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Not buying another Kindle

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Re: Not buying another Kindle

#201

Post by fg137 »

RIMR wrote: post #123
fg137 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a shame that iPhone 6 cannot install the latest apps from App Store. This is robbery from Apple.

There's a world of difference between software dependencies going out of date between many releases and a company deliberately disabling older devices from downloading static ebook files instead of maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility.

> maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility

Sounds easy for you to type that out on a forum without having to maintain a two decade old stack, which probably has tons of "software dependencies going out of date"

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#202

Post by ErroneousBosh »

frereubu wrote: post #199

While I agree with the sentiment, one nitpick - "When you buy a Kindle, you are buying a disposable product with a predetermined shelf life. Meanwhile, when you buy a Kobo, you are buying a tool that can be maintained for a decade or more." My Kindle is still going strong after 15 years, including a few years of not using it at all when I was enjoying reading physical books. That longevity is why I'm angry about this…

My Kindle 7 has severely degraded battery life now, it barely lasts two weeks. It's got to be about 12 years old now.

The screen's got some little black dots where it fell out of my laptop bag in the back of the Landrover and got squashed under the spare tyre and a toolbox. Even that didn't kill it though, it just gave it a couple of little black dots about the size of a lower-case "o" in the smallest font. I can live with that.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#203

Post by azuanrb »

nickvec wrote: post #150

Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)

One of the last physical books I owned was The Three-Body Problem trilogy in a single volume. It was massive, heavy and honestly beautiful. I loved it.

Then I switched to the Kobo Libra Colour. The weight and portability make a huge difference. Having my entire library with me means I am no longer stuck with whatever I decided to bring before leaving home.

The color display is not amazing, but it is good enough for comics. I have been reading things like Attack on Titan and Spider-Man on it. Reading tech books has been great too, especially those with graphs and images.

If I had to sum it up in one word, versatile.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#204

Post by coldtea »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #188
someone4958923 wrote: post #125

I went through this migration last year. A few things that helped: Calibre is the escape hatch. Converts everything to EPUB. Even if you don't use it day-to-day, it's the best tool for getting your library out of Amazon's format. Public domain catalogs are huge now. Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, Gutenberg - tens of thousands of well-formatted free EPUBs. Most people don't realize how much is out there. For actua…

[flagged]

What exactly in the process doesn't make sense?

Unless the comment has been edited, it does make sense (other than the fact it's intention might just be an ad for BookShelves reader):

- Use Calibre to cross-convert books.

- Leverage public domain ebook catalogs: Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, Gutenberg.

- For on-device reading BookShelves app might be an option, with no cloud lock-in.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#205

Post by ondra »

dotdi wrote: post #81

I read a moderate amount I'd say, about 2 weeks average for a book, and I was using a very old and very beat-up but still functioning 4th gen Kindle until recently. However, I woke up from my stupor when Micro$oft's eBook store closed and purged their library from under everybodies butts. Giving Amazon complete control over my library is a horrible thought, so I'm out. I am now a happy Boox Go 10.3 + BookFusion user.…

Note that Boox does not release the sources for the GPL software they redistribute.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#206

Post by MengerSponge »

nickvec wrote: post #150

Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)

Modern e-readers are waterproof enough for pool or bath reading. It's nice!

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#207

Post by narinciye »

alfanick wrote: post #42
grimgrin wrote: post #10

the only bit of the service i cared about was mailing my kindle address mobis/epubs (even the mobile kindle app receives these) today i use a boox page, after a friend complimented his https://shop.boox.com/products/page

Why do those devices need 3GB RAM and 8-core CPU if they well, show books? There is no hurry there. Give us full-blown terminal and ssh/mosh at least.

I run any kind of android app on my boox, firefox, wikipedia, claude etc... You can install also google keyboard and enable swipe typing, it works really well. Only thing I am dissatisfied is the casing. It can break easily if you are a bit careless, unless you use its hardcover.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#208

Post by bragr »

DoctorOW wrote: post #193
bragr wrote: post #187

Do NOT buy a Kobo device for Libby integration. It is a LIE . I found out the hard way. Kobo only integrates with OverDrive, the predecessor to Libby. You can only use one library card at a time with OverDrive, and don't have access to the audioboks or periodicals on Libby. Meanwhile Kobo will aggressively push you to sign up for their monthly subscription to get access to that kind of content. If you want Libby on e…

> You can only use one library card at a time with OverDrive, and don't have access to the audioboks or periodicals on Libby. I personally was fine with the limitations, after all I'm only one person and I would only ever read books on my ereader.

You can't even get all books either.

I've got multiple library cards so it is a non-starter.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#209

Post by bentley »

MengerSponge wrote: post #174
someone4958923 wrote: post #125

I went through this migration last year. A few things that helped: Calibre is the escape hatch. Converts everything to EPUB. Even if you don't use it day-to-day, it's the best tool for getting your library out of Amazon's format. Public domain catalogs are huge now. Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, Gutenberg - tens of thousands of well-formatted free EPUBs. Most people don't realize how much is out there. For actua…

If you're even the slightest bit tech savvy you can find a DRM stripping utility for Calibre. Apprentice Alf is long retired, but a fork of that DeDRM still is maintained

Life is too short and my reading backlog too large for me to spend any time, money, or effort whatsoever on DRMed books.

There are enough copyright‐expired and copyrighted‐but‐DRM‐free books to keep me fully occupied in perpetuity.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#210

Post by jamesgeck0 »

tedivm wrote: post #71
nerdix wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you can't do that on a kindle. They have a "send to kindle" feature that allows you to add non-Amazon purchased ebooks to your library. But that requires support from the backend (and an internet connection). I'm assuming send to kindle will no longer be supported on these older devices.

You can send books to your kindle over USB, and I do that all the time for larger books that are above the size limit on the email system. The big problem is that Amazon no longer allows you to download books from their site to your desktop, so you have no way to actually get a purchased book and send it to the kindle even over USB. However, if you buy non-DRM books from other book sellers you won't have this problem…

> The big problem is that Amazon no longer allows you to download books from their site to your desktop

I've bought a number of books on Kindle that were explicitly marked as being sold without DRM. Does this mean I've lost access to any DRM-free downloads that I haven't already backed up?

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