E Book/Kindels?

[scott h]

Folks, I know that several members use E book readers of some sort here in the PI. Let me pick your brains.

1. Are they available here do you know? cyberzone at SM maybe?

2. I assume books are down loaded using a credit card. Down loads fairly fast and reliable?

3. I also assume that the choice of titles is fairly large.

4. Not that it matters much but are prices like buying in a book store? Amazon prices or cheaper?

We were do to go back but,,,,,,,,,,well you know lolol

Thanks Gents!

[RBM]

23 minutes ago, scott h said:

Folks, I know that several members use E book readers of some sort here in the PI. Let me pick your brains.

1. Are they available here do you know? cyberzone at SM maybe?

2. I assume books are down loaded using a credit card. Down loads fairly fast and reliable?

3. I also assume that the choice of titles is fairly large.

4. Not that it matters much but are prices like buying in a book store? Amazon prices or cheaper?

We were do to go back but,,,,,,,,,,well you know lolol

Thanks Gents!

Hope some replies are forthcoming as I also am curious here. Running out my choices at the local Book Sale shops.

[BrettGC]

3 hours ago, scott h said:

Folks, I know that several members use E book readers of some sort here in the PI. Let me pick your brains.

1. Are they available here do you know? cyberzone at SM maybe?

2. I assume books are down loaded using a credit card. Down loads fairly fast and reliable?

3. I also assume that the choice of titles is fairly large.

4. Not that it matters much but are prices like buying in a book store? Amazon prices or cheaper?

We were do to go back but,,,,,,,,,,well you know lolol

Thanks Gents!

You don't need a reader, I use my phone with both the Kindle and Google Books aps.  The aps are also available for tablets, PC and iOS.  

I've been using Kindle for years but they're owned by Amazon and due to their pricing and percentage profit model the author receive a reduced margin of that profit compared to hard copy, so some authors have pulled their titles from Kindle as their licencing agreements expire.  Enter Google Books.

A bit of history:  In about 2011 Apple stopped allowing users to pay for books on the Kindle app as Amazon was charging a whopping 40% of the price of any given title downloaded on the app, due to a sweetheart deal between Google and Amazon and Amazon taking a much lesser margin on purchases from Android devices on the Android Kindle app.  About 2 years later, Google and Amazon's relationship soured so Apple once again allowed the purchase of titles from their platforms.  Google and Amazon's relationship was so bad that up until 2 years ago you couldn't even cast Amazon Prime Video to Chromecast...  Google and Amazon have since kissed and made up and everything is compatible across all devices. 

In answer to your specific questions:

1.  Don't worry about buying a Kindle reader, but rather use your phone or purchase a small tablet j(paperback novel sized) and download both the Kindle App and Google Books and use that tablet for other things as well. 

2a.  Credit card is the normal method of purchase.  Kindle does have a monthly subscription service $10.99USD called Kindle Unlimited which allows you access to most of their library for that fee.  Downside is if you unsubcribe you lose access to titles you have already read but you can also purchase books on an individual basis without the subscription service.  Google Books is one-off purchases of titles. 

2b.  Downloads are almost instant.  Once downloaded titles can be read without any connection (offline). 

3.  Between Kindle and Google Books you can access just about any title you care to think of.   

4.  Pricing on both platforms is generally 25-50% cheaper than their hard copy paperback equivalents. Not always the case, particularly with big name authors, but I've yet to come across any that are more expensive.

Biggest advantage is the portability.  Before I moved to the US in 2010 I owned about 2000 books, they all had to go.  Now I have the world at my fingertips.  Also handy for travelling; no more packing bulky books. 

You can also adjust the screen to just about any font, font size, background (black pages with white writing for example) so really good for those that have close up vision issues.  

I tend to read myself to sleep so no more losing my place when the eyelids droop and no need to have a light on whilst reading which keeps the Angry Midget happy 

Edit:  Kindle and Google Books sync across all your devices so you will never lose your place if you've been reading on your tablet and pick up your phone. 

Edited December 22, 2020 by BrettGC

[scott h]

9 hours ago, BrettGC said:

Don't worry about buying a Kindle reader, but rather use your phone or purchase a small tablet j

Thanks Brett,,,I think 

I only have a flip phone, so I suppose a Tablet will have to do. I am guessing that those can be bought at the cyber zone at SM. I will look into to Amazon books. I am assuming that it is like ordering a hard copy book, but at some point during the purchase it will direct you to download your purchase. I am further guessing that once I down load it to my computer I can transfer it to a flash drive and then to a tablet?

I am sorry for the imbicile questions. But I spent 33 years in the infantry, tanks, combat engineers and reconnaissance units. I topped out at formatting basic spread sheets. If it isnt point and click I pretty much give up.

[GeoffH]

Be careful buying a really cheap tablet for Amazon, they can be laggy. 

[Guy F.]

There are a very large number of older out-of-copyright books available for free at https://www.gutenberg.org/

Edited December 22, 2020 by Guy F.

[baronapart]

2 hours ago, scott h said:

Thanks Brett,,,I think 

I only have a flip phone, so I suppose a Tablet will have to do. I am guessing that those can be bought at the cyber zone at SM. I will look into to Amazon books. I am assuming that it is like ordering a hard copy book, but at some point during the purchase it will direct you to download your purchase. I am further guessing that once I down load it to my computer I can transfer it to a flash drive and then to a tablet?

I am sorry for the imbicile questions. But I spent 33 years in the infantry, tanks, combat engineers and reconnaissance units. I topped out at formatting basic spread sheets. If it isnt point and click I pretty much give up.

Once you purchase a "book" it is in the cloud and available to download on to any registered device: tablet, phone, ipad, computer, etc.

[Gentleman.Jack.Darby]

7 hours ago, scott h said:

Thanks Brett,,,I think 

I only have a flip phone, so I suppose a Tablet will have to do. I am guessing that those can be bought at the cyber zone at SM. I will look into to Amazon books. I am assuming that it is like ordering a hard copy book, but at some point during the purchase it will direct you to download your purchase. I am further guessing that once I down load it to my computer I can transfer it to a flash drive and then to a tablet?

I am sorry for the imbicile questions. But I spent 33 years in the infantry, tanks, combat engineers and reconnaissance units. I topped out at formatting basic spread sheets. If it isnt point and click I pretty much give up.

You can use any device capable of running the Kindle app (Android tablet, Windows PC, Chromebook, etc.) and it's not necessary to make things harder by downloading the book to a PC and then transferring it elsewhere

Amazon does not put a limit on downloading a book (it's not one-and-done like it is for MP3 music files) and although Amazon does put a limit on registered devices (a  very reasonable number), all you would need to do is download the Kindle app to whatever device(s) on which you want to read Kindle books and sign in with your Amazon credentials (e-mail address and password) and that device is then registered

At that point, you can download a book and even if it's been download to another registered device, Amazon will send it down again to the new device

It's also possible to simply read the book on the Kindle Cloud (no installation of the Kindle app and no downloading books to a device) which is what I do when I use my Chromebook

No matter how many times you download a book to different device, your books will remain accessible on Amazon, so no fear of losing them

If, down the road, you feel the urge to "backup" your books (after all, Amazon only grants one a limited license to "read" the book for either some unspecified time or until one passes away (no passing one's library down to one's heirs)) or if you find another device more to your liking, I'd recommend getting a program called Calibre, which is an e-book management system which can "strip away" the DRM (Digital Rights Management) feature of Kindle books, thus ensuring that one has a backup and one can read one's books on other e-readers or pass them on to heirs

I would recommend getting an actual Kindle device since Kindle devices are "optimized" for Kindle reading and the paperwhite Kindles are much better for reading than is a device with a color screen; the paperwhite models can also be used outside in very strong sunlight and are completely readable - color screens aren't very good in strong sunlight

[Gentleman.Jack.Darby]

5 hours ago, Guy F. said:

There are a very large number of older out-of-copyright books available for free at https://www.gutenberg.org/

Happy to hear Project Gutenberg mentioned!

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel obligated to say that it's a bit of a chore to add books other than Kindle books to a Kindle and it's not really intuitive to find them once they're on the Kindle; it's not hard, but not something someone new to Kindle e-books would want to tackle right off the bat

Of course, that's a deliberate design decision by Amazon, which is understandable

[Gentleman.Jack.Darby]

As far as Kindle book pricing goes, Amazon tends to put most books on sale for very low prices at one time or another

I mostly read non-fiction (history, politics, and science) and I generally don't spend more than $3.99 for a book, at the outside - that takes some work and a bit of patience, but I've been at it for a while, so I've build a library of a couple of thousand books for next to nothing

When I see a book I'd like to read that is at full price, I add it to my Kindle wishlist and after awhile, that list grows

Then every day or so, I go in and sort that list by price, low to high, to see if anything is on sale and, when they are, generally Amazon's sale prices for books from top-shelf publishers are now running from $1.99 - $4.99

Of course, Amazon has to feed the beast that it's built, so if one's taste runs to fiction or more "pop" stuff, Amazon has tons of stuff from new-and-upcoming authors or less well known publishers for prices as low as $0.99

There are also a lot of long out-of-print books from publishers such as Pen-and-Sword, Weidenfeld & Nickelson, etc. (military history, especially British and European) which are still worth reading but somewhat unaffordarble, assuming one can even find a print copy

If one's taste runs to the cannon of great Western literature, I'd recommend starting with Delphi Collected Works series - pretty much complete works of folks like Karl Marx, Voltaire, E.M. Forster, Jack London, etc. usually priced at $1.99 - $2.99

My last purchase was "Truman" by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster) for $3.99