E-Readers! What Are Your Thoughts?

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Envy

So I'm going through a problem here of my room being taken over by gobs and gobs of books. I'm talking mini library here, and a lot of my books are laying sideways on top of other books just to have more room. My shelves on my bookcase are warped due to the weight of the books!

So my thing is this: I debate getting an e-reader, but I have a few things I wonder about.

I love manga (Japanese styled comics) and I would rather keeps those as a book, so that somewhat eliminates me from thinking about an e-reader. I also like older novels, usually of the fantasy variety, and I don't think they do them as e-books.

Anyway, if i was to get one, i have specific things I am looking for and I'm not sure if any of the e-readers can do them. So anyone who has e-readers, be it Kindle, Nook, or something else, i want to hear your thoughts. What i really look for more than anything is this:

- Ability to 'type/write' my own stories in it rather than carry a notebook and pens/pencils around with me
- Ability to download word or pdf files on my computer onto it so i can have fanfiction and whatnot that i read online
- Preferably backlighting in the unit as I can't always sit under some light to read

Color option is either/or, I don't have a preference, and watching videos on it, eh, it's an electronic book, why watch vids on it when I have my ipod?

Any ideas if there's anything like that out there that won't break my wallet?

02/19/2011

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Alan & Michele

We got a Kindle 3 for Christmas and it isn't backlit (you have to use a clip-on light for reading in the dark) and it's so-so with pdfs. If the pdfs are all text then we just use the freeware program Calibre to convert them to Kindle's .mobi format and stick them on it, so there's no difference between reading them and regular eBooks. But for comics you'd have to leave them in the pdf format to preserve the layouts, which means you're going to do a lot of enlarging and scrolling to read them.

On the positive side, Kindle works like a USB flash drive so you can put your own stories on it simply by dragging them to the Kindle folder on your computer. That also lets you back up your entire collection on a CD really easily if you want to keep a hard copy somewhere. For old out-of-print books you can get free OCR software that lets you scan the pages and convert them to text, which you can then put on the Kindle. You can also take ebooks that are in other eBook readers' formats and use Calibre to convert them for Kindle. Amazon does have a fancy online thingy that will do some of that for you, but we never use it.

Hope this helps

02/19/2011

kinky girlfriend

Quote:

Originally posted by Envy

u can go to amazon.com and search in the kindle store to see if wat u want is available. I LOVE my kindle I sold my books. If I want something REALLY bad I will get it as a book if its not available on kindle. I'm trying to save money so right now I'm buying $0.99 books.

It's great build you wish list up on amazon and only buy 1 book at a time when u are done with 1 book buy another. U can often get books cheaper on the kindle,but alot of times they aren't much less than the real books its always an individual book title thing. It's nice seeing some free books,.99-$3.00 ones. I have the $140 one and it holds 3,500 books.

02/19/2011

Annemarie

Quote:

Originally posted by Envy

You probably want more of a tablet than an e-reader. As far as I know, e-readers themselves don't allow for inputting and saving of documents.

The Nook Color is a good low-budget reader that can be "hacked" (it's legal to do so) to become a normal Android tablet. It has a browser and can be used to read fanfiction (or whatever you like) online.

02/19/2011

idunshire

Fanfic is one of the main reasons I'm thinking about an e-reader, tbh. I will totally be stalking this post to see what others say!

02/19/2011

Alys

I've got a Nook, the 3G + wireless, black and white one, and I got mine for a similar reason. My library was overflowing, and I was having a hard time just choosing ten or so books to bring to school with me each semester.

The black and white Nook isn't backlit, though the new color version is. And both support PDF files as well as MP3's so if you like to listen to audiobooks or just want to listen to music, you can.

The color supports: EPUB (including Non or Adobe DRM); PDF; Other documents: XLS, DOC, PPT, PPS, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, DOCX, XLX, PPTX; Graphics: JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP; Audio: MP3, AAC; Video: MP4

The black and white only supports: EPUB (including Non or Adobe DRM); PDB; PDF; Graphics: JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP; Audio: MP3

I really don't like the power cord. You can use it as a USB or connect an adapter and plug it into the wall, but if you're going to plug it into the wall, and want to read it while it's charging, you're going to need to be really close. The cord is maybe three feet long. The battery life is impressive, though, so you won't have to charge too often.

I'm pretty sure that you're not going to be able to write stories on one of these, and the only way that you could would be to use something like Google Docs while on the internet, and the area for typing's pretty small.

That was probably more info than you wanted in parts, but I hope it helps

02/19/2011

DeliciousSurprise

I started a thread on ereaders (clicky clicky).

I have a kindle and I loooovvvveee it. The only thing I hate is that scanned PDFs (the ones that aren't converted textually, but an image is just taken of them) are super hard to read on it. I can alleviate that pain in the ass somewhat by changing the view (so I can read it landscape style) and I can always zoom in. If you're going to be buying the books through amazon or whomever i'm sure they've got a better system than that for comics.

You can type in your own stories (it has a web browser and you can take notes in the margins of things... Dunno how you'd just write a full thing out, but I'm sure there's a way besides having an email open or whatever There is no backlight, which I prefer because it's way easier on my eyes than reading on my backlit ipod, for damn sure. And I import allll my text documents onto it using Calibre (program mentioned above) with no problem at all.

Kindle love!

02/19/2011

Envy

Hm.. leaning towards a Kindle but I'd be getting the Wifi one only, we don't have any 3G things here and can't afford that extra charge. However the tablet thing is an idea as well, only problem is the cost and usually the price. The iPad is too large, the iPod Touch too small.

I just want something kinda like a netbook, but maybe as a tablet since it'd be easier to turn on and off. want it small, too, but not TOO small.

Grah, choices!

Since Kindle has a USB port.... has anyone tried hooking up a keyboard to it to see if it types rather than using the keyboard at the bottom of the unit?

02/20/2011

Annemarie

Quote:

Originally posted by Envy

The Nook Color is $249, which, if you compare its abilities with the Kindle's, is a bargain. It's about the price of the mid-range netbooks. There's also the Galaxy Tab, by Samsung, which is 7" as opposed to the iPad's 10", but I think it's closer to $400 than not.

I would say, ultimately, that if you're wanting something to simply replace your library, a Kindle is great. But, if you're wanting something a little less single-use, a Nook Color or other tablet would be perfect.

02/20/2011

Envy

Awesome, thanks for the input.

02/23/2011

Total posts: 10 Unique posters: 7

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