Kindle vs Sony vs Nook vs whatever

[Tyche]

Would the new $139 Kindle be able to read scanned books in PDF format? I know it has native support PDF format, and if I can get away with traveling to school with a half-pound kindle over 30lbs of books, I'm going to buy it.

[Krandor]

Would the new $139 Kindle be able to read scanned books in PDF format? I know it has native support PDF format, and if I can get away with traveling to school with a half-pound kindle over 30lbs of books, I'm going to buy it.

I can't think of any reason why it couldn't.

[Khamsin]

edit: Sigh, Alex are still $400. Kindle at $130 or $180 looks reeeeeeeeeeally tempting though. I think I might bite.. Does the Kindle have any sort of games? Just simple stuff, like crosswords, sudoku, newspaper-ish stuff.

I don't know from experience, since I haven't got one yet, but from what I understand, the Kindle doesn't have games for it, but it does have a web browser, so if there are any websites that have games (limited to javascript, no flash or plugins), then you can play whatever you can find that works.

[Mrf]

The kindle does have Sudoku for it, however it requires being in whispernet range when opening (1 example = http://www.amazon.com/Sudoku-Interac...dp/B002UPVVXI/). The new Kindle 3 is supposed to have a better web browser as well, based on WebKit.

Amazon has also announced a development kit coming, so in theory there will be games and apps eventually. If they ever get around to releasing it.


I've owned the Kindle 2 since it went up for pre-order and I've now pre-ordered a 3G Kindle 3 to replace it. The extra contrast, battery life, wi-fi, double storage space, lighter weight, smaller size all make it look like a great upgrade. One thing most people don't mention when it comes to e-readers is the customer service behind it. Amazon offers a free 1 time replacement for drop damage under it's 1 year warranty (even though it says they don't cover drops). I dropped mine super bowl Sunday and broke it, called them up at 9pm on a Sunday night with 2 days left on my 1 year warranty and they overnighted a new model. They also offer a 7 day return policy on any ebooks that are either ordered on accident or if you just didn't like the way it was formatted, most other stores allow no returns.

[takethistoyourgrave]

I've never really looked into pirating ebooks, is it possible on the Kindle? Or just on the Alex that you guys were talking about?

[octopus]

if your ebook reader has pdf support (they're really just scanned images), you'll be able to read them.

[Julian]

Sudoku/crosswords are just random timewasters, I guess. I'm getting a new phone soon, gonna see how that goes. Maybe can get an e-book reader just for the sole purpose of reading, lol. Might go with the cheap Kindle depending on how that goes.

[aers]

I've never really looked into pirating ebooks, is it possible on the Kindle? Or just on the Alex that you guys were talking about?

The majority of ebook formats are just text with formatting, so pirating them basically consists of download the book, run calibre or a similar program to convert it to a format your ebook reader can read, and throwing it on the reader.

A lot of the formats are based on some sort of HTML, so they tend to convert decently too - for example ePub (very common format) to mobi (a format Kindle can read) will generally give you very minor formatting differences since they are both HTML (XHTML?), and is a simple commandline tool provided by Amazon to convert. .lit is another common format and is also just packed html/xhtml.

[Jojimbo]

Semi related question, but does anyone know a good program/method to (bulk) convert .txt to .pdf? I've tried a couple of programs but they didn't correctly format (cutting words in half/missed off half of some paragraphs) or web based (I'll rather not have to upload 170+mb at my speeds)

[Mrf]

I've never really looked into pirating ebooks, is it possible on the Kindle? Or just on the Alex that you guys were talking about?

Pirated books are definitely available on Kindle, it's the only way to get certain series of books in any e-book form.

For example the "Sword of Truth" series only has the first book available right now on Amazon, however you can easily find the entire series well formatted on most sites.