Amazon Kindle

[RisseN]

Hi All,

Im interested in getting a kindle but have a few questions:

- Do we as South African's get our ebooks directly from the US amazon kindle store, or how does it work? The reason I ask is that I read mostly finance and investment related books which are not as commonly available as your average thriller. So I just want to make sure that we have the full range of amazon kindle books available to us and not a more limited subset.

- Is there still a whispernet fee applicable? So we get charged for the book plus the whispernet fee?

- Why in the hell are ebooks for the most part the same price as hard copies? There are a few bargains here and there, but for the most part ebooks are the same price as hard copies. That is absolute robbery if you ask me. Isn't one of the main benefits of going the ebook route the fact that printing costs, material costs and distribution costs are all reduced.

- Is there a colour screen eink kindle available yet?

- Any opinions on the keyboard kindle vs the 5way controller version? (im not interested in the touchscreen version - I hate fingerprints on screens - especially when reading)

Thanks for any info! Much appreciated.

 

[CerealKiller]

Books on kindle are ridiculously expensive, i'd rather get a iOS or Andriod tablet and download the kindle app

 

[froot]

Books on kindle are ridiculously expensive, i'd rather get a iOS or Andriod tablet and download the kindle app

Lies.

@RisseN
Kindle book prices are dependent on the publishers, but they're [usually] a heck of a lot cheaper than bound books.
You don't pay Whispernet fees when buying books. Only when you send content to your email via it.
I don't think you get colour e-ink yet.
No opinion on the new one, I have the Kindle3 (keyboard).

As to other book sources, yeah well...

 

[chris_meier]

Books on kindle are ridiculously expensive, i'd rather get a iOS or Andriod tablet and download the kindle app

But you're still going to be paying the same for the books, regardless of whether you're using a Kindle or the app.

Back to the OPs questions:

- Yes, you are buying your books directly via the Amazon website. Unfortunately the Publishing houses do have geographical restrictions in place on some titles, but this is generally fairly limited. Easiest way to check how this may affect you with your reading interests is to sign in to your Amazon account and search for titles you are interested in (make sure you select to do the search within the Kindle store), click on the titles that load and if it says "Buy now..." you're sorted. Restricted titles comes up with a big green icon saying something akin to "Not available in your geographical location".

- I haven't been charged a 'delivery' fee in quite some time, and even when I'm just browsing I've only ever seen "free international delivery" lately. I could be wrong, this is just my personal experience.

- The pricing of the ebooks is unfortunately determined by the Publishing houses. Amazon tried for a while to have many titles listed for way below recommended price (essentially selling at a loss, which they carried), but the Publishers teamed up with Apple and basically threatened to stop making their catalogue of books available to Amazon unless they sold at recommended price. The Publishers are like many of the dinosaurs working in the film and music industy - confused and threatened by technology, willing to try anything to prevent the disappearance of the "old way" of doing things. There was news recently of a possible price-fixing lawsuit involving Apple and 5 of the big publishing houses (several smaller ones settled out of court), so maybe Amazon will again be able to determine their own price, though I'm not holding my breath.

- Kindle Fire is colour, but it is more of a tablet device than an e-ink device.

- I hardly ever used the keyboard on my Kindle, so I would suggest go with the 5-way controller version - unless you have a specific need for a keyboard.

 

[nexxus]

The regional restrictions are easy to bypass it turns out, and the prices on the US/UK store are far lower than the local ones. As long as I have access to the US store it's worth every cent. The difference is really night and day. At US prices I have almost no desire to download a book, it's just so easy to buy & the price point is such that I usually don't think twice for most stuff.

Just the price difference between Exclusive & Amazon for the Steve Jobs biography paid for a quarter of the Kindle (may be less now). When they punted me onto the SA store, suddenly half the books were gone & most of what was left was $10 more. I was a sad lad that day.

The device itself is great for reading, just the right weight, the battery lasts forever, the screen is super crisp. The interface for actually browsing your library isn't that great, sorting is hard, collections aren't intuitive. It seems books from a series might annoyingly hard to get into order, I haven't bought any yet maybe it puts them into a collection automatically.

 

[xrapidx]

I was wondering something the other day... I've bought a couple of hardcopy books recently... (big fat IT books) - this most likely isn't legal - but if I find .mobi copies of these books - and upload them... can Amazon just delete them?

 

[nexxus]

I don't think they can, you're allowed to put your own files onto it. Transferring it via whispernet (that email address thingee) might be a slightly different issue though.

I mean how would they be able to tell whether or not you got that legitimately or not?

 

[froot]

They can't see what you put on your device. They can only see the DRM'ed items.
The easiest way to physically put items onto your Kindle is via a USB cable. Plug in, open as a drive, plonk the pdf/mobi/epub into the /documents folder.

 

[HavocXphere]

- Do we as South African's get our ebooks directly from the US amazon kindle store, or how does it work? The reason I ask is that I read mostly finance and investment related books which are not as commonly available as your average thriller. So I just want to make sure that we have the full range of amazon kindle books available to us and not a more limited subset.

Not the same range as the US, but the limitations on SA are pretty light. Most people won't notice.

- Is there still a whispernet fee applicable? So we get charged for the book plus the whispernet fee?

If you buy it from amazon its free - unless its an audio book download those are too big.

- Why in the hell are ebooks for the most part the same price as hard copies?

There is talk of a lawsuit against some of the big ebook players for price fixing.

- Is there a colour screen eink kindle available yet?

Don't bother. I can't imagine any real use for colour tbh.

- Any opinions on the keyboard kindle vs the 5way controller version? (im not interested in the touchscreen version - I hate fingerprints on screens - especially when reading)

I'd buy purely based on screensize and maybe 3G version.

They can't see what you put on your device.

Not so sure about that. They definitely have a counter type thing going that increments & things like highlights get uploaded to the cloud afaik, so I wouldn't be surprised if they can see everything. Doubt they'll do anything w/ the info though.

 

[froot]

Not so sure about that. They definitely have a counter type thing going that increments & things like highlights get uploaded to the cloud afaik, so I wouldn't be surprised if they can see everything. Doubt they'll do anything w/ the info though.

Then let's just rephrase that into "they would be violating our rights to privacy by doing anything with the information, even telling us". The thing is, we might have books bought from another source or we might have documents compiled by ourselves which we put on there.

 

[Speedster]

Back to the OP. Bought my wife a Kindle for her birthday towards the end of last year. One of my best tech buys ever.

I have the Kindle app on my laptop, android phone as well as her android phone so can read the books on any of those too (we share an amazon account across our devices). Buy once and view it on any of our devices. Books are a bunch cheaper than hardcopy too and instantly available. Battery lasts forever too - about a month per charge.

Haven't heard of, or paid, for any whispernet anything. Only know of whispersync, which is free AFAIK.

Can't see any real need for the keyboard. Glad I got the smallish Kindle (4, I think).

Don't think there's colour e-ink on any device yet. The Kindles are all B&W, apart from the Fire, but that is a totally different type of device - it's a tablet, not an e-reader.

 

[HavocXphere]

Those with kindles might also want to look at the readability browser extension/addon...makes sending those wall of text articles to a kindle way easier.

 

[Deezil]

I was wondering something the other day... I've bought a couple of hardcopy books recently... (big fat IT books) - this most likely isn't legal - but if I find .mobi copies of these books - and upload them... can Amazon just delete them?

Tried reading a "big fat IT book" on the Kindle and gave up after 20 minutes ... I tried both the included pdf and a converted to mobi via Calibre version but the formatting was just horrible.

Maybe it was just that particular book but I don't recommend the Kindle for textbooks. I'm not an Apple fanboi but for reading pdf's and technical papers etc. the 4:3 screen resolution of the iPad just works better. Wish Samsung/Asus would bring out a 4:3 android tablet instead of relying on cheap chinese knockoffs if you want to go the 4:3/Android route.

Otherwise Kindle rawks!

 

[noxibox]

Tried reading a "big fat IT book" on the Kindle and gave up after 20 minutes ... I tried both the included pdf and a converted to mobi via Calibre version but the formatting was just horrible.

There is a difference between a book where the mobi version has been properly created and one that has been converted from PDF. The former should have been formatted correctly. Still in general the screen is too small.

Not the same range as the US, but the limitations on SA are pretty light. Most people won't notice.

I've run into many books that are simply not available on the African store.

I'd buy purely based on screensize and maybe 3G version.

There is only one screen size, other than the Kindle DX.

Hi All,

Im interested in getting a kindle but have a few questions:

- Do we as South African's get our ebooks directly from the US amazon kindle store, or how does it work? The reason I ask is that I read mostly finance and investment related books which are not as commonly available as your average thriller. So I just want to make sure that we have the full range of amazon kindle books available to us and not a more limited subset.

- Is there still a whispernet fee applicable? So we get charged for the book plus the whispernet fee?

- Why in the hell are ebooks for the most part the same price as hard copies? There are a few bargains here and there, but for the most part ebooks are the same price as hard copies. That is absolute robbery if you ask me. Isn't one of the main benefits of going the ebook route the fact that printing costs, material costs and distribution costs are all reduced.

- Is there a colour screen eink kindle available yet?

- Any opinions on the keyboard kindle vs the 5way controller version? (im not interested in the touchscreen version - I hate fingerprints on screens - especially when reading)

Thanks for any info! Much appreciated.

You can buy from the US store fairly easily. That is the best option for a good selection and most of the time the lowest prices. Some books by UK authors are cheaper in the UK store.

Even though quite a lot of work has to go into creating the eBook version it should still be cheaper than printed books. There has been price-fixing going on and hopefully someone is going to get punished for that.

There is no colour eInk. Maybe one day.

Touchscreen version is great. If you have very greasy fingers or your hands are always very dirty you might get some marks on the screen. It's not shiny. The only upside of the keyboard version is 3G, which you only really need if you plan to buy books while on the move.

 

[xrapidx]

Tried reading a "big fat IT book" on the Kindle and gave up after 20 minutes ... I tried both the included pdf and a converted to mobi via Calibre version but the formatting was just horrible.

Maybe it was just that particular book but I don't recommend the Kindle for textbooks. I'm not an Apple fanboi but for reading pdf's and technical papers etc. the 4:3 screen resolution of the iPad just works better. Wish Samsung/Asus would bring out a 4:3 android tablet instead of relying on cheap chinese knockoffs if you want to go the 4:3/Android route.

Otherwise Kindle rawks!

The problem is the conversion - PDF conversion is crap - you need to find the book in the correct format. I've found with just about any book converted from PDF I still have to rotate the Kindle to landscape to read properly, which is crappy.

 

[froot]

The problem is the conversion - PDF conversion is crap - you need to find the book in the correct format. I've found with just about any book converted from PDF I still have to rotate the Kindle to landscape to read properly, which is crappy.

Yeah that is a problem.

Thing is, [proper] epub and mobi formats are done using a regular rich text method instead of the latex method, so formatting is lost when you try to convert them.

I have seen few PDFs that work fine in portrait mode, but most work fine in landscape mode, although really annoying.

 

[BigAl-sa]

Thing is, [proper] epub and mobi formats are done using a regular rich text method instead of the latex method, so formatting is lost when you try to convert them.

mobi and epub are html based, not RTF.

 

[froot]

mobi and epub are html based, not RTF.

Wait, sorry, that's meant to be swapped around. Latex and not rtf.

 

[RisseN]

Thanks for all the replies.

So it's easy enough to just purcahse ebooks from the US store?

 

[froot]

Thanks for all the replies.

So it's easy enough to just purcahse ebooks from the US store?

1. Add your credit card to your Amazon account.
2. "Send to my kindle".

Literally that easy.