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Guest FriendofGreece

Which e-reader is better, Kindle or Kobo?

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There was a long discussion about this a couple of years ago. I do not use e-readers myself. If I want (and have time...) to read a book then I pick up the real thing. Eyoismos was mentioning though that he finds Kindle easy to use.

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Guest eyoismos

HELL NO !!!!

 

I championed Barns & Noble's "Nook" - got 2 of them, one for each of us and we are massive fans of ebooks

 

its a real shame they stopped producing it - victim of mass marketing hype - kind like beta vs vhs in the old days ...when a better products got shafted

 

great for ebook reading, occasional quick and nasty email and web browsing and that is about it. anything else and you need a proper computer because like all tablets, and i mean ALL. these devices suck for doing anything decent, including high end ones like ipad and the rest. hunt and peck on their on screen keyboards are infuriating to say the least, for starters. and yes .... "office" is available for it to do your spreadsheets and documents, if you are stupid enough to want to use this device to do anything serious

 

problem is too many people are oxymoronic  enough to want to have a Ferrari to go pick up apples from the orchid - on the other hand, these same morons like to buy a new car because the ashtray in the old one is full

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Guest FriendofGreece

Thanks, Admin, I am going to look for the old topic.I need an ereader just to read books when I travel, it is easier and lighter to carry than a real book, and also has a light which is quite convenient. 

 

Eyoismos, welcome back! 

 

Apparently, from my research, it seems that Kobo is better for downloading free pdfs, Kindle seems to want you to buy their books and makes it more difficult to download the free books that you want. Kindle also has free books in their catalogue, but not necessarily the ones I want to read. For me, it does not matter Kindle or Kobo, the only thing I want is the ease and availability to download free classic pdfs that I want. By classics, I mean Greek philosophy, religion, ancient history, etc., rather than English or American classics, so it is really old old old classics.  

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Guest eyoismos

like you need an ebook reader to download free pdf books, or any other type  .... pft !

 

its called the web

 

choose your favorite search engine - be it on the ereader which it is assumed you have browser capabilities ... or on your laptop/pc/whatever ... type in ... for example .... "free download ebooks" and you would probably get a couple of million hits

 

try starting with http://www.goodreads.com/ebooks

 

you can download OR you can read online

 

and that is just scraping the surface of what you can find

 

one suggestion ... go for a 7" reader ... about the size of a normal paperback.... anything else will eventually just piss you off

 

and for the record ... plenty of nooks available on amazon, for example, and going for a song ...( for example an 8GB nook on amazon going for $40 ... which is like beer money on a Saturday night .... and as you know ...you never buy beer, you only rent it)

and you can watch movies on it too, online or not ...and storage depends on how much memory you slap into it - had mine for 2 years and not a singly hiccup, and at the going prices who the hell needs support ... and if you ever do... well ... there is always barnes and noble who are always most helpful, not that i ever needed them. only one downer ... to download EVEN free ebooks (via b&n) you have to register - big deal ... i down load all my stuff via the net on my laptop, hook up my nook to it and transfer = problem solved ..... another downer ... any apps you might want, free or not, and believe me there are a shit load .... you HAVE to get via the nook (you CANT sideload like most other ereaders , kindle and kobo included) due to its security it has in place - which although annoying can also be a good thing too

 

and you are right about convenience ... i got like 100 books loaded on my nook ... today i fell like reading a novel, tomorrow some technical manual, the day after something philosophical... the list goes on - imagine having to carry around all those books to cater for your random "spur of the moment" impulsive idiosyncrasies ... you would need a moving van ... as opposed to an ebook reader that weight about the same as a book ... only drawback ... you dont need to electrically charge the batteries of real books ... oh what a bummer

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Guest FriendofGreece

Thanks for the tip, Eyoismos, I did not know that I can transfer the downloaded books from my computer to the ereader. I think they don't mention those things when they detail the specifications, to make the ereader sophisticated as to downloading capabilitites. Thanks for the link also. I actually have already downloaded on my computer tons of pdf books already. It is true you can find tons of free ebooks out there.

 

I think you have to register with Kindle too to download a free book from Kindle. The think I don't like is it seems the downloaded book goes on the cloud, which seems like a hassle. I like to have my book on my computer, not on the cloud. 

 

I don't care for any apps, I just want to read.Wow, you can watch movies on a nook, I mean you have to add an SD card to load movies on or not?

 

I just bought a 10.1' tablet and it is fun to read on it. I can make the fonts as big as I want. It is light. It has colours. :)  And the screen of course is always lighted (I put it to minimum). I will take a look at the nook on amazon, although I would not want to buy anything used.

 

Problem with my tablet is it does not recognize the songs in .wma (songs I ripped from my legally bought CDs), I don't know why. Could it be because it is android 5.0?

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Guest eyoismos

do yourself a favor and visit your nearest b&n and feel a nook in your hands

 

one little detail ... yes you can see movies on th nook .... providing they are mp4 - anything else you will need to register to get codacs to see other formats - me? i hate registering for anything, so i live with mp4s comfortably.... and the more SD memory you put in, the more you can load ... simple really

 

but ultimately you want it for ereading ... so get your priorities in place and figure out what is important to you

 

as for tablets ... sure ...great and all that ... but remember weight and size ... as opposed to an ereader

 

lets also not forget .... tablets = big ass  viewing screens (as opposed to ereader) ... which is wonderful  and all that ...but try reading/using one while you are in bed and lying on your side, like one would often do with a normal book  ???? odds are after a little while your hand want to fall off due to weight and awkward size etc ...... apart from a decent ereader like the nook you can probably do most of the normal run of the mill stuff you do with your tablet anyway

 

and guess what? with the nook i can ALSO enlarge fonts , turn sideways and it automatically adjusts ...etc, etc.etc - gues what as well ... tablets are not god reincarnated, no matter what the seller's hype might give you

 

it all comes down to what you want to use it for

 

for example i got my wife a tablet AND a nook ..... and she certainly prefers the nook when it comes to ebook by a long shot....everything else ? not so much ..for most of the rest she wakes up the tablet to do her thing .... and when she REALLY wants to do things , she resorts to good old laptop

 

a case of the right tool for the right job

 

one last thing ... dont knock 2nd hand electronics like ebook readers ... dont make the cardinal mistake that most people do, and that is to assume the electronic devices are like cars ... they are not cars !!! - best approach with such devices, restore to factory defaults, which most devices allow at a press of a button - THAT will tell you if the device you are considering is more than likely ok or not - try and do that with a car ... i dare you

 

but also if you might be interested .... play it safe ... take somebody with you that know their shit....just in case somebody tries to sell you a lemon - if that person is worth their salt, they would certainly be fully aware of the "fools with more money than brains" axiom ... ie.... "the ashtray is full, time to buy a new model, the latest and greatest, with all the bells and whistles, so i can show off, like the attention whore that i am" - and believe you me their are an awful lot of fools out there

 

as for wma ... welcome to microsoft and their annoying little proprietary crap .... my suggestion ... convert everything you have to mp3 ,,, and then you are guaranteed they will play on just about anything

 

how to convert ?.... well their are a hell of a lot of stuff out there - all for free ... but try using you MS media player itself to convert. - personally i use apple's Itunes (free download) to do my conversions - including wma's - you just have to configure to what you want as a default, which would be mp3 (suggest at 128 sample rate ... more than enough for your run of the mill phones/readers/tablets/laptops/pcs)

 

or re-rip your CDs to mp3 - i presume you used MS media player = just have to change config

 

alternatively ... what program are you using on your tablet? the odds are you can download the respective codacs so you can play wma files - in other words, it has nothing to do with your operating system, be it android or anything else

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Guest FriendofGreece

The problem is there are no B&N stores here. And I simply don't buy second hand anything, not just electronics. I prefer to buy new cheap than used expensive.  :D About electronics, I am totally nil so reason more never to buy used. An ereader is, as you said, less tiring and awkward to hold for a long time than a tablet, that is why I would like an ereader. The ereader is to read, not to do anything else that the tablet can already do.

 

I will try to do what you suggested to convert my songs into mp3 first. If it does not work, then back to reripping my CDs. Fortunately, I have not ripped too many yet. Thanks very much for your suggestions.

 

I don't know what program is on my tablet, how do I know that, what kind of program are you talking about? How can I download codacs? Apparently, this recent problem is very common to other users too. I had a smaller tablet before, from another brand, and the wma songs work perfectly well.

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Guest eyoismos

a) so get new .. no biggie - just know, though, you can get nooks brand new still - - to consider as well. - bummer that their is now B&N near you ... with a nook in hand, you could walk into anyone, and read ANY book you want for free, while you are in the store  -  but ultimately no matter what you chose, make sure first that you get hands on one, so you can fell it and be comfortable with it, before you put the money on the counter.

 

B) if its strictly book you want, go for a B&W one - they usually are cheaper than the color ones, and last a hell of a lot longer, battery wise - pity though that you automatically reject 2nd hand one, ..even if they what the industry calls "certified refurbished" which basically should mean that the manufacturer has approved them fit for consumption

 

B) ok ...dont call it a program... call it an app = same difference -  which tablet is giving you problems ? - make and model ? - and i should be able to figure it out from there for you

 

c) as for you and ripping... try itunes ... as soon as you add mpa's it will automatically convert for you - just dont forget to make your defaults in itunes mp3 - on the other hand MS media player will allow you to convert manually

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Guest FriendofGreece

Eyoismos, I did check B&N before to see if I can buy one online, it seems we don't have them in Canada. Yes, I would buy B&W, it is just for reading, nothing else.

 

I don't think itunes will help. These are Dalaras CD's.  :)

 

I will check MS media player see. 

 

Thanks very much for all your help, you are really swell. 

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Guest FriendofGreece

After much consideration, I decided to buy a Kobo ereader. A day after I bought it (not received it yet), I found out that pdf's are pretty much "stuck" meaning that if you try to magnify the text, the page does not adjust. As a result, there is only so much you can magnify before you lose the text on the sides. And to think that I bought the Kobo, thinking that the page will adjust itself. On a 6" screen, magnification does not go very far. On a 7" tablet, I already had trouble reading the pdf's.

 

Now I am pondering whether I should keep it when I receive it, or whether I should return it. Apart from the pdf's I downloaded free, I really don't read anything else that I would need the Kobo for. So back it goes, I guess.

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Guest FriendofGreece

With the 7" tablet, I could not magnify enough without having the sides of the pdf going out of the screen. I don't mean all the pdf's, but some have really small letters. Besides, with a tablet, when you move up a page, the page moves and so each time, I have to reposition it to read it. I was hoping the Kobo would be adjusting the page when you magnify the font, so that I don't have to reposition each page, however, it appears it does not. I made a lot of research to finally find out that, too late. Anyhow, maybe I will keep it after all. :)   

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Guest eyoismos

so what you are saying is that you have got the hell-in because the Lamborghini is not that great at picking up maize from the farm

 

you do realize that there are other alternative formats to read ebooks,  ..... epub and mobi formats immediately comes to mind

 

but be it what it may, if you are to insist on pdf, you must go for books based on what is called "tagged pdf", which allow for "reflow" of text, commonly known as word-wrap. in which case, it partly up to the "publisher" to do the respective thing with the ebook publication, and partly that the various reader support such versions of pdf

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Guest FriendofGreece

As I said, I don't know too much about technology. I just want something very simple to use, that's all, like click the icon to download the thing and start reading. :rolleyes:  I don't even know what mobi format is. Not being difficult, but based on what you said, it just seems that pdf's create unnecessary complications.Technology is supposed to simplify our lives, not making them more complicated. 

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Guest eyoismos

in case you havent noticed. technology progresses and develops with time. but it sounds like, ... well .. to put it bluntly .... you sound like you are complaining about using windows 3.1 and office 95 ....when we have have now reached windows 10 and office 2015

what am i suggesting ... ?

 

i am suggesting that insisting on downloading books that use the old format is not the fault of adobe with its "prehistoric" version of pdf format

 

i am also suggesting that when hunting for ebooks, check out for  .pub and .mobi variants, and yes, obviously, new style pdf,  and not only old school pdf,

 

or to put it differently .... why insist on only driving stick when you can, if you so desire,  go automatic in your choice of cars

 

and then of course, there is the chauffeur option .... ie ... you can get programs that convert text to speech and read the book out to you , let alone what they call audio books

 

:)

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Guest FriendofGreece

It is not so bad, I use Windows 8.1 and Android 5.0.  :P

 

How can someone know when it is new pdf or old pdf? All I see is pdf.

 

I actually plan one day to go to the library, they have sessions where they show people how to use epubs. I will ask about the mobi versions too. I don't really spend a lot of time learning about technology, it just does not interest me.

 

No, I don't like audio books, prefer to read on my own.

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Guest eyoismos

oh i get it, when you read books, you like to give the "participants" in the stories you own version of what they sound like and what their accent is, when they speak. i mean who would want to here a deep Scottish accent when a man from the far east, lets say, speaks. or a fellow from Bangkok reading a book about a person from Eaton. so i guess it would be kind of disturbing if you went "audio book mode"
 
:P
 
 
but seriously ....
 
found this for you Comparison of e-book formats

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Guest FriendofGreece

Not at all. What I meant was that the voice of the person is "static", such that it takes away all your own imagination and interpretation, because the way he reads is how he interprets what he reads. It is like watching a movie versus reading a book.

 

Thanks for the link. Now I see that it is even more complicated than I thought. Maybe it is easier if I just go back to real books. :P  

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