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Anyone have a Kindle or other e-reader?

i have the Sony eReader Touch (PRS 650) and i LOVE it!!!

yeah, you lose the feel of a real life book, and no, you probably shouldn't read in the bathtub, but i just have a separate book for that haha.

eReaders are DEFINITELY better than tablets or iPads or whatever. the backlight really does hurt your eyes after awhile, and that's certainly not good. the eink is really amazing and does look like a real page.

you get used to holding it pretty darn quickly, and loading books onto them is really easy.

as for buying the license to a digital book, you can find quite a few ebooks for free. if you type " 'the book you want to read' epub" into google, you can sometimes find free versions. especially if you're familiar with torrents. (however i have NO idea how torrents work in the US, might have different copyright and downloading laws)

the reason i got the sony eReader as opposed to any other ones is because i wanted a DEDICATED reader, no wifi, no 3G (because you can bet your boots that "free" 3G isn't going to be free forever) no other bloatware.

i love that the Sony touch comes with a stylus, and you can double click on any word and it will immediately bring up the definition from the built-in dictionary. you can also highlight passages, set bookmarks, etc

they really are extremely cool, and i think they're going to be popping up in quite a few places. i imagine universities will be using them for textbooks in the very near future.
 
I have a color Nook and love it. I truly resisted as I'm an avid reader and LOVE the feel of a real book. However. What I love is that I can have a school book, a relaxing bit of fiction as well as multiple magazines to read without carrying it all around in my purse. The magazines are awesome to read, leaf through them just as you would a real magazine. Newspapers, not so much. It's an android platform so I expected it to work similar to my phone... no go. not even close. I can jump on the web, however it's not really made to do it and if you do alot of browsing, it'll just frustrate you. If you're going to do alot of that, buy a tablet, it would be much better suited. I just couldn't justify the expense (twice as expensive, easily).

Enjoy!

Tonya
 
I got a chance to go into a Barnes & Noble yesterday and play a bit with both the Nook and the Nook color. This might just be me and maybe the fact that I've had a Kindle a long time and am used to it, but I found the Nook to be much less intuitive and harder to use than the Kindle. It seemed like it could be a good e-reader but I found myself getting frustrated using it, going "where is the control for that function," "I'm stuck, where is the back?" and so on. I don't remember having that issue when the Kindle first came, there were a few functions it took a little while to figure out but over all it was pretty intuitive and didn't require reading the manual. That's my experience for what it's worth, anyway.
 
I got to check out a KIndle up close the other day that a coworker's SO had at work. I was impressed how much like a real page drom a book it looks and it was really light. She was showing me how you can change the font size and stuff. Very cool. I'm still too broke to get one though.
 
I have been going over Amazon page, it is so exciting. If I understand it correctly I can download to laptop and also to kindle. This means I can store a lot of books. I re-read books I like, so that is a plus for me.
 
Yes, I haven't played with the apps that go on your other devices much. My Mom and I just bought an iPad each, her's came yesterday and mine isn't here yet. But I got the Kindle app put on her iPad. I don't think the app is as easy to navigate as the actual Kindle but you can have as many as five apps hooked to your account. Then if you are stuck somewhere with one of your other devices and not the Kindle, you can read a bit on your book, then pick your Kindle up, with the wireless on, tell it to sync and it will take you right to the last page you were on. All five of your allowed apps and the Kindle will sync to your last read page. As far as I understand it, anyway. If you want to try the apps, they are free and you don't need to have a Kindle to get one. Like I said, the apps are less easy to use than the Kindle but they make a great backup.
 
I just thought I'd share this link for anyone who has a Kindle or is thinking about getting one.
http://www.ereaderiq.com/
You can sign up for it to email you when new ebooks are posted for free on Amazon, you can have it notify you when that ebook you want, but don't want to pay that much for, drops in price. And it can notify you if a print book you are interested in, is released as a Kindle ebook.
 
very cool! thanks. I actually feel quite guilty, my boyfriend bought me an e-reader for Christmas and i haven't made much use of it, though i do absolutely love it!

i'm just too addicted to forums.
 
I have an IPAD and use my kindle app on it alot as well as the ereader app... The backlight on the iPad is ok during the day but can be too bright in the dark. You can turn the brightness down which helps. I do everything on it except intense graphic online games and upload pictures on to the net. I use it at work as a reference book (Registered Nurse), frequent the forums, access my email, my daytimer, my shopping list, road maps, telephone book, how to find a place I am looking for. I pay a small fee to use the cellphone network for Internet access anywhere there's cell service. I have multiple game app that I use on my iPad as well. I pack it everywhere!
 
I have a Kindle and absolutely hat it. Maybe I'm a bit of an old fogey, but it just doesn't feel right for starters. The real problem for me, though, is the pages are WAY too short! For example, the hardback version of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is 562 pages. The Kindle version id over 1300 pages or some similar rediculous number. Extremely irritating for me, an avid book reader!
 
FWIW, I got to play a bit with a display K3 at a store today. Overall I thought it was an improvement over the K2, it was quite a bit lighter but still felt comfortable to hold, not so light I was afraid of dropping it. The directional buttons are much easier to use than the five way "joystick" on the K2. It's definitely an improvement over the K2, but not enough that I'd feel it was worth it to replace my working, existing K2. However I'd buy the K3 if I didn't already have the earlier generation.
 
I'm like many here, I like the feel of a real book. But my Dad just got a Kindle and he loves it. And this is an older guy with a phobia of technology! He still needs my Mom, watching over his shoulder, to help him do anything on the internet! ( Guess it keeps his internet surfing honest!;)

I've been thinking about getting one so I've been reading this post with great interest. What about illustrated books or books with lots of photos? And I'm like someone else here, a cheapskate. Every time I crack open my wallet, its screams! What is the price tag for such a device?

I guess my fear is that this will make the book obselete and bookstores will be the equivalent of antique marts. I SOOOOOO hope I'm dead wrong on this!

Devon
 
If you want a device primarily for reading mostly text books, with not a great deal of extras, either the Kindle or one of the Nooks are what I'd recommend. I'm personally partial to the Kindle. The major pluses for the Kindle 6" (and probably some of the other dedicated e-readers but my most experience is with the Kindle) is the Text To Speech, it is by no means on the par of an actual audio book but since audio books are a bit like large print, hard to find and usually costly, it's a great alternative. One I use a great deal. Then the e-ink, the Kindle I'm able to forget it's a device and not a book most of the time. It feels close to holding a book. In fact, for the first few months I had it, I'd find when reading a paper or hard back book, I was constantly catching myself trying to look up a word, then realizing that I was not reading on the Kindle! The Kindle 6" costs any where from $114 for one that is WiFi only and has advertisements as the screen savers, $139 for the WiFi only one with the standard screen savers and $164 for the 3G and WiFi with advertisements and $189 for the 3G and WiFi with the standard screen savers. I personally would spring for one of the ones that has both WiFi and 3G, it's not that big an amount difference and it's a one time payment to double or triple the places you can access the Internet and your archive.

If you want to read things with a lot of graphics, use huge font sizes all of the time and a lot of extras, an iPad is what I'd recommend. One of the first generation ones is actually less than the Kindle 9" (depending on the amount of memory and whether it's WiFi or 3G) and is a much greater bargain. I think a reconditioned one is going for around $350, for WiFi only and about 16 GB memory. As a reading device, the drawbacks are the backlight, though at least in the Kindle app, you can change the background to black with white text, which is much better for night reading and you can also change it to sepia colors, which I find easier on the eyes in daylight reading. No Text to Speech and you never forget it's a device. However it does a lot of other things, surf the web, listen to music and my personal favorite, watch movies, either streaming from Netflix and other places or from internal memory, and a great many other things. On the iPads, WiFi only is probably what I'd recommend, the 3G capability costs somewhere around $100 extra and then you have to do a monthly plan. They seemed to be a major PITA and to cost quite a bit per month when I looked into it. That was about six months ago though, so that might have changed. Just my opinions for what it's worth, anyway.
 
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