Great reply thanks

Say I get my parents a kindle using my amazon account, can I control what books they can access on their kindle? i.e I don't mind them reading most of the book that I bought, but I don't want their kindle clogged up with academic papers.

got one for xmas. cool. fun. not amazing. but still glad I got it.

I've read back a page or two and most of the replies are at least 3-4 months old so I assume the technology may have changed and that there are new products on the market. I'm going to buy myself an e-reader right now. I'd prefer it to be cheap but its not the biggest deal. A few things that are important:

I like to read outside and sometimes in bright sunlight. Sometimes, temperatures here get up to like 38 C. I'd like it to be able to handle that. I don't know if that is ever an issue.

Preferably it would be something that has a setting to be able to read well in the dark.

Library of poker books available would be great.

Somewhat durable, like if sand or something gets blown on it, it is not going to go haywire.

Lots of free clasics available for free.

Overall easy to use.

Any suggestions? Stick with the kindle?

heyhey, saw my buddy's kindle, looks like im going to buy one.

Q: she told me that the base model (?) doesn't come with WiFi. if so, how would you dl the books w/this one, and what is the model I should be looking for to avoid this?

If it's the kindle 3, the base model doesn't come with 3G. Both versions of the Kindle 3 come with WiFi, but if you pay 50 bucks extra you get WiFi + 3G - earlier versions of the kindle only had 3G.

And even if you aren't connected to 3G or WiFi, you can always download the kindle books to your PC using the kindle for PC app and transfer them via USB to the kindle.

boom i has kindle 3

landscape mode ftw

ditto, i got one for christmas. i am just now starting to discover how awesome it is.

WiFi only version has a longer battery life when wireless is on (3 weeks vs 10 days).

Also, I hate all of you. I'm getting one for Christmas but it's back-ordered until late January in Canada (ordered over 2 weeks ago). I guess it's my fault for not telling him to order it sooner.

Hello, thread: I am contemplating getting a Kindle 3 for my girlfriend but she is extremely frugal and often takes books out from the library.

Question - is it possible to rent (for free) ebooks on the Kindle through any public library system in the US? I think otnemem mentioned he rents books, but I believe he owns a Nook.

According to the below linked article, "even their Mobipocket-formatted books don’t work without some fiddling." (Which I believe is the format the LA public library system uses, where we live.)

http://pragmaticenvironmentalism.com...-on-my-kindle/

Any thoughts on the above? Basically - is Kindle 3 a good gift for someone who usually takes out books from the library and really doesn't buy books all that often?

-Al

There are a zillion books available for free, but many/most of them are classics or were published before 1925 or something. I think the barnes&noble 'nook' is set up to rent e-books from public libraries now, and I would imagine it will follow soon on kindle.

Plus you can always buy her books for her kindle, just send them to her account, and poof!

Any thoughts on the other brands of E-readers out there such as Kobo or Skytex?

Can it read any text files? ie, if I download a book (torrent), will the e-reader be able to recognize the file?

I heard some time back that Canadians can't easily order books for the Kindle or at least have a limited selection? True? (Obviously didn't read entire thread).

Aloysius - unfortunately most libraries lend epub format, which doesn't work for the kindle, but does work for nook. But, as mentioned by others, you get lots of free public domain books.

Thanks for the responses, helpful to know.

I will begin to investigate the differences between nook/kindle. In my limited experience using both, I prefer the kindle UI (and ebook pricing), but it seems nook-owners are perfectly happy with the device.

-Al

Just ordered me some kindle 3. Back ordered til early February to Canada, so I figured I'd get a head start researching things. Started playing with Calibre and other converters and readers on my pc. Seems fairly straight forward.

Anyone have leads on (legitimate) free books? I've ordered all the Amazon ones that I'm interested in. Also, http://www.smashwords.com/ looks promising. Seems to have a lot of user generated content from unpublished authors for free. The Baen library also looks promising.

Also, library books are only availible in epub format. Any thoughts on the ethics of cracking the DRM of the library books, but making sure to delete the copies when your book is returned? I've cracked and converted a few just to make sure that I could, but I'm not really sure if that falls within the realm of fair use or not.

Any tips are appreciated. Can't wait to get my machine.

I've used Calibre and it has easily converted epub books for me to use on the Kindle. It had some issues when I tried to convert PDFs though. I'm a bit loose with my fair use "ethics", so I can't comment much on that aspect.

Free Kindle Books: A Guide

Get Started With Your New Amazon Kindle

another recommendation for calibre, I use it to convert kindle books to epub for my nook (need to remove drm first, which I won't go into)

let me axe something about kindles

do you have to charge them like only once a year? my gawd, I haven't plugged it in since i got it out of hte box on xmas eve and it still has like 3/4ths power

With wireless off they are supposed to last a month on a single charge. Can't beat that! Just ordered mine with 3G, should be here early next week, can't wait.

I thought I'd share my recent experience with Kindle 3 v. Nook. Get the Kindle 3. It is just so much better on every imaginable level. It's lighter, smaller and faster. The Amazon shopping experience is leagues ahead of B+N (search results are better, "Other shoppers also looked at...", etc. All better. The Nook was extremely laggy moving up and down through lists, plus the touchscreen had some response issues. I thought I wouldn't like the physical buttons versus the touchscreen keyboard, but the Kindle interface is much quicker and easier to use. Plus if you use things like the dictionary, when you navigate to a word on Kindle, the definition automatically pops up at the bottom of the page. On the Nook, you have to push a button then wait a few seconds for the definition to load.

I feel bad for people, like myself, who bought the Nook over the Kindle. There is simply no competition.

Also, there are tools for removing DRM from library books, so you can conceivably convert any library book to mobi for Kindle.

Have mine for a week, and by far my favorite gadget. I highly recommend the case solely for the nightlight, it perfects bedtime reading.

Initially my thinking was pretty much exactly like the OP. And the first time i looked at one it still was. I hate reading off a computer screen, and print pretty much anything I want to read. Then I saw one of the newer ones with the much better brighter screen and they've added the ability to read pdf's. Since i have a gazillion books in pdf that are pretty long and a pain in the ass to read that way, I'll probably get one.

Anyone here have experience with warranty returns? I got my son one (the 3G) for Christmas, and he reports that it's displaying weird stuff and making a whining noise. Unfortunately he's across the country and his mother will be as uncooperative as is humanly possible, so it would be nice if I could tell her the process is really smooth.