Amazon Kindle

[Avijeet]

Hi all,

I guess its kind of a off topic...
but i have this dilemma...

Is it worth buying Amazon Kindle....

M an avid book reader, will it gonna improve anything....
i always believe a well thumb book is the best way to read....

Can i simple import all my e-book collection downloaded from net into kindle... and will it able to read?

say for example... Harry Potter E-books (all 7 of them)

or say any pdf version magazine downloaded from net...

what bout the pictures and illustrations... will kindle be able to display everything....

or do i have to hack or mod it to do all that thing.... ???


Now the 2nd Part

where to buy...

3 options....

1. indiaplaza
2. amazon
3. 20north

amazon is the cost effective one... @ $139 with free ship.
but is there any catch.. or anything i should know before making the order...

looking forward for your inputs....

 

[ajay124]

avijeet
About a year back, I too was contemplating buying a Kindle. The idea of having a huge library on a 'smart' screen seemed attractive. I dropped the idea because the Kindle would only support books bought from Amazon. Ditto for the Apple iPad. Both sites want customers to pay for every book they read. I believe you can't even transfer books, for which you have paid Amazon, to another computer.Kindle will not support the e-books downloaded from the free legal sites like Gutenberg.

Amazon too offers some classics free of charge, and others for a nominal charge, but most of the new books are 9.99$. My information may be a little outdated, therefore it would be better to confirm everything,before you decide on any course. I bought an iPad finally, but more for surfing the net, than for reading. I did read a couple of books on it from the Gutenberg site. But I am still reading books in their original form and I feel that is still the best way.

 

[Bluu]

AFAIK the newer Kindles support PDFs natively. Plus the E-ink screen is far better than an LCD for reading.

 

[reju]

PDFs are not easy to be read on these ebooks. Because if you zoom in you need to scroll on x & y axis.

I brought by daughter a 7" LCD ebook (Chinese) for about 4k. Reading experience is quite good as you can adjust the background (paper) colour and screen brightness.
It also plays the mp3, some video files etc. Free to download any book from internet. Epub is the ideal format, where you do not have to scroll.
I do not think Kindle supports this, you can check.

 

[anm]

kindle is very good in terms of daylight reading. I got one recently. But problem of non availability of books, expensive books etc is real.
I am tired of moving around loads of books when shifting houses etc, so I think kindle and ebook readers are the steps in the right direction. Plus ppl borrowing and never returning books is a real problem. I can't showcase all my books in the living room and expect them to remain there. With kindle, even if someone runs away with my kindle, I guess getting books back on my kindle would take an hour or so.

 

[sivasarjun]

I too am considering an ebook reader and I want it to read malayalam also.The kindle doesnt support this I think.There are other Indian ones like the wink.But I havnt seen anybody who has actually used them.

 

[ajay124]

Last year when I was into e-books,I found two reasonably acceptable 'freebie' solutions for reading on my laptop and iMac.
The Adobe Reader
The Free Kindle Reader for use on a PC.
For the Adobe Reader, I used to download classics in the epub format from Gutenberg. Memory is playing tricks,but I seem to remember using a 'converter' recommended by Adobe, for converting formats to make them readable on the Adobe Reader.
For the free Kindle downloaded from Amazon on to my PC, I was using the regular Amazon site. You can buy e-books from them, just like you would for the Kindle. I only 'bought' ancient classics, which were free. The process was the usual Amazon process, but the final billing amount was Zero

 

[Avijeet]

dear all i am overwhelmed by the responce i got....

and good to know that i am not the only one who is intend to buy Kindle ......

i did my little google/youtube research and found a great tool called calibre - E-book management calibre - E-book management
it converts PDF to MOBI/Epub etc.

Just to check, downloaded a magazine from net (MAXIM INDIA 2011 APRIL) and converted the same using the Caliber to .mobi format.

After that i installed Android app called "Amazon Kindle" on my NEXUS S and copied the file to my phone and it worked perfectly well but no zoom or text resize feature, i hope it will work the same way in kindle.

Will try to convert a normal text pdf file to mobi or may be a complete text novel to mobi and see the result tonite, and keep u posted.



i guess any pdf file can be imported to Kindle but might not give the desired result.

what bout the 2nd part...."BUYING A KINDLE"

amazon is selling $114 with sponsored screensaver (but no shipping to India)
$ 139 with shipping to india.

Both IndiaPlaza n 20North is 1-2k more than the amazon.

 

[Bluu]

My vote would go to purchasing directly from Amazon. Also, a colleague has a Kindle - I will check to see how he deals with PDFs.

Cheers!

 

[Bluu]

OK, so I just had my friend give me a demo of viewing a PDF on the Kindle and frankly, its disappointing. The Kindle is not designed to view PDFs even though it supports it. However, there is software out there which will convert PDFs to a more Kindle-friendly format.

It's best to purchase books from the Kindle store. Next best option is to convert downloaded books to a doc or txt format so the Kindle can handle it cleanly.

It's a great product for avid readers and I strongly recommend you buy it.

Cheers!

 

[vikashdubey]

​

I use a Kindle 3 graphite color. I bought it from Amazon.com and I had to pay the duty and shipping charges. Order was smooth I received it on the 4th day after order.

​

Now with respect to books you can buy the books from amazon or download classics from Free Kindle Books offers Free Classic E-Books in Kindle-compatible MOBI and PRC formats. If you have pdfs or txt files you can convert them to kindle compatible format using " calibre - E-book management " or " Mobipocket creator " copy them directly to the Kindle.

​

It is a wonderful device for reading no glare(very important for book readers) very good battery life, text to speech(reads you book), web browser, mp3 music support. I am working on formatting my scanned Indrajal comics and Archies scans for it. If you any specific queries you can ask me. I think I will go for a DX next time.

 

[Avijeet]

looking forward to your comics... hope u share it with us....

what was the landing cost?
and how much was the duty?

its now available @ $139 with free shipping i guess

and of i mark it as gift i guess i can get away with no duty ... right?

 

[sivasarjun]

Can the new kindle handle indian language fonts?

 

[vikashdubey]

looking forward to your comics... hope u share it with us....

what was the landing cost?
and how much was the duty?

its now available @ $139 with free shipping i guess

and of i mark it as gift i guess i can get away with no duty ... right?

It cost me $204.93 you can create an account then add to cart to see the curent cost.

Import duty was $44.95

Shipping & Handling: $20.98

Free shipping was not applicable to India when I ordered.
I dont think you can get away with the duty if you order directly from Amazon.

Can the new kindle handle indian language fonts?

I have not tried any Indian language books on it. But I dont think it nativelt supports it. You can try using a PDF with embedded fonts it might work I have not tried it though.

 

[Avijeet]

Just ordered Kindle Gen 3 Graphite @ Rs.7,290/- incl. all

 

[Vijay_s]

I got Kindle-Wifi this Monday. All PDF, PRC files you can sent to [email protected]. this will sync when you connect through wifi or 3G based on your model.

The moment you buy kindle through Amazon all account and ebook info are sync'ed without any Manuel device registration.

 

[Avijeet]

thats awesome.... what bout downloaded stuffs like PDF of Novels and stuffs like that... do they even convert that?

 

[santhosh]

I am using a free(for a limited period from what I understand) app by Apple called iBooks. I am able to add previously owned PDFs(not bought from apple store) to my apple library and read them conveniently. Even pics/diagrams appear accurately. This is on my iPhone 4, but should work on an iPad as well.

One thing I would love to see.... In my limited usage, Is that when we zoom, content remains as per original page unlike in an iPad where the text fits into the page and any additional text goes into the next page. This should not be a problem with the iPad as it has a larger screen and zooming further may not be required.

 

[Vijay_s]

thats awesome.... what bout downloaded stuffs like PDF of Novels and stuffs like that... do they even convert that?

As per my understanding PDF files are not converted to kindle format. Kindle have built-in support for the same. I have downloaded free books (.mobi, .prc) and send them to Kindle kindle store converted it to native format.

Device is reasonably good for listening music and browsing net. As of now browser is not capable opening multiple windows.

 

[cavallino]

Just ordered Kindle Gen 3 Graphite @ Rs.7,290/- incl. all

Hi Avijeet

can you tell me how to go about getting it for 7290 all inclusive (which means duty also I guess?)
Thanks in advance