As for wifi, you may have noticed all the people reading them on planes.
I have a really old one handed down to me by my daughter. I only use it on trips, since loading 3 or 4 library books onto the Kindle is a lot more efficient than dragging the hard copies around.
The ad is also at the bottom of the home screen. It takes up maybe 1/8 of the screen so it’s not a big deal, but for me, it was worth $20 to get it off the home screen.
Owner of a Kindle here - I’d strongly advise you go for the cell connection; it’s not that much more, and damned handy if you’re in a situation when you’ve no wifi. I’d also suggest going up to the Paperwhite, as the light is another of those things you don’t notice until you need it - and then it’s too late.
The ads, on the other hand, are only on the lockscreen; I don’t even notice them.
I’ll just point out that I don’t use either wifi or a cell connection; USB works as well as long as you pre-load what you will want.
I have an e-library manager called Calibre on my PC. (Note the spelling.) It’s free and open-source, with good reviews, and can download from many more sites than Gutenberg, do format conversion as needed, maintain a catalog, sort by whatever field you like, and send a selected batch of books to your device all at once via USB. Given an hour or two you can get more onto your Kindle than you could read in a month.
Here’s hoping your hospital stay and subsequent recovery are both boring and as brief as possible.
The 3g only works for browsing and buying books from Amazon. You can’t use it to download library books. I wouldn’t spring for 3g again.
One more vote for the paperwhite and the cover. I don’t think I’e read a dead tree book in the 5+ years that I’ve had the kindle.
I’d also recommend Book Bub. It’s cheap book deal list. You tell it preferences and it will daily email you a list of books on special that meet your choices. Sci-fi, mystery, romance, whatever. Books go from free up to about $2.99.
The books I borrow from my library go through Amazon. But I’ve never missed having wifi only on mine.
I second the thought of getting a Fire Tablet: I have one which means I can go online to more than just Amazon. My favorite app I have installed is a water/white noise one
You can set it to run for hours upon hours and at 100% battery 7 hours running usually gets me to 55%. Background noise might be helpful in getting some sleep while in hospital.
One thing I am unsure about regarding a regular kindle vs my fire is that I can buy books, I’ll see them in my list but… I have to click on them to get them installed and able to be read w/o wi-fi. That really ticked me off the first time I was camping and my books weren’t really on my tablet. I had to use my husband’s phone as a hotspot to really have the books.
The accessories I went for: covering with auto-wake plus it folds into a stand for hands free reading/watching movies, screen protector kit (plastic film to help prevent scratches), USB wall plug-in which charges faster than plugging into my pc and some new earbuds.
And bookbub is awesome! A lot of the Free books tend to be part of a series so I do usually buy the additional ones (having Kindle Prime and Kindle Unlimited means some of those end up being free to read (but not own)).
Another Bookbub fan here!! Also, Overdrive is great. Although, I’ve only used it on my phone. It’s a free library app. You can check out ebooks and audiobooks. All at no cost.
I have an older version of a Kindle reader and also have a Kindle Fire. The Fire is not for reading outside. I was very disappointed with that. I love to sit outside on a summer’s day and read. There’s way too much glare with the Fire. The regular Kindle works great for outside reading. I use my Fire to watch Netflix in bed!
Like one of the other posters said, I haven’t read an actual printed book in over 5 years. Kindles are so easy to take with you. You have every and any book at your fingertips.
I personally prefer the older model model over the Paperwhite, mainly because of the lack of illumination means a charge will last at least a week’s worth of heavy reading. Yes, you need a light on it, just like a paper book.
On it, an ad-content model shows the ad not only on the lock screen, but also a tiny banner at the bottom of the list o’ books screen, meaning you get only 9 books listed per screen instead of 10; big whoop. While reading there is no difference at all.
Like Mithras, I never use the WiFi connection to download a book, but rather the USB connection after grooming the file with Calibre. With the former you wind up with a jumble of book files with file names that might or might not give you a clue as to what the book is. Project Gutenberg files are simply PG<number> for example. Calibre-delivered file names are (more or less) the book title in a directory with the author’s name on it.
You can lock the Kindle so no one can read your porn but that won’t help about thieving if they discover that fact after it’s gone.
They are sturdy. I’ve dropped one in a case several times with no ill effects. I managed to wreck one by putting it on a car trunk and driving a quarter mile before rounding a corner, flinging it across the lane and into a curb. The processor was okay – I pulled the library off of it via USB – but it didn’t talk to the display any more.
O.P. here. I bought a Paperwhite, a charger and cable. Total $145.
I didn’t buy:
It would have been easy to double what I paid, and there was considerable misleading in the purchase process. I’m a bit disgusted with amazon.com right now.
I consider this Kindle to be a throw-away. If it makes it home from the hospital, great; if not, no biggie.