eReader Owners Thread (Kindle, Nook, Kobo etc)

[IcedT]

it doesn't feel like a toy or a laptop like some of the newer Nooks and Kindles do.

My kindle really doesn't feel like a toy at all, it has a very solid build quality, and it's made of metal, I'd hardly call that toy-like, or laptop-like.

I didn't mean toy-like as in fragile or anything like that, it just seems to me that the color Nooks and all that are become more like tablet-lites with facebook and music and such. I'm kindof a hipster-curmudgeon so I like the plain utilitarian feel of my Nook. It has an MP3 player but very little space, so I don't use it, and it has a web browser but it's kinda primitive, so I don't use it. In my mind, the thing's just for reading. The idea of a more fully-featured eReader just isn't that appealing to me.

[HTML Mencken]

In terms of reading academic texts and PDFs on the Kindle...I have a Kindle 3, and the best way I've found is to convert such texts to .mobi and then upload them.

This doesn't always work well, and isn't always even possible. The formatting is usually terrible, as especially reference dense texts seem to come out in such a way that every reference starts a new line...but I still find it to be generally preferable to reading PDFs on it.

[AvatarIII]

it doesn't feel like a toy or a laptop like some of the newer Nooks and Kindles do.

My kindle really doesn't feel like a toy at all, it has a very solid build quality, and it's made of metal, I'd hardly call that toy-like, or laptop-like.

I didn't mean toy-like as in fragile or anything like that, it just seems to me that the color Nooks and all that are become more like tablet-lites with facebook and music and such. I'm kindof a hipster-curmudgeon so I like the plain utilitarian feel of my Nook. It has an MP3 player but very little space, so I don't use it, and it has a web browser but it's kinda primitive, so I don't use it. In my mind, the thing's just for reading. The idea of a more fully-featured eReader just isn't that appealing to me.

I see what you mean, for the nooks and perhaps the Kindle Fire, but the Kindle 3 is actually pretty utilitarian in style, no colour, only a few buttons, has a basic web browser, but can't do MP3s, doesn't even have a headphone socket or speakers anyway, just has the one micro USB port for charging and transfering stuff, it really is pretty basic "just for reading"

[Fedechiar]

What? I have a Kindle 3 (3G version) and it does have a headphone socket with MP3 support - although it is just a reader, using it to surf the web and listen to music is quite uncomfortable

[AvatarIII]

What? I have a Kindle 3 (3G version) and it does have a headphone socket with MP3 support - although it is just a reader, using it to surf the web and listen to music is quite uncomfortable

Yeah sorry, I got it wrong, I have the Kindle 4. Which they decided to cut back a lot of features for the sake of price.

[careyhammer]

What is the best eReader app and store for the Ipad? Itunes or Amazon Kindle?

[Kolko]

I liked Stanza when I still used my iPod to read, but I don't know how it fared after the company got taken over.

[Black Dynamite]

Is it easy to make notes on them?

I like being able to highlight and take notes on my Kindle touch, but it really is a chore. Maybe my fingers are too awkward for the screen. Whenever I try to highlight something I spend several minutes trying to get exactly what I want, and only what I want highlighted. A complete hassle, really.

[maybeagnostic]

Is it easy to make notes on them?

I like being able to highlight and take notes on my Kindle touch, but it really is a chore. Maybe my fingers are too awkward for the screen. Whenever I try to highlight something I spend several minutes trying to get exactly what I want, and only what I want highlighted. A complete hassle, really.

It's a bit finicky but with a few weeks of practice I am getting highlights right the first time around and my fingers are pretty fat. Right now it's much faster to make a highlight on my kindle touch than on a physical book (unless I am holding a marker in my hand ready to highlight in which case it might be equally fast on short highlights). I can imagine taking notes is a pain though- it takes a second to type out a book/author in the amazon store search bar but it takes 3-4 extra seconds for the kindle to actually show you what you typed. If I was trying to write a note of any length I would have to keep stopping to see what I just wrote.

[HungryHobo]

Any recommendation for someone who wants a reasonably priced e-reader which isn't locked down?

I don't particularly like electronics which are artifically locked down with things like perfectly good browsers which can only go to the manufacturers own store page or similar.

I have a bit of a thing about being the admin on computers or computer like devices I own so I'm hoping to find a reasonably priced ebook reader which I actually have control over.

For example: the 1984 fiasco is exactly the sort of thing I don't like about such locked down devices.

[Zamfir]

depends on what you call 'reasonable', but if I wanted to avoid the kindle I would buy a sony prst1. Assuming you really want a pure book-reader, not a tablety thing that also does books.

[AvatarIII]

Is it easy to make notes on them?

I like being able to highlight and take notes on my Kindle touch, but it really is a chore. Maybe my fingers are too awkward for the screen. Whenever I try to highlight something I spend several minutes trying to get exactly what I want, and only what I want highlighted. A complete hassle, really.

It's a bit finicky but with a few weeks of practice I am getting highlights right the first time around and my fingers are pretty fat. Right now it's much faster to make a highlight on my kindle touch than on a physical book (unless I am holding a marker in my hand ready to highlight in which case it might be equally fast on short highlights). I can imagine taking notes is a pain though- it takes a second to type out a book/author in the amazon store search bar but it takes 3-4 extra seconds for the kindle to actually show you what you typed. If I was trying to write a note of any length I would have to keep stopping to see what I just wrote.

I believe you can use a stylus on the kindle touch if your fingers are a bit too imprecise,