ebooks

[Bob Eager]

Not directly. But since Word will export PDF...

[Bob Eager]

Or if you have wifi you can do all that on the £89 one too.

[Bob Eager]

As it happens, I use it a lot...!

[Steve Walker]

There was someone to do with libraries on the radio a week or two ago (can't remember much about it, as I only caught a bit of the programme) and they were saying that discussions were ongoing to enable the use of library books on the Kindle. There was a suggestion that a solution is not far off.

SteveW

[Andy Burns]

Sound is being removed from the newer kindles I gather.

[Simon Stroud]

Can you upload Word docs on to it and read them?

You can send them as attachments to your @free.kindle.com address and Amazon convert them for you and send them to your kindle when you are connected by wifi. If you omit the "free" then they will be sent to a 3G Kindle as soon as it connects, and this will be charged if connected by 3G.

I have tried this a couple of times and the conversion results were pretty disappointing. I have found it best to reformat Word documents to an A5 page size myself, then convert to PDF and send them to my Kindle by the same email method (you can also transfer them buy the USB cable). At least by converting them myself I can predict how the documents are going to end up!

Another word of warning on sending things to your Kindle on the normal @kindle.com email address ... a while ago I forwarded an email to my Kindle email account that already included a pdf attachment. I assumed that the attachment would be sent to my Kindle in the normal way and as I was out and about I didn't mind paying the small fee for receiving it over 3G. However, the email had been sent to be by someone who included a company logo and a couple of small graphics in his email signature, and each of these counted as a separate "attachment" and was charged for separately, so I was charged for about 4 separate attachments instead of the one I was expecting. Lesson learned!

Regards, Simon.

[Andy Burns]

kobo reads EPUB ok (if DRM'ed then needs Adobe Digital Editions), I dunno how many libraries around the UK use the overdrive.com ebook service, I know manchester do.

[Jim Hawkins]

Can you use either the wifi or the USB connection to read the ebooks on the PC ? does the Kindle 3 have the text-to-speech function ? Thanks to evryone for very informative posts. If only all newsgroups were as helpful !

Jim Hawkins

[chris French]

Better than that.

Amazon produce (free) Kindle apps/readers for Windows PCs, Mac, and various flavours of smartphones and tablets, and IIRC a web browser version now as well.

The devices sync the last read page, bookmarks etc. back to each other (via the Amazon servers). You don't even actually need a Kindle as such, you can just use these apps/programs.

[chris French]

Yes, (I assume you are talking about the keyboard Kindle version here).

The non-keyboard version doesn't for some reason (product differentiation I guess)

[S Viemeister]

Yes, the apps work very well. I use the reader on a 5" smartphone - about the size of a paperback book.

[dennis]

Does it have a speaker or is that one of the cost savings?

[Lobster]

SWMBO has a Kindle which she loves, but I have an old Sony e-reader which I've barely ever used. If we could share purchased e-books between the two it would actually be quite useful and I'd probably ressurrect my Sony, but the two systems are incompatible. Is it possible to remove the DRM from Kindle books and transfer them?

I know that's 'dodgy' but given that we had a second Kindle we could share books between them no bother, I certainly would't have any moral issues with doing that...

[Mark Gillespie]

You might want to look at the Kobo (available from WHSmiths in the UK). = =

It's the same price as the Kindle, but with the more open and more =

available EPUB format, The hardware spec is identical (same perl screen,= =

same processor etc, wifi onboard store etc), however the software is muc= h =

better, allowing things like changing of font typefaces and stuff.

Also the Kobo has 2.5m+ ebooks available in the UK compared to Amazons =

750,000.

the Amazon is better known, but that does not make it the best. Th= ey =

also have a touch-screen model for =A320 more (which I would personally = opt =

for), and they have a colour model (which isn't e-ink, so I would avoid)= .

[Andy Burns]

+1 to all the above.

I waited patiently for the kobo touch to be released in the UK, purchased one the day they became available, Their philosophy is more "open" then "locked-in". They don't have Amazon's marketing budget, but hopefully their new owners will push them harder.

I'm very pleased with it. Are you saying the kindle *does't* allow changing fonts/margins/linespacing? Or just not the same extent?

Kobo don't have a 3G version, but if you want to buy books when you're out and about, just tether it to a smarthone via WiFi.

[airsmoothed]

Hampshire use the overdrive + ADE combination too. As an experiment I've downloaded a book from the library, stripped the DRM, used Calibre to convert from ePuB to mobi, then transferred to SWMBO's Kindle, and it all seems to work. Not exactly one click though!

[Moonraker]

Having followed this thread I am converting towards e books, is there a good source for all this information and other please?

[Steve Firth]

No speaker, no keyboard, no colour.

I have one, but I have to say Kindle on an iPhone is better than Kindle on a Kindle. The iPhone display is easier to read than Kindle grey on grey.

Stanza is better though.

[chris French]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

Dunno

[Mark Gillespie]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:37:31 -0000, Moonraker wrot= e:

I'm hooked on ebooks, I have a Sony Reader and REALLY pleased with it =

(PRS-650), reading most evenings, and the battery life is excellent abou= t =

a month between charges. But the Kobo which is a gift for Xmas is equal= ly =

impressive at a fraction of the cost of the Sony.

Personally I would avoid the Kindle, it doesn't support free library =

lending and you are locked into Amazon for ebook purchases (there are =

clunky and illegal ways around this by cracking the DRM an converting =

them, but it's a major faff).

EPUB support is what you should be looking for in any reader, and E-INK = is =

the technology the screen should use (it only uses power to turn the pag= e, =

which stays static and uses no juice until the turn the page again). =

Despite what some manufactuers seem to want to tell you, Backlit TFT's a= re =

not e-readers, they are tablets that can display ebooks....

I would pop into WHSMiths and take a look at a Kobo, the touchscreen-les= s =

one is =A379.99 (or it might have been =A389.99), and they were more tha= n =

happy for me to have a tinker with one when I asked.... Like I said, it= 's =

worth paying the =A320 extra for the Kobo Touch thou...