only use power when the display changes (eg. on a page turn), they battery can last weeks, if not longer. You are much less likely to run out of battery mid-book with one of these. They are designed to simulate paper and are very easy to read. High contrast black text on a white background and since it doesn't use a backlight, it actually becomes *easier* to read the brighter it is (eg. outdoors in sunlight). Conversely, you'll need a separate light source for reading in darker rooms. They come in sizes from 5" up to about 9" depending on your preference. 5-6" displays are very portable, but smaller screens means less text on-screen at once (and thus, more page turns) and a smaller form factor means a physically smaller battery which means fewer page turns per charge (saying that, we're still talking many *thousands* here).

If you choose an e-Ink device, the choice becomes one between Amazon's Kindle, and anything else. Kindle is the most popular, has the single, largest store (with frequent offers) and stores your purchased books in the cloud for future retrieval. They're very functional, competitively priced and popular. The downsides here are that they do *not* support the epub format, which is the standard e-book format everywhere else and further, you are "tied in" to Amazon as your sole source of eBooks. You *can* get converters of sorts and convert things into AZW, but I have no experience with that.

If you don't buy a Kindle, any other e-Reader you buy will predominantly use epub. epub books are available from every other e-book seller, such as B&N, Waterstones, WH Smith, Sony, Google Books and Kobo. The readers generally function the same with differences being down to personal preference and price. Do you want physical buttons? A touch screen? What display size? How much on-board storage/expandable memory with an SD card? Other functions (eg. Wi-Fi, dictionary, front-lit)?

Availability of given authors/books can vary. It's all down to publishing rights, and despite that electronic data doesn't respect International borders, book publishers are still rolling with the same, prehistoric business model of territorial rights for their e-Books as with their traditional publishing. It can mean readers in one place can get them while those in another cannot. In some cases, I've seen some books in a series available while others in the *same* series were not. You'll have to check yourself to see what is as and isn't available.

All that said, personally I have a Nook Touch currently, which replaced my Pocketbook 360. I like the small size, I like the physical buttons on both sides (I read with either hand), I like that it has a front-light for darker rooms (it doesn't tax the eyes like a backlight does), a touch screen for navigating and page-turns and some other cool features. I love the built-in dictionary...with the touch-screen I can just touch a word and hit "Look Up" for a definition. It has a memory card slot (which I'll probably never need in honesty), supports epub and Adobe DRM (the standard for everywhere that isn't amazon) and something I greatly appreciate is the ability to change the text size, font, spacing and layout to suit my preferences. I prefer a serif font and while Nook isn't as customisable as my old Pocketbook (any windows font would work), the selection is ample. I believe it also supports buying from B&N and downloading from the cloud just like the Kindle.

If you buy a Kindle, you'll be tied in to Amazon as your sole source of eBooks and cannot use other eBook stores. Saying that, they usually have the biggest selection and competitive prices. The devices are very good from a tech spec standpoint and your library will move with you to future Kindle devices/apps you sign in to. If you buy a non-Kindle, you can shop from anywhere *except* Amazon, have a larger choice of devices and use epubs, the standard, dominant format. I personally wouldn't use a tablet/phone as a primary e-reader due to the battery life and toll it takes on your eyes and eye-sight over time. I prefer, and still buy physical books but the convenience of an e-reader is impossible to deny. Please ask if you have any other questions.

 

[J Tyran]

So I'm kinda interested in getting an e-reader. Does anyone here have experience with the Kindle ones? What are they like? My biggest concern is not having the actual hardware buttons for page turning, and touchscreen. I'm imagining you cannot even get near the screen with a finger before you've marked text or turned a page when you didn't want to. Because, apparently, God forbid someone would be holding the e-reader with the fingers on the page like a book.

So basically, how are your experiences with the touch-screen Kindles?

I have two, a paperwhite and the new slightly higher specced Kindle Voyage. The screen on the paperwhite isn't that sensitive so accidental page flips etc are not much of a problem, if anything it has the opposite issue. Its not as responsive as you might like, not frustratingly so but definitely noticeable. The Voyage is very sensitive, and the front bezel is flush with the screen so accidental presses can be more likely but I'm used to touchscreens so its no more annoying than getting two book pages stuck together or losing your place in a book.

The bezel is fairly large on the Kindle and the paperwhite anyway, more than enough to hold it comfortably when reading.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Alright guys, I know all the pros and cons of E-ink displays and how they operate, look, and feel. That is not what I asked about. I already have a samsung tablet, but no way am I gonna start reading books off it. It's just not comfortable.
I can't understand why Amazon isn't making models without touch screens. A lot of people are reporting that it's just not working well for a e-readers.

It may be that there is a particular model or batch of units that are faulty or suffer from a design flaw. I don't know the volume of complaints you've come across but keep in mind that it will just be a tiny minority since the overwhelming majority of users won't be posting that they have no issues.

With regard to touch screens in general, while I had some initial reservations I think it works very well on my Nook Touch. My old Pocketbook 360 had an accelerometer, similar to smartphones, that detected the screen's orientation and could rotate the text accordingly (hence the 360 moniker). As well as making it ambidextrous, some intrepid users made a custom reader for it that used the accelerometer for page turns. I could simply tilt it 15-20 degrees to turn page. It was fantastic...so unobtrusive, quick and seamless, I loved it. While I missed this dearly, the touch screen was a nice alternative.

It makes navigating and other things much simpler. Rather than use clunky buttons to move up->right->right->select etc. you simply touch the option you want. You can turn the page easily from wherever your thumb comes to naturally rest, rather than only where the physical buttons are located. You can touch the word you see on screen to look them up. You can just touch a corner to place a bookmark. It makes the whole process very quick and intuitive. I imagine it's probably useful for navigating the storefront for buying/downloading books as well. It makes usage much easier.