Thinking of buying a Kindle (touch or fire) - opinions wanted

[Elodan]

Hi,

Recently got my first bonus at the new job and the wife gave me permission to take a part of it to spoil myself. Reading is one of my primary hobbies and I was thinking of picking up a Kindle. We do the majority of our book buying on Amazon (have the VISA and Prime membership). I'm leaning toward the Fire but think the Touch is a viable option.

It's primary purpose would be for book reading. I think I'd also load my Paizo/D&D PDFs and use it as a reference during gaming sessions, rather than lug all those books.

I'm looking for opinions on how it is to read on these devices as well as things you like and don't like about them. Also, what to you do with books you ended up not liking or thought were okay but realistically won't read again? I generally exchange mine for store credit at a local used bookstore or give to charity.

Thanks.

 

[LightPhoenix]

When I bought my Kindle (Basic), I tried the Touch and was unimpressed - it didn't add enough functionality over the basic version and actually ran worse than either the basic version or the Fire. I've heard that it was a software thing and may have been fixed, but I can't recommend it based on my experience with it.

Personally, for reading I much prefer the basic version. While you can't read in the dark with E-Ink, it's a lot less eye strain than the backlit screen the Fire has. Also, you don't have to worry about glare. Additionally, the battery life of the basic version is much better.

The Fire is much better at reading PDFs; the larger screen makes reading on the Fire much easier than on the basic version. The color screen is also fairly nice. While I didn't find any need for apps, the Fire does have a lot more functionality because of them.

I'd recommend trying them out at a store, if at all possible. It's one thing to read about how they work, but actually getting the feel for them is better.

 

[trancejeremy]

The trouble with using PDFs on regular e-ink Kindles, is that the processor in them is somewhat sluggish and the screen is only 6" wide, which means if it's 8 1/2" by 11" like most RPG books you are either going to have very very small text or zoom in and be very frustrated by the very slow scrolling and navigation.

You can get a huge Kindle but those are expensive and apparently not supported by Amazon any more in terms of firmware improvements and so on.

So probably the Fire is the best bet for PDFs. For novels though, the regular Kindle is pretty nice.

 

[falcarrion]

I have an Kindle DX. I wasn't happy with it and bought an Ipad. Reading pdfs are a breeze with the ipad. If your just going to read books from Amazon then any Kindle is fine. But if you want to do more, then a tablet is the way to go. You can do so much more with a tablet no matter if it is an android or apple ios. There are some very good apps out there for gaming. do the research it will payoff in the long run. A tip for android tablets is make sure you can get on the apk market. Alot of the lower end models are very limited to what can be loaded.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I have a Nook simple touch, which I gather is similar to the Kindle touch. I find it pretty useless, as many books are more expensive to download than they are to buy a hard copy. (example - A Song of Ice & Fire is $21 for the set of 4 paperbacks, but $26.99 for a Nookbook, and then I'd get a member discount for the hard copy, but not the Nook book. Amazon is the same price for the 4 paperbacks, but $29.99 for the Kindle edition.)

Then, I signed up to get some books from my local library and had to wait almost a month for a copy to be available of the first book I wanted and I'm still waiting for the second... it's going on two months now.

I'm sure if I go on vacation, I'll download a few books to read on the airplane, but I can't imagine I'll use it much beyond that, as real books are so much easier every other time. On the plus side, I can bring my nook into a local B&N and read any Nook book for free while there, even if it's not in stock physically in the store.

So, I'd go for the Kindle Fire tablet so you can add value with other functions.

 

[Zaukrie]

I have to sort of agree with the poster above me, it ticks me off that ebooks are more expensive than paper books. You can never use a coupon on ebooks, or member discounts. It really annoys me. Oh, and you can't sell them when you are done, or give them to your kid to read (sure, you might be able to lend it to them, but they'd have to read it in two weeks). I find e-readers bleeping annoying. OTOH, my phone is great. I can surf the web, check facebook, listen to music, and read an ebook if I want to.

I own a Nook Color. It is actually a good reader, and I enjoy reading books on it. I like playing sudoku on it. I like reading Pulse on it.

I would not get an eink reader, but a tablet of some kind.

Just be aware of the first paragraph's downsides.....

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Go get an old Sony Reader, they're cheap as dirt now. I got one literally the very day they came out and have been using it ever since. I'll admit for PDF it's not so good cause of screen size issues. I get around that by simply converting from PDF to RTF format, once that's done I have no problem at all. But the largest reason to get a Sony Reader is that the firmware has been cracked and modded. I reflashed mine with a cracked firmware that got rid of the battery drain issue and eliminated all the DRM portions. Can't do that on either a Kindle or Nook the last time I checked. If you absolutely have to read PDFs in color or surf the web then get a tablet. But if all you're doing is reading, the battery life on an E-Ink reader is enough to read all four books of Ice&Fire without recharging.