Amazon's Kindle

[Sibling DavidH]

It's not really necessary to download via the wireless link.  Amazon will let you download to your computer and then you can transfer via USB.  A large proportion of the 417 titles I currently own have been acquired that way from all the many other sources.  There's masses of good stuff available free in epub format which you then convert with Calibre, which is free.

[Bluenose]

Hi Griff,  the big advantage I have found of the Kindle is the electronic ink screen. This works off ambient light (its fantastic in sunlight), just like reading a paper book and I have found that you very soon forget that you are using a Kindle and just get on with the text.  My reservation about the Kindle Fire is that it is in effect just another tablet device with probably less functionality than say an Android 4 tablet and without the readabilty characteristics that make the Kindle so easy to read.  Also, battery life is a lot less.  I have only charged my Kindle three or four times since I got it in the beginning of November.  As for the keyboard version, Mrs Blue has one of those I have the one without a keyboard.  Mrs Blue uses the Kindle Store via her Kindle which makes having the keyboard handy, but I usually do my Kindle shopping on my PC.  I have found not having the keyboard to be not a problem at all.  (There is pop-up window soft keyboard that you use if necessary, eg for WiFi setup, but I don't have to use it much.)  Both of ours are WiFi only, not 3g.  This is not a problem as there are plenty of free hotspots around these days and besides, both our cell phones can be configured as WiFi hotspots so in an emergency they could be used.  I am going away for a couple of weeks in the second half of March and will be pre-loading my kindle with a few books, I doubt not being able to download a new one will not be an issue.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Blue already covered the real differences between Fire and "regular" kindles, so I won't go what he said-- but I totally agree with his observations, re: keyboard & such.

Apart from this-- the Fire is specifically designed to work within Amazon's "world" and it does that quite well.  Surfing "outside the playground (amazon)" may not work as expected, as they have deliberately limited it's abilities (or so I've read-- I do not own a Fire myself).  So if you are looking for a general Android tablet device, the Fire isn't it.

However, if Amazon's new netflix-like movie offerings appeals to you, and you do not wish to use your PC?  The Fire is just the ticket for those.

Or if you wish to subscribe and read any modern magazine?  Again, the Fire with it's full-color spread, is better at magazines' photos than the greyscale of the "regular" Kindles.

Or if what you really wanted, was access to your multiplicity of Amazon's MP3's up in the cloud?  Again, the Fire is your choice-- it's a much better MP3 player than the other Kindles.  However, the Fire only has 6gb of available storage-- which is paltry for side-loaded MP3's-- that is insufficient for your non-amazon MP3's for the majority of folk, unless you don't mind constantly shuffling your music.  But if you limit your MP3 to WiFi access?  And whatever is in your Amazon Cloud storage?  It's effectively unlimited (for a price, of course-- I won't go into that here).

Another downside, is, as with any full-color device these days, direct sunlight will blow it's screen out of the water-- that is, you just can't watch this in sunlight without an umbrella.  That is just the way it is.  As Blue already noted, this is in direct contras to the E-Ink kindles, which read exactly like printed paper-books in the sun-- that is, beautifully.

---------------------------

As for broadcasting your SSID?  These can be had easily enough, with a WiFi "sniffer" program, and even though the SSID is "silent" the WiFi can easily be hacked by a determined hacker-- few have rigorous password timeouts, such that the hacker can keep hitting the log-in until success.  Or can capture the handshake communications between a device already authenticated and the WiFi, and simply wait until that device goes off, and use that same credentials.

Or so I'm told-- I never tried any of these myself, I just don't care-- there's nothing in there that would compromise either me or my ID anyway-- I always clear the Cache after going to my bank anyway, and I do not allow the browser to memorize my bank's password or anything for that matter.  That's the best I can hope for these days anyway-- if they really want my meager funds, it's not that hard to get at them, really.   And no, I never use wireless to access my bank either-- secure or otherwise.  Not that it matters all that much either way.

So the short bus here:  I broadcast my SSID, just as my many neighbors do.  It makes it simpler for my many devices to reconnect.   I'm on the highest level of secure that also works with all my toys, but even those are easily broken according to the pundits, so what the hey?   I'm just keeping that creepy kid from downloading aname bondage prawn using my wifi ... in short?  The same reason why I bother to lock my front door when I leave-- to keep out casual (or stupid) thieves.

YMMV.

___________________

One more edit:

In the interests of full disclosure?  I do still own a Kindle 3 (grey, WiFi, with kb), and a Kindle DX (grey, 3g, with kb) and have access to a white DX (which I seem to never use, apart from charging it occasionally).  All of these I got one way or another, mostly used from pawn shopping.

Whereas I love the size of the DX?  I find I rarely use it these days, but use my Asus Transformer 101 Android 4 tablet+keyboard dock instead. 

I had some mild annoying issues with syncing books across the devices, so rather than fix that, I would more than not, just get out the Asus tablet instead-- it's full-color, similar to the Kindle Fire.

Even reading in bed before sleep, the last bastion of Kindle use, I find the backlit screen of the Asus is better in low light than the E-Ink, and the resolution is easily as good on my tablet as the E-Ink.  I just cannot read it in full sunlight-- but I seldom have opportunity for that, these days.  Perhaps when full summer rolls around, I may change my tune.

But the nature of the Android tablet (Ice Cream Sandwich, currently) allows me to do a boatload of different things besides read-- and sometimes, I'm just not in the mood to read-- perhaps it's my current crop of books I've selected on my "to read" list just hasn't grabbed my attention, perhaps it's just me, getting older.  I do not know-- but sometimes, I just want to play a mindless game on the tablet instead, and listen to an MP3 album too.

Sure, I can listen and read-- but I don't really pay attention to the music that way.  But a nice mindless game of Jewels, or MaJong or other simple game does not occupy my brain much, so I really listen to the lyrics.  And I like that occasionally.  Currently, my little Asus has 16gb internal memory (which I reserve for books & documents), a 32gb microSDHC card, mostly backup, photos & misc, and a nice 64gb full sized SDXC card with my entire music collection, among other stuff.  I like not having to shuffle what music I have with, and what I must leave behind. 

So the transformer is the one I grab, when I'm out the door-- too useful a tool, than just for reading.

Again?  Your Mileage May Vary.

[Griffin NoName]

Bob - are you saying you no longer use a kindle, but the acer. Is it as good for books. What I want is books so best reading screen important.

Bye the way, thread wins the ask about x, suggest buy y

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Bob - are you saying you no longer use a kindle, but the acer. Is it as good for books. What I want is books so best reading screen important.

Bye the way, thread wins the ask about x, suggest buy y

Sorry about that-- I've been busy updating my various devices fast and furious, and they were on my mind.

Best reading of books?   In any light? (provided you have a book light for the dark) is still E-Ink, i.e. a Kindle or one of the non-Amazonian equivalents.

But in messing around the web late last night (in bed, using my Acer) I have discovered that the K-Fire is selling very, very well.

And you just won't get that, with a product that doesn't Just Work-- so that's a kind of testimonial right there.

Okay, bottom line:

Kindle Fire is an Amazon-specific device, meaning they control it 100%, including the OS (it's a very custom version of Android, but is not pure Android).

Amazon seems to be seriously behind it, in terms of support, and has updated it recently.  CNET Review.

But, being as it's Amazon-specific, you'll need to get Apps directly from Amazon's market, and not the Traditional Android Market-- this could be good or bad, depending on your personal idea of how you want to do things.

(For example, most of my apps on my Acer come from Android Market, the normal gateway, but not a few come from Amazon's Market-App, an alternative application/media/etc engine.)

So, if you're not a fan of closed architecture (think:  apple/itunes), then you may wish to look at a different Android tablet-- because the Fire is an Amazon Device, much as the Kindle is.

For example, none of the Kindles will read EPub without conversion, even if you side-load the book (i.e. load the book via USB cable after having downloaded it to your PC).  However using the PC program Caliber (recommended, by the way) it's falling over easy to convert non-DRM EPub to MOBI, and having Caliber load it automatically for you onto your Kindle.  So it's not all bad.

The E-Ink Kindle will never (it appears) be capable of reading EPub directly-- but the Fire could theoretically do so, with a 3rd party reader from the Amazon App store-- usually free or nominal cost ($1 or so).

I know I have several non-Kindle reading apps on my Acer-- the Cool Reader being the best, mainly because you can customize it so very-very much-- I'm into making the thing do exactly what I want, how I want.

I say "theoretically" because I do not own a Fire, and I cannot say if this is possible-- but I'd be seriously surprised if it wasn't.

Bottom line:

The Fire is inexpensive for what it is-- to the tune of $100-$150 cheaper than the equivalent non-Amazon tablet, and that's making them fly out the doors.   The likelihood of these being hacked away from Amazon-specific OS is very, very high-- running Ice Cream Sandwich (the latest Android) is very good in the near future.  (But it would likely void any warranties).

But there is nothing like E-Ink for reading words-in-a-row-- text.   If that's your bailiwick, and you don't anticipate wanting to watch YouTube, or play games, or do E-mail, or surfing the web from your tablet?   Ever?  (for the reasonable future)

Then save yourself $100 and get whichever E-Ink you like best-- my money's on the Kindle E-Ink touchscreen, because occasionally I do like to look up obscure words, and on a non-touch screen, you have to navigate to the word using little cutsy buttons-- kinda tedious.  But on a touchscreen?  You simply (and carefully, if you have small fonts like I prefer) touch and hold the word in question, and a little box pops up giving you the definition.

Obviously, the cheapest E-Ink has no keyboard, and is WiFi only-- no random, over-the-cellular downloading of books on that one-- you must be within a friendly WiFi network, or else you connect it to the PC and side-load your books (either one works quite well).

If you have no keyboard, using Book Categories will be a pain-- this is an nice little feature that lets you organize your books into collections-- but you seriously need a real keyboard to create that.  Once created, you >>can<< share that collection with all your Kindles (if you have more than one), and I expect 3rd party applications to be able to access this soon, so you can create these on a PC, and push it out to the kindle device.

However, if you do not anticipate or need such a level of organization (the Kindle natively lets your sort by Author, by Title and by Last Accessed), then a lack of keyboard won't bother you (there is a virtual one, but you must navigate to each letter via buttons, and click "select" one painful character at a time-- fine for passwords and other setups.  Painful for hundreds of entries).

I have a friend who's been a Kindle reader since Kindle 2, and has had a Kindle 3 w/keyboard and now has the latest, cheapest Kindle and loves it's tiny size and light weight.  He does not miss the keyboard in the least, and prefers the super-light weight-- easier to hold while reading.  I can pass that "Recommended" on without conditions.

I'm more anal-retentive, and really use the crap outta those collections, so a real keyboard is a must, for me-- but I do have several Kindles, and could easily push my collection out to a keyboard-less one, if I wanted, bypassing the need...

... one more thing, re-keyboards.  If you have, as I do, 400+ books on your device, even sorted by Author, I have several pages of listings-- and I can "quick jump" from the A's (page 1) to, say, the M's simply by pressing the "M" on my keyboard.  For the keyboard-less one, you'd need to invoke the virtual keyboard, navigate to the "M" and press "select", and it'll jump directly to the start of the M's .  Possible, but a bit awkward.

However, there really is no need to carry 400+ books, if you have WiFi-- just keeping, say, 20-50 books you are currently interested in, on the "main" menu, and the rest in Archive?  Is another way to organize your collection.  The archive will helpfully keep all your Amazon-purchased books (even the $0 ones) up on the "cloud" for you-- easily accessed within seconds-- so long as you are on WiFi, of course.   

The non-amazon books would require you to connect via USB to your PC/laptop, and I'd recommend using Caliber for managing those.

________________________

You will note that I've said little about actually reading the books.

This is deliberate-- as this is a very personal thing-- some people really hate backlighted screens, as on the Fire/Asus.  Others do not mind.  Still others prefer it, for reading in dim or no light.

On the flip side, no backlighted device works in direct sunlight-- unless you have shade, and even then, many are still too dim.   But the E-Ink really shines in full-on sun-- just like a printed book.

Reading in bed?   The backlighted devices let you do that in the complete dark, if you like.  But for the E-Ink, you're going to need a reading light of some sort-- a lamp, a book-light-- something.  Not a big deal, if you are used to printed books-- just use whatever you would have for them.

________________________

The last word-- recharging.   The E-Ink kindles need a mizer's use of electricity-- charging once a week, if you like a schedule, works supremely well.  Many even if the WiFi is left on-- the latest Kindle OS puts that to sleep automatically, to help with battery life.  If you opt to turn off the WiFi manually?  (easy on all devices) It can last several weeks before needing a recharge.

The tablets?  Just like a cell phone, daily recharging is the best solution here-- LiIon batteries do not like spending time at a low charge, and these devices are power-hungry, and will typically drain a battery flat in 6 to 12 hours, depending on various things.  (Alas, I cannot testify as to the Kindle Fire's battery life myself-- my Acer has 2 batteries, and can easily go 18 hours).   But a daily top-up is recommended, plug it in at night, just like that old cell phone, so it'll be ready come morning.

If constant recharging bothers you?  Avoid the tablets-- the E-Ink devices win this one, hand's down.

If nightly plug-in of your device is no big deal?  Then this is not an issue.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

If you read indoors and you don't tire reading from a screen then the Fire will be more attractive, and you shouldn't need the 3G as wifi should be enough. If you plan to read outdoors then the regular eInk screen is going to be better.

As for broacasting the SSID what Bob said applies, it's a minor security feature, whomever is trying to hack a wifi will try first, open networks, those still using WEP instead of WPA/WPA2/TKIP etc, and a tooled hacker (one with the tools to hack WEP or WPA 1) will be able to see the network anyways so as security goes it really isn't too effective.

Lastly the Amazon market is not that different from the regular from Google, and the Fire will be able to use apps for Gingerbread (I imagine they filter out apps that only work on Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich) so I don't think it's something terrible.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Lastly the Amazon market is not that different from the regular from Google, and the Fire will be able to use apps for Gingerbread (I imagine they filter out apps that only work on Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich) so I don't think it's something terrible.

Oh, I agree-- it's quite a workable solution.  And you can always side-load apps that are not on the Amazon market anyway-- this is done by downloading the APK file (it'll have an .APK extension) onto your internal memory, usually called "SDCARD" in the little pathway.

Then you go into the settings and install it, after enabling "non-market install"-- but that menu bit is probably hidden in the Fire, come to think of it...  nevermind.



And yes, the Fire does have an SDCARD memory-- it's just that it's fixed and pre-mounted internal to the device-- all Android devices have one of one stripe or another.  Many have multiple ones-- unfortunately?  The nomenclature for the first one is standardized (SDCARD) but the others?  Not so much.... could be... anywhere in the Android's file pathways... but anyone familiar with Linux will quickly figure this out....

[Griffin NoName]

It's not really necessary to download via the wireless link.  Amazon will let you download to your computer and then you can transfer via USB.  A large proportion of the 417 titles I currently own have been acquired that way from all the many other sources.  There's masses of good stuff available free in epub format which you then convert with Calibre, which is free.

Looked at Calibre - wondering which op sys Kindle has - checked kindle on amazon and nowhere can I find any spec of the op sys.
wimdows linux os X  = choices for Calibre download.

Re. which Kindle, the keyboard version is only 3 ounces more in weight, is this really significant?

[The Meromorph]

You would run Calibre on your PC, convert to MOBI format for the Kindle, save just the MOBI format in a specific 'library' on your PC, and side-load by author from that library to your Kindle.
HTH

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Mero's correct:  Calibre is for your PC, to help you organize the plethoria of books you got for free from the Gutenberg Project.



Or, perhaps, from Many Books?   I like this one better, as most of their content has already been converted to Mobi (the Kindle format).

It should be noted, Kindles don't do EPub-- the most popular EBook form in the world these days.   But with programs like Calibre?  Conversion from EPub to Mobi only requires a couple of mouse-clicks...

... Calibre will even helpfully install (side-load via the physical USB cable) the non-DRM books on your device for you... and keep track of what's on there and what's not.

The latest, or so I'm told, can even access those Collections-- but I have not tried that-- I haven't needed to run Calibre in several months.  Busy doing other things, and mostly using non-Kindle apps for my non-Amazon books on my TF101.

I really ought to check that out.... now that you mention it.

______________________________________________________________

By the way?  Kindles run on a highly-customized Amazon-only version of either Linux or Android (they are really very much alike in many respects).

And yeah, the kindles have been hacked or "jailbroken" by various persons-- some geek even managed to hack a Kindle Fire and put on Ice Cream Sandwich (the latest Android).  But it reports to be "pre-alpha" meaning it's just a hack, a proof-of-concept, and very unstable (translation:  not usable to non-geeks, and likely not even for them).

Why jailbreak your Kindle?

Various reasons:  running non-Amazon apps.  Replacing the stock non-user changable screen saver pictures (some of which are ... unpleasant) or even removing the ads on the ad-supported Kindles.   

That last one, I think, is not ethical-- not until you've owned it for at least a year, to pay for your discount.  But that's just me, I suppose.... YMMV

[Griffin NoName]

Interesting.

Neither of you has commenteed on the weight!!!!!!!!!!

To a female of course this is most important. Like the size of the side pockets in a car. LoL!!!!!!!!!!!

I have worked out what HTH means but admit am stuck on YMMV.  More LoL !!!!

[pieces o nine]

I have worked out what HTH means but admit am stuck on YMMV.  More LoL !!!!

HTH:  Hope This Helps
YMMV:  Your Mileage May Vary  (you may get different results)

[Sibling DavidH]

Here are the specs of the keyboard-less model.

I get books from many sites, in various formats.  Having to convert some via Calibre is no trouble - my way is to assemble all titles for side-loading into one folder and load them when there's five or six waiting.  I've pretty well squeezed Amazon dry for free stuff now, though I keep an eye out because new stuff is always coming in.  Therefore almost everything goes in through the USB.

However, there really is no need to carry 400+ books, if you have WiFi-- just keeping, say, 20-50 books you are currently interested in, on the "main" menu, and the rest in Archive?

Well, I've got space for a lot more than 400 - probably more like 1,400.  Most of mine are not from Amazon, so I need to store them somewhere - why not on the Kindle?  There are a few Amazon titles I've banished to the archive, but only ones I'm never likely to want again.  If you divide them into collections, finding them is not a problem.

[Bluenose]

Hi Griff,  comparing my keyboardless Kindle with Mrs Blue's keyboard one the weight difference is not particulalry noticeable.  The main difference is the overall size which is smaller for the keyboardless one - although the screen is the same size.  Also, if you want to do a cover, the keyboard unit attaches to its cover using some special clips that fit into the side of the unit and thus it works like a book, opens side to side.  However the keyboardless unit does not have these fittings and sits into its covers using small diagonal straps that fit over the corners.  I got a third party one (from the Amazon site) that flips over the top rather than the side.  This has a hand "grip" or elastic sleeve at the back so that when it is open you can slip your hand in to hold the Kindle easily with one hand.  This is really handy when reading in otherwise difficult circumstances such as if you need the other hand to hold on when using public transport. Also, you can use it like a book stand when you want to read with the device say on a table while you do something else with your hands, like eat breakfast <grin>.

[Griffin NoName]

Or, perhaps, from Many Books?   I like this one better, as most of their content has already been converted to Mobi (the Kindle format).

How come they are free? And why are the banned books banned? They are just classics.

Thanks everyone for all the info. Really helpful.

Blue, do you buy from US amazon? I just bought a toy for my grandaughter in Sydney from amazon.com, having checked they shipped toys to Aus. - delivery failed, notified don't ship toys to Aus. even tho says they do on web page.