Kindle Paperwhite or not?

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ajobbins

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#1102127 4-Aug-2014 21:17

If anyone is interested in a mint condition but used Kindle Paperwhite, I may be interested in selling for a reasonable price. It's about a year old but not used all that much. Perfect condition.

If interested, make me an offer. Think I paid about AU$170 for it from Dick Smith

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welliegeek

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#1102180 4-Aug-2014 22:17

ajobbins:
qyiet:
ajobbins: They are great devices but my only complaint is that you are locked to the Amazon system (unless you pirate).

Or you get DRM free stuff. (The humble ebook bundles with a kindle is pretty damn seamless) but yes, the DRM most libraries have decided to use are not compatible with the kindle or particularly strong for that matter.

My understanding is this is because Amazon don't allow others to use their DRM system without paying them. So you can either load Amazon DRM content or DRM free content. Amazon want to clip the ticket on everything, so this locks out the likes of libraries under Amazon's current model.

A couple of thoughts.

I was a Sony e-reader user for years until it broke when I was in Australia a while back. I bought the Kindle PW and haven't looked back.

1) It's dead easy to get DRM free content, translate to .mobi format (there are webpages that will do this for you) and then email it to the unique address that is allocated to your kindle.

2) The ability to still use the Amazon ecosystem when it suits (I get an email every day with dozens of free kindle books) or sideload is fantastic.

3) If you want to keep track of your library then calibre is fantastic and you can use it to sideload if you don't want to use the kindle email function.

ajobbins

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#1102205 4-Aug-2014 22:30

welliegeek:
A couple of thoughts.

I was a Sony e-reader user for years until it broke when I was in Australia a while back. I bought the Kindle PW and haven't looked back.

1) It's dead easy to get DRM free content, translate to .mobi format (there are webpages that will do this for you) and then email it to the unique address that is allocated to your kindle.

2) The ability to still use the Amazon ecosystem when it suits (I get an email every day with dozens of free kindle books) or sideload is fantastic.

3) If you want to keep track of your library then calibre is fantastic and you can use it to sideload if you don't want to use the kindle email function.

Cheers. I have/use Calibre, but it's not a perfect solution. Eg. You can't use it to borrow books from your local library to load on your Kindle. (Or if you can, you are breaking the DRM in which case you might as well just pirate it).

You can also still buy eBooks off Amazon and use Calibre to load them onto a non-kindle device, right?

Amazon's pricing also annoys me at times. When I went to buy the Game of Thrones books last year, they wanted nearly 3x the price for the eBook than the paperback! WTH!

Twitter: ajobbins

welliegeek

135 posts

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#1102222 4-Aug-2014 22:37

ajobbins:
welliegeek:
A couple of thoughts.

I was a Sony e-reader user for years until it broke when I was in Australia a while back. I bought the Kindle PW and haven't looked back.

1) It's dead easy to get DRM free content, translate to .mobi format (there are webpages that will do this for you) and then email it to the unique address that is allocated to your kindle.

2) The ability to still use the Amazon ecosystem when it suits (I get an email every day with dozens of free kindle books) or sideload is fantastic.

3) If you want to keep track of your library then calibre is fantastic and you can use it to sideload if you don't want to use the kindle email function.

Cheers. I have/use Calibre, but it's not a perfect solution. Eg. You can't use it to borrow books from your local library to load on your Kindle. (Or if you can, you are breaking the DRM in which case you might as well just pirate it).

You can also still buy eBooks off Amazon and use Calibre to load them onto a non-kindle device, right?

Amazon's pricing also annoys me at times. When I went to buy the Game of Thrones books last year, they wanted nearly 3x the price for the eBook than the paperback! WTH!

Yeah, you can't borrow ebooks from the library that's true (and the reason my mother has a Sony)

You can buy Amazon books, strip the DRM in Calibre, change to epub and load onto other devices but it's a bit of a PITA. I've done it few times but it's not worth it. The other option is to take the moral stance that you've paid for a book, "find" the epub version and load it onto another device. Haven't bothered doing this either but it would be easy enough I imagine.

And yes, pricing is a whole other discussion :)

freitasm

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#1102301 5-Aug-2014 07:44

ajobbins: Amazon's pricing also annoys me at times. When I went to buy the Game of Thrones books last year, they wanted nearly 3x the price for the eBook than the paperback! WTH!

Interesting that you mention price. All books I bought so far (and that's more than 300 now) the eBook was cheaper than paperback and always about 1/2 - 2/3 of New Zealand street price for a paper version.

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PhantomNVD

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#1102403 5-Aug-2014 10:10

I've found the pricing on ebooks pretty equally comparable to their paper versions here, though mainly shop Amazon or iBooks so that may be why.

Personally I have an iPad as my one and all device for home use (laptop for - and from - work for heavy loading of course) and find a combination of iBook and the Kindle app to suit whatever I need to do. DRM-free books just get emailed to the iPad and "open in" iBooks seemlessly.

iPad is definitely a premium cost device, but does SO much more beside that I've never though... Overall prefer the Kindle app, but iBooks is easy enough too.

@OP never owned a kindle, but find the Amazon "ecosystem" pretty comprehensive, and sideloading to be easy as pie :)

Glassboy

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#1105123 8-Aug-2014 20:42

freitasm:
ajobbins: Amazon's pricing also annoys me at times. When I went to buy the Game of Thrones books last year, they wanted nearly 3x the price for the eBook than the paperback! WTH!

Interesting that you mention price. All books I bought so far (and that's more than 300 now) the eBook was cheaper than paperback and always about 1/2 - 2/3 of New Zealand street price for a paper version.

GoT seems to be an exception.

I believe not being able to borrow ebooks on Kindles is something to do with some NZ writers organization refusing to come to an agreement with Google and Amazon.

Bung

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#1105177 8-Aug-2014 22:18

Glassboy: I believe not being able to borrow ebooks on Kindles is something to do with some NZ writers organization refusing to come to an agreement with Google and Amazon.

It must be a wider issue than that. AFAIK library lending through Amazon in parallel with Overdrive only operates in the US. The longer regional and format differences are kept going the greater the number of work arounds.

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