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Old 13th October 2013
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Default To Kindle or not to Kindle that is the question

At this moment Amazon Germany has a Kindle for sale for 49 euro. For some books like "Nginx HTTP Server" the dead tree version is EUR 33.10 while the Kindle version is EUR 15.13. That is rather attractive.

Does anybody here have a Kindle and share his/her experiences?
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Old 14th October 2013
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I have a BeBook, which is pretty good for novels and such, but I don't like it for technical & science books.

Images & code example often aren't displayed conveniently, the default is often too small so you need to zoom & scroll from left-to-right, which is awkward.

In addition, you can't quickly browse & flip back and forth to pages as with a `real' book, which I find inconvenient especially in technical books (& also in books with maps/appendixes, such as the Song of Ice and Fire series, Lord of the Rings, etc).

(This is obviously not a Kindle, I've never even touched a Kindle, but I feel these problems drawbacks to eBook readers in general).
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Old 14th October 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by J65nko View Post
Does anybody here have a Kindle and share his/her experiences?
What experience I have is second-hand as I don't own a Kindle.

The comment I read repeatedly in Amazon's reviews of technical books is that the formatting is wretched. Frequently, the text is similar to a Word document, & any mathematical formulae presented is simply mangled.

The Nginx title mentioned by J65nko I believe is published by Packt who tends to publish very timely titles, but with little editing -- in other words, the book may be rough & possibly incomplete. The Kindle version of this book might be readable, but since I haven't seen it, this is merely conjecture.

An alternative is to go to Packt's Website & price their electronic version(s) (I believe all of their books have equivalent electronic versions...). I do know that they do put out PDF versions, & my experience has been that these are identical to the print version. I like this as I can read it via OpenBSD, Windows, & gmail.

This is only an opinion. Your mileage may vary.
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Old 23rd October 2013
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Thanks for your input. Maybe I first should try reading a cheap Kindle book with the Kindle application for Windows.
Then I also can verify whether Calibre can prevent a Kindle book from getting deleted by Amazon
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Old 23rd October 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by J65nko View Post
Then I also can verify whether Calibre can prevent a Kindle book from getting deleted by Amazon
I guess you could always take screenshots and save them.
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Old 23rd October 2013
J65nko J65nko is offline
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No, you don't have to take screenshots and save those. See the article for non-USA Kindle users at arstechnica.com
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Old 4th March 2014
censored censored is offline
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The real question for me?

Is the kindle a hack-worthy piece of hardware? In other words, when I got bored with reading War and Peace, could I do something else with it?

Last edited by censored; 5th March 2014 at 12:09 AM.
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Old 5th March 2014
J65nko J65nko is offline
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You won't get bored with reading Tolstoy's War and Peace. IIRC it was Hemingway, who said he wished he could read it one other time for the first time
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Old 5th March 2014
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We got our daughter a Kindle Fire for Xmas. It's a pretty nice piece of kit. Seems like a good deal, go for it.
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Old 5th March 2014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ocicat View Post
What experience I have is second-hand as I don't own a Kindle.
...
An alternative is to go to Packt's Website & price their electronic version(s) (I believe all of their books have equivalent electronic versions...). I do know that they do put out PDF versions, & my experience has been that these are identical to the print version. I like this as I can read it via OpenBSD, Windows, & gmail.
Usually when this question comes up in technical forums someone points out that pdf support on ebook readers is generally poor and that tablets are preferable for that reason, unless you really only will use epubs etc. My experience is also 2nd hand.
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Old 5th March 2014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by censored View Post
...could I do something else with it?
It's an Android device. If you get bored with the the Kindle's OS, you could install any number of custom Android platforms on it, such as Cyanogenmod.
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Old 5th March 2014
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I have a Nook color, that my wife got as some sort of deal with her credit card. Ebooks aren't as convenient, IMHO, in many ways--it's harder to go back and forth. Most smart phones have a Kindle app, and you can try reading an ebook with calibre in open source. There might be a Linux, kindle app as well, though I doubt there's a BSD one.

My own opinion is that they're OK for novels--but then, when you forget something and want to flip back to read it again 50-100 pages after first reading it, it can be a pain. I've even read Terry Pratchett on an ebook--the footnotes were hyperlinks, so it was pretty quick to hit the footnote, read it, and go back--this was on the Nook application on a smartphone.

If you use a smartphone, it almost certainly has a Kindle app. Only having used the Nook Color, not sure what else you can do with a Kindle save read books--on the Nook color, you can do tablet-y stuff, but I don't like tablets, so I've only used it for reading. If I'm going to watch multimedia, I either want more portability, e.g., a smartphone, or more screen, e.g. a computer, even an 11 inch screen.
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Old 5th March 2014
J65nko J65nko is offline
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My question was, whether an ebook reader like Kindle, was suitable for reading technical books. Carpetsmoker and Ocicat pointed out that this is not the case.

Based on their experiences and advice I decided not to buy a Kindle. Next year I may get a cheap tablet, or a fondle slab, next year to read technical ebooks or their PDF equivalent.
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Old 6th March 2014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
It's an Android device. If you get bored with the the Kindle's OS, you could install any number of custom Android platforms on it, such as Cyanogenmod.
You may want to clarify that you're talking about the Kindle Fire, not the Kindle ebook readers. I don't believe it's possible to switch the latter to another platform.

Adam
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Old 6th March 2014
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Quote:
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Y...you're talking about the Kindle Fire..
Thank you for the correction, Adam.
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