What's on your e-reader?

Karl Henning · August 06, 2012, 11:38:52 AM

I did alter the font to facilitate the epub conversion. Last word is: Daisy...?

jwinter · August 06, 2012, 11:54:52 AM

The library on my nook color currently shows 2,372 books, so I couldn't begin to list everything. I have a lot of classics, old historical books, a lot of sci-fi & mystery series (much of it found for free in various places around the net), and a raft of digital comics, plus the usual suspects.

Today on it, I've read the New York Times, and have continued to chip away at Reynolds' The Young Hemingway and Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise (great book on 20th century music, BTW, wish I'd had it years ago).

Cato · August 06, 2012, 12:22:43 PM

Quote from: karlhenning on August 06, 2012, 11:38:52 AM
I did alter the font to facilitate the epub conversion. Last word is: Daisy...?

That explains it: yes, "daisy" ends the book!

ggluek · August 06, 2012, 04:07:30 PM

A lot of free classics (Twain, Melville, Wharton, Cather, Dickens, Hardy, Balzac, Dostoevsky). Plus Lovecraft, Poe, Chambers, Chesterton, sci-fi by Bester, Leiber, Ellison, etc.), Zen . . .Maintenance, some science books, some mysteries, and most interesting for this forum, "Xylophone Fragments" -- which I keep recommending to music people, but no one listens. :-)

Karl Henning · August 07, 2012, 01:40:36 AM

Tell us more about Xylophone Fragments

Scarpia · August 07, 2012, 10:12:23 AM

Nothing yet, mine is in the mail. Amazon is offering 40% off their basic Kindle model if you have an Amazon credit card. That means the basic Kindle is less than $50, if you are willing to put up with a "special offers" screensaver, or less than $70 if you want to be spared the ads.

There are rumors of a new Kindle with a built in light (like Nook glowlight) so I suppose they want to clear out the old stock.

Karl Henning · August 07, 2012, 01:11:29 PM

Welcome back, Scarps!

Wonder if the Nook has sorted out the glowlight by now....

Cato · August 07, 2012, 01:15:59 PM

Quote from: ggluek on August 06, 2012, 04:07:30 PM
and most interesting for this forum, "Xylophone Fragments" -- which I keep recommending to music people, but no one listens. :-)

I'm listening, I'm listening! So, yes, tell us more!

Scarpia · August 07, 2012, 01:17:26 PM

Quote from: karlhenning on August 07, 2012, 01:11:29 PM
Welcome back, Scarps!

Wonder if the Nook has sorted out the glowlight by now....

Thanks!

Is there something to be sorted out with the Nook's glowlight? I thought it was the main selling point of the Nook. I dropped by B&N to look at the Nook and they were all glowing. I got the Kindle instead. I remember all those ads soliciting me to buy a Kobi reader from Borders. Where would I be now if I had gotten one? I'm concerned about finding myself with a Nook after B&N declares bankruptcy.

Karl Henning · August 07, 2012, 02:19:20 PM

Well, Davey got one just when it was released, and he found it a bit dodgy. I've got the pre-glow no-nonsense Nook, and I like it very well.

Scarpia · August 07, 2012, 02:47:45 PM

Quote from: karlhenning on August 07, 2012, 02:19:20 PM
Well, Davey got one just when it was released, and he found it a bit dodgy. I've got the pre-glow no-nonsense Nook, and I like it very well.

I don't need it to glow. I was leaning towards the nook, but ultimately was not attracted by the touch screen, which means my potentially grimy would always be on the screen. And at 40% off, the basic Kindle was hard to resist.

ggluek · August 07, 2012, 07:13:12 PM

Quote from: Cato on August 07, 2012, 01:15:59 PM
I'm listening, I'm listening! So, yes, tell us more!

Well, it's a sort of a mystery -- at least that's why Mrs. G got it -- but it's less a whodunnit than a puzzle, which is why Mrs. G passed it on to me (no body up front). But it's more a musically thoughtful piece of literature. The author is opinionated about music, and occasionally digresses into historical arcana of the sort most classical music people know -- but mostly entertainingly and with some sort of point behind it. There's a nameless detective, and a bunch of people who are either musicians or musical camp followers, and a lot of cynical humor, and some genuine emotion ... and I can't really describe it, but I enjoyed the writing and the style. Doesn't try to be high falutin' like Jean Christoff, but it's not The Great Waltz either. I read it in the early spring, then again at the beach this summer. It's a good, literary but non-intellectual read. That's the best I can do.

george

DavidW · October 05, 2012, 05:00:13 AM

Quote from: karlhenning on August 07, 2012, 02:19:20 PM
Well, Davey got one just when it was released, and he found it a bit dodgy. I've got the pre-glow no-nonsense Nook, and I like it very well.

Sorry I wasn't here to add but Scarpia made a good choice. The nook glow has a delicate screen so if you drop anything on it even from a few cm it will damage the screen. Now all ereaders have delicate screens, but NOT that delicate. btw the new kindle and to my knowledge the new kobo don't have that problem.

And yes I agree Karl, the nook str is a better device. I think BN just wanted to be first on the lighting even though they spent only a few months on it (amazon spent four years on their design) which is why it is better than Sony's laughable first attempt but a joke now compared to the others. I expect the nook next year to be MUCH better.

Karl Henning · October 05, 2012, 05:03:31 AM

Quote from: DavidW on October 05, 2012, 05:00:13 AM
And yes I agree Karl, the nook str is a better device. I think BN just wanted to be first on the lighting even though they spent only a few months on it (amazon spent four years on their design) which is why it is better than Sony's laughable first attempt but a joke now compared to the others. I expect the nook next year to be MUCH better.

Cool. My upgrade can wait.

DavidW · October 05, 2012, 05:16:14 AM

Even though it's not my ecosystem, the new Kobo mini intrigues me. It has a 5 inch screen so that you can fit in your pocket and carry it around with you. The 6 inch is just big enough that you can't really do that.

DavidW · October 05, 2012, 06:12:44 AM

Oh and here is my review (I also posted this on amazon):

I have owned the Kindle 3, Kindle 4, Kindle Touch, Nook Simple Touch, Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight, Kindle Fire, Nook Color and Nook Tablet. And while that list is far from a complete survey, I have seen a broad range of popular ereaders. And I claim that this Paperwhite is better than all of them for me!

Ghosting: I don't need to refresh every page now like I do with the older Kindles because I don't see any ghosting.

Fonts: Increasing the resolution allows the ereader to display excellent serif fonts such as Baskerville instead of the mediocre standard of previous Kindles. While the Nook offered other fonts, they were really variations on a central font. This is one area where until now tablets reigned supreme.

Capacitive Touch: Still not as snappy and responsive as a phone or tablet, it is significantly more responsive than the previous IR touch and now you can use a stylus and not smudge your screen. I wish though that the device could be configured to only respond to swipes instead of tapping to turn pages. That way accidental turn pages wouldn't happen.

The Light: I don't use it at max settings in the dark like some people. I only use it to make the screen look white. I use the smallest setting in the dark, and in general in a dimly lit room only use the lowest settings. I use the medium setting in a brightly lit room. My goal is to make the screen look white without looking like it glows. If you set it that way the slight uniformity problems are not apparent; and the screen looks like white paper. Also while the light in the Nook Glo is skewed towards blueish, the white of the light on this Kindle looks like a fairly neutral 6500k white. The most neutral white still belongs to the Nook Tablet. FYI the light on this device can not be turned off. The minimum setting might appear to be off, just go into a dark room and you will see that the Kindle still glows. The light only turns off when you put the kindle to sleep. Now I didn't expect to use the light, but it works so well that I consider it essential now. Much better contrast than the older kindles.

Native Contrast: Very slightly better than the older pearl screen Kindles. It might be within tolerance the same (you might even buy one slightly worse than the older Kindle). It is really the light that improves contrast, if you want to buy this purely for a boost in native contrast I wouldn't bother.

Time to Read: When it comes to location numbers, page numbers and real page numbers, all I ever cared about was how long will this take to read? I liked page numbers because I had an intuition for mapping that measure to time to read. I grew to like location numbers after I built a similar intuition for timing. By changing the measure to directly assess time to read based on your reading speed, that intermediate measure is gone. This is the best way to keep track of where I am and where I'm going in an ebook. I love it! In fact I consider it the best feature out of everything listed above.

Is the Kindle Paperwhite worth buying if you don't have a Kindle? Yes. Is it worth an upgrade over a previous Kindle? Yes. Is it worth buying if you're invested into another ecosystem (Nook, Kobo, Apple, Sony etc)? No. It's still about the reading and you should not have to rebuy your ebooks, nor should you have to crack DRM.

Brian · October 05, 2012, 06:23:39 AM

Wow, thank you very much, David! Very very seriously considering the Paperwhite and this addresses a lot of questions and thoughts I had on it. I went over and found your review to give it a "helpful" vote.

Q. Am I ever going to be annoyed that the light doesn't turn off?

Scarpia · October 05, 2012, 06:24:22 AM

I'm quite happy with my n-1 generation Kindle which I got when Amazon was apparently trying to clear its inventory before releasing the new paper white.

I'm reading mostly public-domain stuff (I have the complete Joseph Conrad on it, and have also been reading some Dickens, Lawrence, Hardy, Tolstoy.) Only have a few non-free items. I am reluctant to buy content for Kindle because you can't get it outside of their sandbox. If I pay top dollar for a physical book I can sell it, or I know I will be able to pick it up and read it 20 years from now.

One pet peeve is that if you e-mail something to your kindle (like a Project Gutenberg book) it will only sync on a proper Kindle. It won't send it to Kindle for PC or Kindle cloud reader, so you can't open the book on those devices and have your current page number updated. Not such a problem because most Project Gutenberg books are available on the Kindle store as a free purchase (which does sync) but there are a few gaps.

DavidW · October 05, 2012, 06:30:57 AM

Quote from: Brian on October 05, 2012, 06:23:39 AM
Wow, thank you very much, David! Very very seriously considering the Paperwhite and this addresses a lot of questions and thoughts I had on it. I went over and found your review to give it a "helpful" vote.

Q. Am I ever going to be annoyed that the light doesn't turn off?

Since the battery life is double the older Kindle Touch (and quadruple the Kindle 4) even with the light on, and you can't see the light unless you actually need it, nope you shouldn't be annoyed. I forgot in my review to mention that the bezel edge is not as deep as the touch, so no more shadows on the screen. Still not as shallow as the bezel edge of the Kindle 4 and the Keyboard but pretty close.

DavidW · October 05, 2012, 06:34:24 AM

Quote from: Scarpia on October 05, 2012, 06:24:22 AM
One pet peeve is that if you e-mail something to your kindle (like a Project Gutenberg book) it will only sync on a proper Kindle. It won't send it to Kindle for PC or Kindle cloud reader, so you can't open the book on those devices and have your current page number updated. Not such a problem because most Project Gutenberg books are available on the Kindle store as a free purchase (which does sync) but there are a few gaps.

If you use Calibre to add metadata to the books and then deliver by Calibre to your kindle email you will be able to sync non-amazon books across all devices including the kindle app. The metadata is key, it doesn't work without the metadata.