I love my Kindle Touch. But lets be honest. It’s strength is text viewing. It’s not exactly a high res graphical display.
But, what if I use my PC to view the kindle doc? Are the photos in a kindle doc stored as high res?
I’m thinking about buying Ed Westcott’s book on Oakridge TN and it’s got a lot of great photos. I’d like to get it in Kindle format but only if the photos are a decent resolution. Otherwise I’ll buy the paperback book.
So whats the Straight Dope on photo resolution in a kindle doc?
Pardon my highjack but this raises a question. I didn’t know you could read a Kindle ‘book’ on a PC - is this really possible? I don’t own a Kindle but there is a ‘book’ I’d like to read that’s only available in Kindle format.
I plan to use the cloud reader. The PC reader “manages” your docs. Syncs them between devices. Like the last page you read. It remembers that on your kindle and syncs it to the pc viewer.
I don’t want that level of management. I think the cloud reader will be better for me. That way nothing gets installed on my pc.
For the most part, if you load the book on the computer, the images do display in a resolution that looks decent on a monitor (although not if you zoom in) and in color (if applicable). Some of the older ebooks are a little hit-or-miss though, since before the high-res color tablet/e-readers got popular they sometimes did only put low-res B&W images in the files.
I actually got a refund from Amazon once when I bought a book from the Kindle store to read on my Android tablet, but the maps (which were critical) were completely illegible. That might have been a one-time-only thing though.
Sort of. Books you buy from the Kindle store are copy-protected and won’t open in Calibre without a plug-in of questionable legality. My understanding is that the way that plug-in works is it emulates the Kindle associated with your account, so if you don’t actually have a Kindle you wouldn’t be able to break the copy protection. Not a big deal for Zago, since he/she can just download the Kindle for PC program to read on a computer, but if you’re trying to buy something from the Kindle store and read it on a non-Kindle e-reader, you actually need a Kindle that’s associated with the same Amazon account as the eBook in order to get it into Calibre.
Oh, also, it looks like that book you linked to has a free sample available, so why not just load that up in the cloud player? I’m sure there’s a picture or two in the first few pages.
Now for my own hijack. If you’ve got an Android phone or tablet, have you tried Google’s Field Trip app? It comes up with random tidbits of trivia about places as you travel around, and one of their best sources is those “Images of America” book. So for example you’ll be walking down a street and your phone will chime and bring up a picture of the same street in 1890 from one of those books and a brief paragraph about it. Very cool!
I think it’s entirely up to whoever created/digitized the ebook. Checking the Kindle version of the particular book you linked to, I notice it says (for this 128-page book) that “Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download,” which suggests that the photos are fairly high-res and/or abundant, since images take a lot more storage space than text. If there are any photos near the beginning of the book, in the “free sample” you can request from Amazon, that might be one way to check before you spend any money.
That’s your GQ answer right there: There is no inherent limitation in picture resolution built into Amazon’s proprietary ebook format, nor do they check it when the book is uploaded to their site.
For an IMHO addendum: I’ve found that EPUB books (the open format used by Nook, iPad, and so on) sometimes have higher resolutions on the photos because the authors/publishers anticipate higher-resolution displays – and a wider variety of screens as well. Your mileage may vary.
As the few others who didn’t get totally sidetracked said: it depends on the book. Specifically, I’ve bought a few at either end of the spectrum.
That said – most of the books I’ve bought, even with the “This may be larger and take longer to download” label, have had relatively low-resolution photos in it, even when viewed on a better resolution device. So your odds aren’t really good (unless I was just unlucky) and I’ve stopped buying anything where the photos are important electronically.
But lets be honest. It’s strength is text viewing. It’s not exactly a high res graphical display.