Ebook reader - Cheapest

lexor said:
Just bought a Kindle for a friend from Amazon.R1100 for the WiFi version incl shipping and taxes.Best option imo.
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How you got that right I don't know did you get it shipped ? For I paid like nearly r400 on shipping alone and it made my device around r1400 on total or so

For now IMO the kobo is defo a good idea as a quicker cheaper alternative it doesn't handle as well as a kindle but it sure does the job if one does not know any better
 
Michaelmw said:
How you got that right I don't know did you get it shipped ? For I paid like nearly r400 on shipping alone and it made my device around r1400 on total or so

For now IMO the kobo is defo a good idea as a quicker cheaper alternative it doesn't handle as well as a kindle but it sure does the job if one does not know any better
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Shipping Method: AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping
Items: ZAR 782.03
Shipping & Handling: ZAR 272.21
------
Total before tax: ZAR 1,054.24
Estimated tax to be collected: USD 0.00
Import Fees Deposit ZAR 120.47
------
Order Total: ZAR 1,174.71


Delivery estimate: Jan. 7, 2013 - Jan. 14, 2013
"Kindle, 6" E Ink Display, Wi-Fi - for international shipment"
Electronics; $89.00
 
That's a damm bargain and a half good pickup for that price man not often its that cheap nice one
 
lexor said:
Shipping Method: AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping
Items: ZAR 782.03
Shipping & Handling: ZAR 272.21
------
Total before tax: ZAR 1,054.24
Estimated tax to be collected: USD 0.00
Import Fees Deposit ZAR 120.47
------
Order Total: ZAR 1,174.71


Delivery estimate: Jan. 7, 2013 - Jan. 14, 2013
"Kindle, 6" E Ink Display, Wi-Fi - for international shipment"
Electronics; $89.00
Click to expand...

That's a blimmin good price.

Got my daughter a Kobo on special (795) - she loves it - much prefers a touch screen, so she prefers her Kobo to my Kindle.

and, it does Shelves / Collections without having to reboot, and shows the book covers on the home screen.
 
(*See my comments on the Kobo thread)

Wife has Kindle (paid R1K a year ago) with special offers (works in SA) and got my daughter the Kobo (RRP R1K).

Kindle:
* No touch screen which is great for just reading in bed at night as its easy to accidently touch the screen to flip the page when shifting into a more comfortable position. Uses large buttons on side (duplicated on both side).
* Buying books on Kindle is magic, easy peasy and very fast.
* Has very good fonts
* Less blot

Kobo:
* Has SD card slot (both have 1GB internal storage)
* Touch screen
* Has social integration (link your facebook to join a book club)
* Books are generally a few rand cheap
* Bookstore library limited
* Way cooler user interface with lots of eye-candy
* Can customize appearance and wide selection of fonts.

Both:
* They both use the same screen
* Both same form factor
* Both same charger
* Calibre :) works on both


I'm glad I got my daughter the Kobo instead of the Kindle, but then I'm glad I got the wife the Kindle and not the Kobo. As for the issue of loading books, use Calibre. Allows me to convert any existing format to another and great for managing your devices. So you can buy books on Amazon and convert them to the Kobo, or get books from Kalahari and upload them to both devices.
 
Ghost02 said:
What would you guys reccomend for a university student that can get digital textbooks from the university. Mostly pdf but also some other formats, havent looked into what other formats are supplied. Are they locked down so you wouldnt be able to put your own digital copies on there? Also whats the pdf handling like ?
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It depends on the type of document, but PDF handling on e-ink readers tends to be poor. Resizing views and scrolling around a large document doesn't work particularly well on a screen designed specifically to not constantly refresh. Normal text in PDF works well enough, but once you start incorporating illustrations and graphs it falls flat. The flip-side is that reading on an e-ink screen is as close as you'd like to reading on paper, and I can imagine having search functionality whilst studying would be a boon.

As for being locked down: calibre was mentioned before - you download that bit of freeware and any restrictions on what you can and can't load on your device vanish.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
(*See my comments on the Kobo thread)

Wife has Kindle (paid R1K a year ago) with special offers (works in SA) and got my daughter the Kobo (RRP R1K).

Kindle:
* No touch screen which is great for just reading in bed at night as its easy to accidently touch the screen to flip the page when shifting into a more comfortable position. Uses large buttons on side (duplicated on both side).
* Buying books on Kindle is magic, easy peasy and very fast.
* Has very good fonts
* Less blot

Kobo:
* Has SD card slot (both have 1GB internal storage)
* Touch screen
* Has social integration (link your facebook to join a book club)
* Books are generally a few rand cheap
* Bookstore library limited
* Way cooler user interface with lots of eye-candy
* Can customize appearance and wide selection of fonts.

Both:
* They both use the same screen
* Both same form factor
* Both same charger
* Calibre :) works on both


I'm glad I got my daughter the Kobo instead of the Kindle, but then I'm glad I got the wife the Kindle and not the Kobo. As for the issue of loading books, use Calibre. Allows me to convert any existing format to another and great for managing your devices. So you can buy books on Amazon and convert them to the Kobo, or get books from Kalahari and upload them to both devices.
Click to expand...

Awesome post. Does Kobo support open standard Epubs?
 
According to the online specs, not only does it support the standard EPUB format, but it will also handle .MOBI files like a Kindle. There may however be problems with Amazon's proprietary .AZW format? But that's what Calibre is for if you have a little technical expertise....
 
Terencek said:
According to the online specs, not only does it support the standard EPUB format, but it will also handle .MOBI files like a Kindle. There may however be problems with Amazon's proprietary .AZW format? But that's what Calibre is for if you have a little technical expertise....
Click to expand...

AZW needs to be converted with Calibre but yes, EPUB & MOBI are 100% fine.
 
I have converted a number of books using Calibre, and the results have not been great. Whether, it cannot read/interpret page formatting codes properly, or it is page code incompatabilities/faults, I don't know. But the end result has been that I have had to delete a large number of weird characters. [ search and replace with white space ] the run a spell checker over it, and reformat. Too much work for just my own use. So usually I just don't bother if a e-book is not in a format I can use.
 
elf_lord_ZC5 said:
I have converted a number of books using Calibre, and the results have not been great. Whether, it cannot read/interpret page formatting codes properly, or it is page code incompatabilities/faults, I don't know. But the end result has been that I have had to delete a large number of weird characters. [ search and replace with white space ] the run a spell checker over it, and reformat. Too much work for just my own use. So usually I just don't bother if a e-book is not in a format I can use.
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That happens to me when the source is a PDF book or the source was already also messed up.
 
AfricanTech said:
That's a blimmin good price.

Got my daughter a Kobo on special (795) - she loves it - much prefers a touch screen, so she prefers her Kobo to my Kindle.

and, it does Shelves / Collections without having to reboot, and shows the book covers on the home screen.
Click to expand...

That R795 sounds sweet and so does the device.Where was the special?
Might get lucky with January specials.
 
elf_lord_ZC5 said:
I have converted a number of books using Calibre, and the results have not been great. Whether, it cannot read/interpret page formatting codes properly, or it is page code incompatabilities/faults, I don't know. But the end result has been that I have had to delete a large number of weird characters. [ search and replace with white space ] the run a spell checker over it, and reformat. Too much work for just my own use. So usually I just don't bother if a e-book is not in a format I can use.
Click to expand...

Because:

efitol said:
That happens to me when the source is a PDF book or the source was already also messed up.
Click to expand...

Its all about the source. The one book I converted was awful to read and then when I looked at the source, it was just junk. Learn't not to convert PDF unless its one I personally created.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
Its all about the source. The one book I converted was awful to read and then when I looked at the source, it was just junk. Learn't not to convert PDF unless its one I personally created.
Click to expand...

That makes sense ...

There are a lot of screwed up PDF's out there ... , < sigh >

Thanks
 
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