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Originally Posted by need2read
I did not realize that by owning the Kindle I can only buy amazon.com ebooks. This is very disturbing to me as I have noticed that there are some books over at B&N for the Nook that are available that are not available on the Kindle.
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You don't have to buy only from Amazon. Well really it depends on the type of book you're talking about I guess. If it something from a big New York publishing house then you'll need to get it from Amazon unless you want to learn to strip DRM and convert (which isn't that hard). If you're just looking for more places to buy books... You can buy books in the 'Multiformat' selection from Fictionwise. You can buy books from Webscription.net (pretty much all SciFi/Fantasy). You can buy books from Smashwords. You can buy books from many small publishers (like BeWrite books to name one).
Basically just make sure one of the formats they offer is Mobipocket (prc/mobi) and that the books are DRM free. Any of these books can be loaded on the Kindle by using the USB cable and placing them in the 'documents' folder.
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From what I've been able to gather, the Nook allows me to read books purchased from other ebook stores, but only some, right? It's all about the book formatting, but there seem to be so many different types of formats, and I've had a hard time searching to figure out which websites sell which formats.
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The nook will allow you to buy DRM'd books from B&N and also from anywhere selling ePub's or PDF's with Adobe encryption (usually the store will tell you Adobe Digital Editions is required, this means Adobe DRM). You can also buy non-DRM'd books from the same places you can get them for the Kindle. The nook will also support eReader format which is a legacy format some folks have (you can still buy books in this format also).
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Another thing that bothers me is that the Kindle does not have expandable memory or removable battery. I know that it has enough memory for a lot of books, but I just like the idea of expandable memory and a removeable battery. The Nook offers this, from what I understand.
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This is true. It just depends on if those are important to you or not. There is always a chance a battery could go bad after the warranty is up. The battery on the Sony 505 I bought in October of '07 is still going strong, but that doesn't mean it always will. It's not that the batteries in the Kindle's and Sony's can't be replaced, but the unit does need to be opened up where the nook doesn't require that messing around.
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I am also wondering how "hackable" are the nook and kindle? I'm not good with computers, but I would definitely learn in order to keep my purchases. Or upload purchases from other websites onto the device. The fact that I can only use the Kindle for Amazon purchases worries me. I don't think it would happen but what if Amazon went belly up? I would no longer be able to purchase new material? I'm not asking HOW TO HACK, I'd just like to know if the information is out there because it would be great to buy a book offered through another ebook retailer and upload it to my kindle (or Nook, for that matter). I have a 5$ coupon for the Kobo ebookstore, and it's a shame that I cannot use it.
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Sounds like you're asking if the formats are 'hackable', not the devices themselves. I'm not up much on device hacks, but I'd guess the nook is probably more hackable (as in installing third party stuff on the device).
As for formats. B&N ePub, .vs Kindle azw, .vs Adobe ePub (what Kobo sells) they can all have their DRM removed fairly easily. Once that's done Calibre can be used to convert between those formats in seconds.