e-readers

[Am0s]

Hi all,

I got some questions about e- readers now I done some base work on the main key points of an e-reader, like e-ink screen battery life etc, what I am most interested in is the DRM features these things come with, as I have alot of these e-books I got from other sources. So my question is how easy are thery to get round the security do I have to hack the thing or can I just put books on by usb. I am not after a tutorial on how to do this, I just need some info on what needs to be done etc, I know there are quite a few e-readers out there.

many thanks for your answers

 

[Edgedancer]

Well i just got a Kobo e-reader about a week ago and I must say, it is awesome. I havent charged it again since the initial one and it is still going strong and it says around 8000 page turns. Bare in mind that "8000" page turns does not equal 8000 pages in a book as the screen (or at least mine) does not display a full page one one screen.
In terms of using books you have gathered yourself, depending upon what e-reader you get, you should be able to use a program called Calibre E-Book Management which will convert the files to a readable format for your device. I personally have not bought a book yet and am managing on pdf and txt files i downloaded and converted.

 

[Am0s]

hey man thanks for the info, that app you said is way cool, btw how is your kobo e-reader? I am thinking of getting the sony PRS-300 for my wife for her birthday

 

[Edgedancer]

The Kobo is very stock standard. It doesnt have any of the fancy features of other ones but it does the basics really well. I didnt want to make a huge investment into an E-reader without first knowing if it will be worthwhile. But I am enjoying it. I cant get over how good quality the screen is. I will probably update to a higher end reader in a couple of years but for now, the Kobo is great. One word of warning though, check to see the formats your sony one is compatible with as every e-reader uses different formats, and if it can use pdf's, it will drain the power a lot faster.

EDIT: I just had a look at the one you want to get and it should be perfect in terms of file formats.

 

[Edgedancer]

I can see your points but as I said previously, i choose the Kobo because it is a lot cheaper and I didnt want to invest a large amount of money into something before I knew it would be worthwhile. i will probably get a Kindle later on but right now, as an introduction to e-readers, the Kobo is very sufficient.

 

[Am0s]

I did a bit of searching around, and while the sony is good and does EPUB rather than PDF, I was looking at the barnes and noble nook, This did look very promising and the only bad things I could find was some random freezing and some people moaning about battery life. Alas they dont supply outside of the USA and I cant find anyone selling in the UK for these things, I am now looking at the kindle as this is actually cheaper than the sony, the only thing I dont like is the kindle can only read pdf and not EPUB.

I dont know which kindle they are selling as they all look different whether its kindle 1 2 or 3 I dunno but here is a pic of it

knowing my wife she will prolly get the sony because she wants it NOW haha

 

[Edgedancer]

I'm not sure about Australia, but the Kobo over here is $149 while the Kindle 3 WiFi is at $139. Perhaps inflated prices or shipping might bump the Kindle 3 up higher for you guys.

The Kobo is $200 but to actually get a Kindle to Australia, I would be paying upwards of $250 due to shipping and such, and I wouldn't have felt right asking for something that expensive for my birthday. That said, if I could get the Kindle for that much, I would have gone for it definitely.

@Am0s, I have heard that the Nook is very average for what it offers and needs a couple of firmware upgrades to support what it says on the box.

 

[Am0s]

I know what your saying about the nook, I guess each device has its trade offs, I was looking into the kindle and someone has made it possible to convert pdf to mobi which runs natively on the kindle 2 and upwards the program is called savory if anyone is interested, I dont even know which version amazon.co.uk is selling of the kindle as it doesn't say kindle 1 or 2

 

[Am0s]

well the reader is a present for my wife, and although she know I am getting her one, her main worry is the screen will be too small, she doesn't want to change the page after reading one paragraph as such, I read up against pdf vs epub and she likes the epub flowable content and proper format, as pdf cant, is fixed format and cant fit different size screens etc.

maybe I can convince her to go for the kindle and try and use savory to add her books she already has to it, the kindle DX thats out of my price range, I saw the kindle on amazon.co.uk for £109 but they are out of stock till sept 8 and I have seen the dx over £250 somewhere.

 

[Am0s]

yes I just saw the kindle dx on amazon.com cant get it in UK yet, nice big 9.7" screen my wife thinks it might be a bit too big lol, cant please her haha, anyway I think she might bend to the kindle, either that or the sony prs300 or 600

 

[Am0s]

well she really wanted the nook, but from barnes and noble you cant order one outside of the US, and also since I might have to pay duty,tax handling charge it will work out to be quite expensive, she isn't bothered about 3G she just wants to read her books, TBH with you I didnt know the kindle was that cheap, I saw it on the gadget show a while ago and it was expensive, so I guess its a toss up between the kindle and the sony readers

 

[Am0s]

I think she is going to be doing a bit of both getting them from shops and downloading them, buying the ones she cant find, she loves the fantasy type authours david eddings, raymond e feist, terry goodkind etc.

we have calibre we converted some html to pdf and on my machine I run linux they came out at 0kb and on my wife's she runs windows 7 and most of them came out in pdf and some were only 4 pages long and the rest was blank, that what initially put us off PDF format books

 

[Am0s]

ah rioght we was converting them and saving to the hard drive

 

[Edgedancer]

You are also able to choose which device you want to convert them for, even if you dont wish to put them straight on the device. Its good to see that some people are interested in e-readers on the forum as I didnt think many would be.

 

[Am0s]

I think the e-reader market is still in its infancy in the UK, many of the e-readers on sale in the UK are more expensive than the US after and some times before currency conversion lol,

TBH I know there would be enthusiasts but I expected only a few people to reply to this topic

UPDATE:

my wife has chosen the nook she wants it, and she is willing to try and import one through ebay, she doesn't like the kindle because it has a keyboard her argument is it doesn't look like a book lol, so the nook it is I told her about the advantages of the kindle and the kobo but she has mind up her mind, women huh rofl

 

[Am0s]

well she just ordered the nook+wifi off ebay so that what she got now, I just hope she is able to charge it up ok

 

[Cermage]

e-readers are still in their infancy everywhere. thing is they're not going to get terribly popular until companies lower their prices for their electronic formats.

 

[delta123]

it also does not help that the ipad is very popular. having a device that can read books and play audio does not seem appealing for the price. but having had the prs-505 i can say that i love e-paper and e-ink. it is just the 900 dollarprice tag on the larger screen models at the time i was looking to upgrade did not seem like a good choice just to stick with a priority device.

 

[Am0s]

she got her nook yesterday and she is over the moon with it, it doesn't feel cheap it feel like it has been made very well, although it worked out as expensive as a sony prs-600 after handling and VAT, still she is happy with it.

 

[Edgedancer]

Glad to hear she is enjoying it.