Kindle pros and cons

[Scott B.]

Reading on a Kindle is a lot easier on the eyes than the tablets, and has better battery life (not having to power that display and whatever background apps/tasks are running).

Being able to send elibrary books to the Kindle is a nice bonus.

You can copy DRM-free books straight to your kindle via micro-USB.

edit: added the -free, so it made sense.

[maverick2076]

I have several hundred books on my Paperwhite and haven't run out of memory yet. If you are concerned about storing books from non-Amazon sources, use Calibre on your laptop to keep your eBooks organized and upload them to your Kindle. ITs simple and fairly intuitive. eBooks don't take up a lot of space.

[WildBill]

Kindle has several options.. 1. you can "buy" a book on Amazon and it will download to your device, or cloud if you have Amazon reader on your pc or other device. 2. there are numerous free books that you can download to your device through Amazon. 3. If you have a Prime account, you can often share books with friends. I've got a couple of hundred in my cloud..

Cons.. you really don't own a book.. you own the download.. But, in some cases, if the book is updated, you will get the update free. I have numerous military books and manuals on mine that I downloaded and added via Calibre E-Book Manager.. it converts most formats to the .mobi that the Kindle uses.

Do you really "own" the download or are you just borrowing it for a certain length of time?
Can you move the file to another Kindle or other device without deleting the original?

[The Annoyed Man]

99% of what I read is on the Kindle app on my iPad. I used to use a Kindle Fire device, but it just seemed less than useful to me for anything else but reading. It had wifi capability, and you could surf the web with it, but the interface was clunky, and it just wasn't as fast nor did it have the storage capacity of the iPad. In the end, I gave it away to somebody. But if you're using the device primarily to read books, it works just fine. However, I use my iPad for much more than that.

[threoh8]

I'm still new to my Kindle Paperwhite, but I'm enjoying it. There are a lot of interesting books available online for it, many free or cheap. I've been on a minor Old West \Indian Wars kick lately, and just finished reading several accounts of the same incident in different books. Having them on the same device that I can take almost anywhere is nice. I even bought a Kindle copy of one I have in paper, just for the mobility.

Still, I have no plans to get rid of my real books, or to stop buying them. They give me comfort.

[highrez58]

I'm now on my second Kindle and won't be without one. Primarily I download books through our local public library. If you have Amazon Prime you can borrow one book a month, and I also occasionally buy a book from other websites for $1.99 or so. The Kindle Paperwhite that I have has a backlight and I can even read in the middle of the night if I wake up without disturbing my husband. My Kindle goes everywhere I go. As I said, I wouldn't be without it. Also, when my first Kindle stopped working after a year or so, Amazon replaced it at no charge.

[JALLEN]

A great many volumes are free or very low cost.

I have a volume "The Unabridged Mark Twain" I've had for years. I have to be careful while reading it. You don't want to drop it on your foot, and the binding has been used so much the pages are coming out.

I found substantially all of the material in that version in a Kindle version for $3, only because a cheaper version had no search or table of contents capability.

Many of the classics are free.

[Skiprr]

Kindle has several options.. 1. you can "buy" a book on Amazon and it will download to your device, or cloud if you have Amazon reader on your pc or other device. 2. there are numerous free books that you can download to your device through Amazon. 3. If you have a Prime account, you can often share books with friends. I've got a couple of hundred in my cloud..

Cons.. you really don't own a book.. you own the download.. But, in some cases, if the book is updated, you will get the update free. I have numerous military books and manuals on mine that I downloaded and added via Calibre E-Book Manager.. it converts most formats to the .mobi that the Kindle uses.

Do you really "own" the download or are you just borrowing it for a certain length of time?
Can you move the file to another Kindle or other device without deleting the original?

Yes, and yes. Not like the old iTunes encryption problem. The downloaded eBooks (Amazon uses .mobi format) can be backed up to a hard drive or external storage device, can be converted to a different eBook file format and can reside on multiple devices simultaneously. One plus is that if you purchased the book from Amazon, you can have it downloaded to more than one device and your reading place in the document can be synchronized in the background, so you can pick up at the right place even if you choose a different device.

Now, that said, this does not refer to Amazon's lending library thing, whatever it's actually called (I don't use it, myself). With that, you can download mucho number of titles, including many big-publisher new releases, but you are, in fact, borrowing them and must "return" the book before borrowing another.

This is different from Amazon Prime's "First Look." At the beginning of each month, Amazon's editors select about six not-yet-released books, and Prime members can choose one for free. That counts as an actual purchase; the book doesn't need to be returned. I always snag one of these every month and, while I can never bring myself to finish most of these, I do find one or two gems each year and discover new authors this way.

A decade ago--even though I was aware of the e-ink concept when it was first developed in the early 90s at the MIT Media Lab--I would have laughed at the idea I would ever begin favoring eBooks over traditional paper. There are still many business and science books I always prefer on paper (these will have specific columnar page layouts or graphics and tables) but anything that's just text, yeah, eBook prefered. The primary reason is the ability to adjust the size of the typeface (don't like having to put on reading glasses for extended reading), and portability. On my 4.5" x 6.5" x 0.25" Kindle Paperwhite, I can balance an 800-page book in one hand on three fingers.

I have an old 1st-gen Kindle that still works just fine but I seldom use, the Paperwhite (that's a dedicated reader and is used daily), and a Fire HD10 that serves my minimal tablet needs (some apps, ability to use a stylus to diagram and take notes, occasional video streaming and audio, and other basic tablet but don't-need-laptop functions). I keep copies of the books I'm reading on the Paperwhite and the Fire. The Paperwhite has a luminosity-adjustable backlight and many hours of use on a single charge, but the Fire has a feature called Blue Shade that changes the display to remove all blue light generation--renders a book an adjustable hue of gold--so that you can read last thing before going to bed without the blue light potentially disturbing sleep.

If I could keep only one, I'd keep the Paperwhite. I probably read with it one to two hours every day.

[Dadtodabone]

I started e-reading when my business was such that I was traveling 2-3 days a week. Between my ThinkPad® and its peripherals, paper files, etc. my carry on felt like it weighed 40 lbs. Adding in a big hunk of a dead tree for entertainment was killing me. "Our Company's Computer Guy" suggested, in a condescending tone, that I utilize the PDA I was already carrying to eliminate the books! I soon had the Adobe epub app running on my laptop and pda. Even with all the hassle involved with downloading, docking, syncing, etc. having my recreational reading in just few ounces of ipaq was a pleasure. I don't believe I've purchased a book or periodical in print form since then. Get the Kindle, if you are an avid reader you love it.

[gljjt]

For $9.99 / month, use the "kindle unlimited" service. Something like a third to half of the books in the kindle store are available under this service. Read them for no additional charge. Check out up to 10 books at a time. We have read hundreds of books in the last few years and haven't paid for any of them (almost). Look for the kindle unlimited logo or filter for kindle unlimited only. It's a great deal.

[couzin]

Similar to much of above, lots of books, mostly free. Not really a 'notepad'. The browser (silk) really sucks. I understand that chrome can be sideloaded but it is beyond me.

[C-dub]

Picked up my 4GB Paperwhite today and have already figured out how to load the pdf file of the CHL-16 2015-2016. Now to figure out any other cool things it can do.

[C-dub]

I've been reading "The Second Amendment Primer" hard copy and thought I'd get the electronic version to be able to read at work during breaks. I was a little confused when it asked for a shipping address, so I backed out of that since I didn't want another hard copy. Is that normal for it to ask about a shipping address for an e-book?

[ELB]

I've been reading "The Second Amendment Primer" hard copy and thought I'd get the electronic version to be able to read at work during breaks. I was a little confused when it asked for a shipping address, so I backed out of that since I didn't want another hard copy. Is that normal for it to ask about a shipping address for an e-book?

That doesn't sound right. When I buy Kindle books, it only asks which device I want it downloaded to. Suggest you make sure you have the Kindle format highlighted. Then the "buy" button usually says something like "Buy with one-click" (which is the way I have Amazon set up) and right below that it shows which device to deliver it to (I have several -- a Kindle, a kindle Fire, my iPhone, etc.)