ebook / ereader question for those that use them

[Sam1]

Just changed schools as a last minute situation this week and start new classes on Monday... This time around I want to move away form physical books to an e-reader because it will be easier to carry everywhere. We decided on one of the new Kindle Paperwhite readers this afternoon, but they are on a delayed shipment for around a week.

The question I have is, if for example the e-textbook is purchased from Amazon, will I be able to access it on a computer, then when the Kindle gets in, download it again or transfer it to the e-reader? Am not sure how the DRM works on ebooks, e-readers and Amazon (or any provider for that matter). Hopefully it will let you transfer it between systems, even if only one can access it at a time, that's no big deal. I just don't want to get into a situations where it requires multiple purchases of the same $150 book.

Any info is greatly appreciated

[TrickyNicky]

Went with the nook color so not sure if it helps but I can sign into my account on either the reader or iPhone and access the books in my virtual library. I've never tried to do both at the same time but understand that you cannot.

What made you go for the kindle? Just curious to see what the opinions are as I stopped looking altogether when I got my reader.

[jcj]

Once you "own" a kindle ebook you can read it on any of your Kindle compatible devices (PC, smart phone, Kindle, etc..)

[gnmwilliams]

Kindle libraries are stored in the cloud so you can access them anywhere from any device. I can read a few pages on my iPhones kindle app and pick it up where I left off on my IPad kindle app then read a little online while I'm at work. Not that I'd ever do that but you get my drift.

[Guest sL1k]

I can access my kindle books through computer, android app (on my phone and tablet) , iPod app, and kindle (what can I say I love to read. Also keep in mind that there are some places that are making .pdf files of text books that can be read on the kindle too that are cheaper (not in school but helped my best friend research a bit)

[Sam1]

Thanks for the clarification, it's sad I'm working on a masters degree in the IT field and never once picked up an e-reader... Guess it's cause we always have tablets or laptops around.

Nicky, the paperwhite has a much better resolution and think the advertisement said the battery life was nearly 30 hours of continuous use. This specific device needed to be small enough to toss in my pocket, and display books.. Didn't want it to do anything else. If I kept the ipad with me and used an ereader app, I would do more web surfing than reading. Plus it was only $100, if it gets crushed, dropped, scratched or shot it won't hurt the wallet as much.

[TrickyNicky]

I see, if you've already got a tablet then the kindle sounds like a good choice indeed. Didn't realize they were making them small enough to fit in a pocket or with 30 hours battery life, that's sweet.

Wonder if I could read my nook stuff on a kindle? Wouldn't want to buy the same books again especially since most are already doubles of paper books I've already bought then given away.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I bought wife a kindle last year. She is in habit of going to library every week and bringing home a stack of books. Almost at random. Start on a shelf and read it left-to-right, then go to the next shelf down. Wife is generally a technophobe. She read a few books on the kindle then went back to her library book habit.

I'd got out of the habit of reading anything except technical stuff and a couple of internet forums. No time. So a few months ago got interested in an old SF book read many years ago, trying to recall plot details. Bought the book to re-read on wife's un-used kindle. I'd never pay $10 or more per book, but discovered amazon sells lots of classic SF nearly free. 1000 page collections of classic SF for 99 cents. Discovered that I really like the Kindle "read to me" text to speech feature. It mis-pronounces some words and mangles some phrasing, but its easy enough to get accustomed to. I can't pay proper attention to the kindle reading me fiction while doing computer work, but when "doing stuff with my hands" or hanging out, it is fun to listen to old nearly-free science fiction tales. More fun than music or talk radio, in many cases.

Another interesting finding-- Some prose that happens to be too "unrewarding" to slog thru reading it, is enjoyable enough to "put up with" having it read to you, if you are just listening with half an ear while cleaning guns or doing woodwork or whatever. Most likely if prose would be too boring to read, it would probably be too boring to listen to as well, if you were just sitting there devoting sole attention to the voice. The kind of things I'm speaking of as being "too much work" to read are prose that is too flowery or wordy, or old-fashioned prose where individual sentences can be convoluted and longer than modern paragraphs. Ferinstance Tolstoy, Dostoyevski or Dickens is good stuff but it is a lot of work to wade thru 1000 pages of that kind of writing.

I stay away from pirate sites and file-sharing services, but there is a fuzzy "middle ground" between retail/public domain, and straight-up piracy. Quasi-academic hangouts such as scribd. Those sites will take down works if requested by the copyright holders, so it isn't exactly "secret" or "nefarious". On the other hand, some of the materials may be copyrighted but with a lazy or don't-care copyright holder. Anyway, there is lots of old fiction that can be found free as well as nearly-free. Interesting science and math textbooks and such as well.

There are several currently-popular ebook formats which you can look up and become familiar with. There is amazon's kindle format, pdf, epub, mobi, html, and a few more. The kindle will native display many but not all formats, and you can find reader software to handle most formats on mac, pc, android, etc.

So anyway, one interesting oddity is that the native kindle readers (except the new amazon android pad version of a kindle that has different specs)-- Kindle's will text-to-speech on kindle-format books and .mobi books. IIRC a kindle will display epub format, but it will not text-to-speech the epub format. Additionally, the kindle displays pdf books fine but it will not text-to-speech read a pdf to you. So if I want the kindle to read to me I need to either buy kindle format, or download/buy .mobi format, or if I was desparate supposedly there are file converter programs to convert pdf's into mobi or whatever, but ain't got that desperate as of yet.

Another interesting oddity is that the winders, mac, and android kindle reader softwares WILL NOT text-to-speech read to you. And strangely, I get the impression that the new amazon android pad kindle has also removed the text-to-speech feature. Am guessing that amazon is screwing the pooch and leaving out text-to-speech features to avoid making the "books on audio" publishers mad. Maybe the "books on audio" people could get mad enough to sue amazon or apple over it in some cases. It isn't unusual for new-release books, that the print, ebook, and "books on audio" publishing rights are held by different companies, so the "books on audio" guys could feel ripped off if a fella can buy the text ebook and have it read to him.

Have found desktop and android apps which will text-to-speech pdf or other formats but it is very spotty. Haven't gone experimenting looking for alternate text to speech readers for the android pad or android phone. The native text-to-speech in android OS seems to have higher audio quality to the kindle text-to-speech engine. It's been awhile since auditioning windows or mac text-to-speech, but possibly it is higher quality built-in on those platforms as well. So its kinda a shame there are so many formats and so many reader softwares, all somewhat mutually-incompatible. If kindle software would just to text-to-speech on all its platforms it would be good. Be even better if the kindle software was capable of text-to-speech on pdf files. But if it would just do text-to-speech on all its versions, I could live with only using kindle or mobi formats. The audio fidelity would probably be better on android than on the kindle box.

[1gewehr]

If all you will be doing is reading, the Kindle paperwhite is the best device out there. Resolution and readability even in sunlight is excellent. Battery life is great, and after just a little use, it's very easy to use. I recommend that you opt for the version without advertisements. The ads get pretty tedious from my perspective. But if you are on a tight budget and don't mind ads, you can save some money with that version.

[Jonnin]

[quote name='Sam1' timestamp='1351818190' post='837441']
Just changed schools as a last minute situation this week and start new classes on Monday... This time around I want to move away form physical books to an e-reader because it will be easier to carry everywhere. We decided on one of the new Kindle Paperwhite readers this afternoon, but they are on a delayed shipment for around a week.

The question I have is, if for example the e-textbook is purchased from Amazon, will I be able to access it on a computer, then when the Kindle gets in, download it again or transfer it to the e-reader? Am not sure how the DRM works on ebooks, e-readers and Amazon (or any provider for that matter). Hopefully it will let you transfer it between systems, even if only one can access it at a time, that's no big deal. I just don't want to get into a situations where it requires multiple purchases of the same $150 book.

Any info is greatly appreciated
[/quote]

Yes, the software (free) kindle reader can tap your account and you can download and read any book you have bought (and buy more!) on any pc. You do not need the kindle in hand, you can do it directly from amazon on any PC that is on the internet.

DRM, the files are encryped and somehow it knows who you are and you may read them. There is a loan a book program, I have not used it. Many books are free, including many literature books that one might buy for school (esp high school level). You cannot copy the files from one kindle to another and read them, best I can tell. They are not plaintext for sure, seems to be encrypted compressed format of some sort.

IMHO it is easier to NOT transfer the files to and from the kindle, just do it off amazon directly and forget the USB transfer aggravation.

You will never have to buy the same book twice. In fact, the amazon system prevents purchase of the same book twice, it just pops up to tell you that you already own the book. Not that I am a dumazz that tried to buy the same book twice or anything, I just randomly happen to know this and stuff.

Issue: in class, page numbers & kindles do not mix too well. Just so you know. Edited November 2, 2012 by Jonnin

[Guest Lester Weevils]

What Jonnin said, but being captain obvious, pdf and mobi documents are trivial easy to transfer from desktop puter to kindle via usb connection. There are other ways to transfer non protected content via email and possibly even wireless network, but it is so easy with a usb cable.

Am not expert on the amazon purchased books having only bought a few, but those show up available on both the kindle and the android kindle app. I've been mainly reading non copy protected mobi and pdf, which seems as easy to transfer via usb than any other method.

Tis surprising how many documents the little thing can hold in memory. Could be used in a pinch as a USB external storage device for modest amounts of pc files.

The black'n'white kindles are easy on the eyes for conventional reading. It needs a recharge about daily if I have it text to speech, but runs a long time on a charge if you just read. The nature of the display probably has to do with low power consumption. It is quite slow for updating the view, but apparently needs nearly zilch power to maintain a static image. So it most likely consumes very little except when updating the screen whenever you flip pages.

We got the small paperback-sized one with 6" diagonal screen, with 3G and wifi. So far there are no surcharges for the 3G use but we don't use the 3G communication much except occasional buying a book. It has a web browser built in but is a weak slow browser of course. That is one application rather difficult on small black'n'white screen with slow low-power processor.

There was speculation how long amazon would give away "free" 3G service. Perhaps the web browser is so slow and limited that people don't have enough patience to run the web browser on amazon's dime enough hours to cost em a lot of money.

One time was sitting at the car dealer waiting on my maintenance, and the dealer's public wifi went on the blitz. So I put away the laptop and did some surfing on the kindle for about an hour, mooching off amazon's built-in "free" 3G. Was actually able to read and even post a message in TGO in that wimpy little browser, but with the tiny non-touch screen it wasn't fast or easy. Checking web mail would probably be less frustrating, or simple-layout sites with big reflowable print.

At one time amazon was encouraging "free" 3G access to wikipedia, but the wikipedia page layouts when I tried it, were too complex to easily navigate and read without a lot of zooming and scrolling with the tiny cursor buttons. Maybe at one time wikipedia layouts were friendlier to the little screen browsing, or maybe there were plans to make it so.

[Jonnin]

I think the 3g is dead unless you have one of those already. The newer ones just tap a nearby wireless hub, which is worthless to me, I do not care for wireless and do not have a hub.

The web is very limited, text and pictures and links. It fails most sites and is very unreliable. I have used it to tap google maps when I got lost on a trip though and watched the news on it once during some big news story, forget now what but slow as it was I had info way before the folks watching the tv did.

It does OK for simple games too. I have sudoku, chess, blackjack, scrabble, and a few other such turn based games. The chess app is not very good, though, I can beat it.

[Sam1]

They are offering 3g versions of the new one, but I'll only be connecting once every few weeks to download a new book so the extra expense would not be justified, it's only $50, but that's a couple boxes of ammo lol

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