I’m recovering from surgery and have a lot of time on my hands. I’m wondering whether it might be time to make the leap away from Kindle for e-readers, or at least expand my universe. I realized that I’m firmly tied up in a monopolistic relationship. I’d like to see what else is out there.
What experience have you all had with e-readers? Any opinions on the merits of the Nooks or the Kobos? Can you move your Kindle files to another e-reader? What are your recommendations?
I’ve had three Kindles. I’ve currently got the first Kindle Oasis (which isn’t waterproof like the newer one but also is lighter when separated from the cover). I love it, use it for most books, and had upgraded from a first generation Kindle Paperwhite (which was 167 DPI versus the current 300 DPI). If waterproof is important to you, I’d recommend the new Kindle Oasis which is definitely the most expensive of the US available ereaders. If waterproof isn’t important, go for the Paperwhite. The built in lighting is good as is the DPI. Also, on a sidenote, the new Oasis does have larger storage and Audible capability.
As for Barnes and Nobles Nook, they’re good and have some options at lower price points. I worry that if BN goes the way of Borders that the DRMed books might go away too.
Calibre strips DRM from at least some DRM’d formats. I know because I’ve used it to do that. It’s also a decent library app for keeping track of your books on your computer.
I recently got the new Kindle Oasis for my birthday. It’s awfully expensive, but I’m enjoying it. It’s very comfortable to read, very comfortable to hold, and it’s nice to read in bed without disturbing my husband.
I recently bought a Kindle Fire 7 and it’s been great for me. I signed up for my local library and use it to check out books which I read at lunch every day.
I’ve never used any other ereader, but I love my fire for more than just the books. Because it’s an Amazon product, I have access to Amazon Underground which gives me apps that usually cost money, but are “Actually Free”. Don’t let the quotes fool you, I did that because that’s it’s proper name, but the apps are, literally, free.
I downloaded the 10 dollar FULL Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic game that I used to play on my Xbox for completely free. It made the 6 hour plane trip to Hawaii the beeeeeeest. There’s also a bunch of point and click games and crosswords and a whole buncha stuff.
It’s not waterproof to my knowledge, but I’ve taken it to the waterpark a few times and it’s been fine so far with wet swimsuits and sand.
I’m Amazon’s bitch. I own a Fire HD 10, a DX, 3 five-year-old basic Kindles with ads and the app is on all phones. The Fire is the one that travels to tournaments with me, because I can use it as a basic tablet as well as an e-reader. With Calibre I can load all the books I get from Baen as well as the random Project Gutenberg stuff.
They formed a partnership with Samsung to make their higher end tablets. (Which are not just e-readers.) And they still sell basic e-reader models.
Again, I just want to heavily reinforce that there is no Amazon lock in or anything. You can use a Kindle with all sorts of media from all sorts of sources.
In particular a lot more people read books on their phones/phablets/tablets than on actual e-readers. There’s hardly a monopoly going on.
I don’t know of any e-books that you can’t read on a Kindle but can read on some other brand of e-reader. Wondering what you’ve been missing out on by always using a Kindle is a bit like wondering what you’ve been missing out on by always using Dell computers.
I have a Samsung tablet and use the Angel Reader app (recommended here) that’s confusing as heck, but I love that it removes blue light. It’s so much easier on my eyes and I can’t read without it now. Mr. H is on his third Kindle and it’s spontaneously re-booting so he may be on his way to a fourth. It also needs a new battery so he’s thinking he might just get a new one.
I also had a Nook HD that my mom has now and it’s still going strong, a little slow on non-reading things, but it suits her for the most part. What I didn’t like is that it wouldn’t let me install some apps because it assumed I was stupid and was installing Bad Things. The nannyNooking ticked me off, so when it was time for something new, I got the tablet. But otherwise it’s been great and I’m thinking about getting my mom a new Nook for Christmas.
I also recommend Calibre! I can convert almost anything to a format my tablet can read and it’s nice to have my books organized with tags.
Had a basic Kobo and loved it to death. eventually replaced by a basic Nook , which I’m not nearly as impressed with. I remember liking the Kobo approach to open formats, although as others have mentioned upthread, Calibre can make that irrelevant.
I’ve had a Kobo Touch since about forever. When I was investigating which ereader to buy, the Kobo appealed because it handled epub (open format). I had much of the Baen free books already in that format.
I’ve heard that some of the later models aren’t as robust, and the desktop updates are sometimes a pain, but it still works well for me. My mother just bought a kindle which she passed on to me because the interface wasn’t like the Kobo.
Calibre can deal with Kobo readers directly and is great for converting formats back and forth.
I’m not trying to threadshit, but to my tastes, an iPad is the best ebook reader. It has a number of drawbacks:
[ul]
[li]It’s crazy-expensive compared to a normal mostly single-function ebook reader[/li][li]It’s backlit (like a TV or computer monitor) which apparently drives a lot of people nuts (not me, but I’ve heard some people complain)[/li][li]It’s battery doesn’t last nearly as long as a dedicated ebook reader[/li][li]The screen makes it literally impossible to read in direct sunlight. If you’re going to sun yourself in the backyard while you read, this is a dealbreaker.[/li][/ul]
That said, the crispness/resolution of the screen which is unparalled (IMO…and assume IMO for the rest of this), it has a ton of e-book software you can load onto it, so if you don’t like the default Apple ebook program (I don’t) you have dozens of other choices (I love “Marvin”), different programs can read different formats, so if there’s one format missing (Marvin doesn’t do PDFs), you can download a second program that can handle it. Plus, it does a ton of other stuff as well. Plus it has a touchscreen rather than buttons which some of the less expensive ebook readers have.
That said, an iPad is like 5x the cost of a bottom-level Kindle, so…
The iPad is an excellent ebook reader, imo, except that it is really heavy, and the battery doesn’t last very long, and you can’t read it in the sun. But if you are just sitting in bed with it propped on your knees and a power-supply handy-by, I agree, it’s great.
I have a Nook Simple Touch Glowlight which has held up pretty well. I wanted a dedicated e-ink reader and there is a light around the edges to help with reading in low light conditions.
I only use it for downloading and reading library books so the biggest drawback is that I need to download the books to my laptop and then copy them over to the Nook. I’ve also got a few books from the Australian Gutenberg (different copyright laws) loaded onto it. It has a battery life measured in weeks. It’s a lifesaver when travelling.