I read an eReader

[joiwind]

I haven't been around here much lately, well I've been lurking, or should I say, loitering with intent, conscientiously skirting the most delicate current discussions into which I wouldn't let myself drag me screaming, let alone allow anyone else to, because I finally got round to girding up my loins and for the First Time venture out into the Perilous Land of Ereaders.

And I'm loving it, spending hours setting up calibre, downloading old favourites and discovering new ones, going through the forums (on one well-known forum there are vast possibilities for bored programmers who could try their hand on the firmware ... hint, hint) and ... reading - I can't say whether it's just the novelty of the thing but I'm reading much, much more than I had been in recent months.

I had hesitated for a long time over taking the plunge - listening to all the arguments, the pro's and con's, - but now I'm convinced and converted 

[Renegade]

Which one did you get? What pushed you toward it?

[joiwind]

Hi Renegade : I got the Kobo Glo - not too locked-down like some are - good specs and much used here in Frenchland - apparently Kobo has 50% "market share" which is saying something (about market shares) .

[cranioscopical]

I couldn't see myself using an e-reader — thought I'd miss the whole experience of appreciating paper, fonts, page design etc. That was rubbish. My son-in-law gave me a Kobo which I embraced almost immediately. Some months later I tried Cool Reader on my Android phone (of all things). Now I seldom read from any other medium. I still have some treasured printed books to enjoy but for casual reading it's the phone every time. I'm still slightly astonished by this.

[40hz]

^Doesn't surprise me too much.  My GF was a devote paper advocate until she bought a Nook more for the web browser than anything else.

I think she's since bought and read more books in the last six months than she has in the last two years. She loves the thing.

Our pile of old magazines and newspapers has also diminished drastically since she now gets most periodicals she regularly reads through it as well.

Whoda thunk?

[vrgrrl]

I have a kindle and I know I haven't read this much and so quickly in any other point in my life!! I love e-readers... 

[superboyac]

^Doesn't surprise me too much.  My GF was a devote paper advocate until she bought a Nook more for the web browser than anything else.

I think she's since bought and read more books in the last six months than she has in the last two years. She loves the thing.

Our pile of old magazines and newspapers has also diminished drastically since she now gets most periodicals she regularly reads through it as well.

Whoda thunk?

-40hz (December 16, 2012, 05:13 PM)

Did she get the epaper one?  interesting...i talked my mom out of a nook recently because I didn't think the web browsing would be enjoyable for her on epaper.  But if it is, then I'm going to re-recommend it.

[nosh]

Here's a fun/informed teardown of the Kindle Paperwhite. It's a beautifully designed device. 

[joiwind]

And here's a view of the Kindle Fire from Gutenberg.org :

Kindle Fire Review

From Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free ebooks.

A Review of the Kindle Fire by our webmaster. This review is not an official position or advice from Project Gutenberg or the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.

Summary

Buy a Nexus 7 instead and install the Kindle app or stay with the Kindle 3.

Details

If you want to read free ebooks, don't buy the Kindle Fire. Amazon has locked down the Fire to make it hard to get any content to it, except by buying from Amazon. It is a huge step back in freedom from the Kindle 3.
Even Apple has not gone so far as Amazon in locking down their devices. You can easily download and read ebooks on Apple devices using only the standard apps.
You can get free ebooks to the Fire too, but the process is so cumbersome that it isn't worth the trouble given the alternative of buying a Nexus 7, which doesn't purposely interfere with free content.
The commercial ads are extremely rude. If you put the Fire on standby, it sometimes turns itself on again just to show you ads. It happened to me when I was in bed and wanted to go to sleep. I tried many times to turn it off, but it always turned itself back on and showed me one more ad. In my desperation I shut it down completely, but it rebooted and showed me another ad! To make it shut up I had to lay it face down on the floor with a newspaper on top, where it showed ads to the carpet for I know not how long. In the morning it was finally off, but I surely won't use that device in bed any more.

To read Project Gutenberg ebooks on your Kindle Fire ... etc.

Source

[IainB]

@nosh: Thankyou for providing the link to that informative vid re the teardown of the Kindle Paperwhite. Looks like it is a beautiful piece of micro-electronic engineering.
After watching the teardown, I watched a related vid - a GoodEreader review of the Paperwhite. Very nice:

@joiwind: Thankyou for the Gutenberg webmaster's review. It seems as though there is a disconnect there with what the GoodEreader reviewers say. They talk about "sideloading" other sourced (i.e., non-Amazon) ebooks to the Kindle, via the USB port - which is what I happen to be currently experimenting with - and functionality was OK (i.e., not crippled). I am not a fan of Amazon's, but I have to say that, so far, and in my relatively limited experience, I have not come across issues with sideloaded books to the Kindle 4/2012 version.

As for the webmaster's complaint about the intrusive advertising on a "Special Offers" Kindle - well, I don't understand. What does s/he expect? Much as I dislike most ads, it seems to be an irrelevant complaint. The "Special Offers" Kindle is purely and simply a cost-saving option, and some people who opt for it might find it annoying. So. if you have bought it and found it annoying, then either get over it and put up with it, or pay the $30 extra to opt-out and have that option removed.
The "Special Offers" Kindle utilises a basic, tried-and-tested marketing concept for subsidising the cost of a service to the consumer. Same concept as commercial TV advertising. I intensely dislike TV commercials and watch TV only rarely, but I'd be quite happy with the Kindle Special Offers myself, just to save the $30 - as long as they don't intrude by pushing the adverts on-screen during my reading time (which they don't). It's not compulsory, and the option to pay to opt-out is there if you wanted it. User choice is still the rule - and you don't necessarily get that easy a choice with commercial TV advertising - so, fair do's to Amazon.

My hope is that someone will probably publish a hack to shut off the ads anyway, eventually. The Kindle is crying out to be hacked.
That would be interesting. Look at the US legal row over Dish Network's ad-skipping TV box, that broke out earlier in 2012.
Given half a chance, monopolistic/Fascistic corporates (including Amazon) would probably try to dictate that you watched their blasted ads 24/7 - even whilst you were on the can.