Amazon Kindle (ebook thingy)

i have a no-brand knockoff chinese android tablet that's two years old, pdf, kindle and all etc formats are no problem on it.

I think for pdfs nooks aren't great, but for other stuff they're totally fine and if you get it for peanuts I'd say totally go for it. I got a simple touch for £30 about a year ago and am glad I did.

i read white on black

ah yeah, I meant blue light as in this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/health/05light.html

prob has a lot to do with whether the pdf is a scan (ie unresizable images) or actual text, too.

yeah i can get a glowlight touch for about £30, have heard varying things about pdfs and if they don't work well that wd probably break the deal, i want to road test one before i buy i think

i left mine in edinburgh last time i was up or i'd have a look for you :(

Calibre converts PDFs, makes text ones super-manageable on kindle at least

if you already have, sell it and get a kindle or, even better, an ipad with the kindle app.

this is not "even better" if what you want to do is read

oh i'll get round to doing this for myself, was interested in markers's disparagement because i have heard similar things in the past but if it's just cos the backup will be shitty to non-existent i can live with that, as i say i've got pdfs already to keep me going for months, but nothing to read them from other than the computer, and y'know, that's for video games and porn and picking fights with strangers

google nexus works for pdfs and ebooks. yes battery life and price, but otherwise it's v good.

It doesn't matter if/when bn goes under, I populate my nook almost entirely with side loaded stuff downloaded off the internet anyway. Reading on e-ink is better than reading on retina screen if you are ever ever going to read outside at the bus stop etc.

if it hasn't been said already, there is a huge difference between reading on a tablet (iPad, etc.) and a Nook/Kindle/Kobo which use eInk screens... the latter is vastly easier on the eyes, and much more like reading actual ink on paper.

A Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight (2012-2013 models, black body) has buttons, the new Nook Glowlight (white body) does not... you have to swipe the screen to turn the page. The new version is also lacking a memory card slot. I hope they rectify both of these total design fuckups in their next iteration, because those two things were the only thing setting the Nook apart from the Kindle, which has a better eBook store (Amazon) with better prices.

oops, it was said in the comment right before mine!

ah yeah, I meant blue light as in this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/health/05light.html

yeah, i think white text on a black background should be cool? seems like the total brightness matters a lot, and 90% of the screen is dark.

can't imagine you wouldn't get a killing headache reading like that at the beach

ipads are great but i much prefer to read e-ink and also, ipads cost like 5 times as much.

i like that kindles are fairly cheap, i mean comparatively, it means i can like bring them to the beach and stuff and not be too uptight about it

"because those two things were the only thing setting the Nook apart from the Kindle, which has a better eBook store (Amazon) with better prices."

There is nothing to stop you buying from Amazon and reading them on your nook, alls you need is a free download called Calibre. Totally agree with your comments about the Nook glow, the lack of buttons + card slot is what influenced me to go for the older model.

can someone else back me up on this or refute me? i want to make sure i don't screw nv over here by giving bad advice, especially because i've never owned a nook and don't know much about it

You sure have some strong opinions about something you don't know much about. Barnes & Noble is at least a couple of years away from bankruptcy, the Nook division is jointly owned by B&N, Microsoft, and Pearson. When Sony recently shut down their e-book store, they shifted their customers to Kobo. Calibre will convert any format, and even break DRM if you know what you are doing.

A nook e-ink, or a nook tablet are around the best value for specs and the company will outlast the device.

Glowlight doesn't have the buttons or microSD slot, but you can get earlier versions if you look. 59 to 100 bucks Tablets are rootable, and work fine just now. 129 to 179 bucks.

disclaimer - I know what I'm talking about.

I'm about to go to bed, but nooks work good. I'll check back in tomorrow and answer any questions anyone may have them. They're just a machine. Use for what you want. Use it up. Throw it in the trash. Put heavy metals in the water table .

i'd go for the cheapest Kobo (the Mini, £29 in whsmith, widely available here in the uk) over the cheapest Nook (Simple Touch, £29 but usually out of stock everywhere, although some places have the backlit version for £49). it's just a nicer device, imo. it's a 5" screen rather than a 6" screen but also has narrower bevels so it's virtually pocketsize and much easier to hold.

also, epubs are avaliable in many more places than just B&N or Kobo. they use standardised DRM, Adobe Direct Editions, and so places like supermarkets etc can sell epubs that'll work. http://www.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/ for instance. in fact they don't do kindle versions of books because, i think, kindle drm is proprietary. - http://www.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/help/how-to-read/select-account?device=kindle

(not that i've ever bought a drm-protected ebook... i use my kobo exclusively for stuff from gutenberg etc)

that said, a quick look on the internet suggests that kobo is the ereader underdog in the US, only available in independent bookshops, not chains or highstreet stores. and that the mini isn't widely available at all.

ah yeah Kobo, keep mixing them up with Nook in my head. just want e-ink and pdfs really, so thanks everybody for your thoughts

when will Amazon provide kindle ebook links with every paper copy they sell (like they do for vinyl) or is this just a pipedream?

hahahaha

no

xpost they already do this for some of them. google "matchbook"

Matchbook isn't really the same thing... let's you buy kindle versions of your previous purchases at a discount, not free. Also seems to be only USA.

they're not free in some cases? ah, sorry

And pretty slim pickings last time I checked.

a couple of my matchbook titles were free, the rest priced between $0.99-2.99... not bad. I claimed the free ones, and bought three or four of the $2.99 ones. chiefly the ones that are too heavy to carry around in paper form.

Were these textbooks or something?

nah, stuff like religion and the decline of magic or neal stephenson novels that are around 1000 pages... even the paperback versions weigh a ton.

i've not heard anybody explain yet why they don't do this. would be v handy.

Interesting. I have exactly two: one a true crime book I bought in 2003 and one this big five volume music history book that was bought as a gift. I already have the first two volumes on Kindle but it is still a deal, I guess. Can't go the other way and gift the ebook, though.

Think I bought lots of physical books that I didn't get in a brick and mortar from BN online way back when.

One of my matchbook-eligible purchases was from 2008, so I assume agreements from various publishers is what is preventing more titles from being part of this?

So one would assume.

i've not heard anybody explain yet why they don't do this. would be v handy.

I like the name Matchbook, that's a good one

Bet whoever came up with it felt pleased w themselves

i didn't specifically mean the matchbooks, but in general. haven't heard anything from publishers as to why they don't like it. it would cost them literally nothing to produce (as there is no physical product). maybe i have been looking in the wrong places...

It's price protection, I would expect. Talk to a publishing person and they will tell you that very little of the marginal cost of a hardcover book is ink and paper. The whole Big 5 antitrust case was based around the houses' desire to keep the ASP of an ebook close to that of a paperback, and avoid developing consumer expectations of ridiculously cheap ebooks.

but why is this not the case with music - a CD must cost about the same price as a book to make and is sold at about the same price

the same price - popular fiction, maybe, more or less everything else = no

new popular author in hardback still generally more expensive than new band's CD, even

OK yeah I guess - let's say same price as new vinyl then.
Anyway the point is, I don't see why there's so much reluctance to bundle paper and digital versions since from Amazon's pov it would further entice people to go digital and lock into the kindle ecosystem. From the publisher's pov, I don't know - are they expecting people to buy pay twice for difefrent formats? or are they worried about piracy?

this (which is about the cost of ebooks in general) http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/aug/04/price-publishing-ebooks suggests $3.50 or £3 to produce a hardback.

quoting:
"But if, says Levine, the real value of a book resides in the "text itself", then the delivery method shouldn't much matter. The fixed costs – acquiring, editing, marketing – remain unchanged."

this i also agree to. but a SECOND copy of the "text itself" in a different format, sold as a package, and one that can produced for virtually free, i don't see that damaging the perceived value of a hardback, in fact it adds to it.

it damages the perceived value of the ebook.

not really (to me). if bundled ebooks add perceived value (even at no added cost) this must mean they have value themselves.

do ebook prices change when the paperback comes out?

It adds another copy to circulation though, so it's a potential lost sale - as in you can buy the book, keep the ebook for yourself and give the "free" book as a present.

I agree it would be nice to get free ebooks but I can see why publishers wouldn't think so.

sure but, again, why is this not an issue when bundling mp3 codes with vinyls or "autorips" from Amazon?

or with library copies

also

I agree it would be nice to get free ebooks but I can see why publishers wouldn't think so.

I wouldn't consider a bundled ebook version to be "free" if I paid for the actual paper copy. This might not be the case from a legal point of view, but I'd consider myself entitled to duplicates in any shape or form (eg self-made scans or mp3s of me reading the thing out). Again I'm sure lawyers would tell me that this is not legally correct.