Quote:
Originally Posted by Choisya
Hello Everyone!
It will be my 75th birthday in March and I am thinking of asking my children to buy me an Amazon Kindle which I see is available on Ebay for around $450. My American friends are raving about them and as I am an avid book reader I really would like one to carry around with me. However, I wrote to Amazon.com and their response seemed to indicate that I could neither buy one nor use their 'whisper' software. Can anyone tell me whether, if I bought one on Ebay, if I would have any technical problems in using it and if I would still be able to purchase Amazon.com dowbnloads for it. I realise there are other websites from which I can download e-books but Amazon.com has the best e-book range. Here is the Amazon.com email.  :- |
Welcome to MobileRead, Choisya!
The "whisper" thing they're referring to isn't a software, it's the wireless book delivery system that the Kindle uses. The hardware for it isn't compatible with the data networks over there in the U.K., so that part won't work for you at all. Also, Amazon won't presently sell their e-books outside the U.S., so you can't purchase them on-line and load them to your Kindle via your computer either.
While the Kindle will read Mobipocket books (which you can get easily get from other e-book vendors), it won't easily read them if they're encrypted (that
DRM stuff you've probably heard about).
So the long and short of it is that while the Kindle will display content for you just fine in the U.K., you'll have a ... very difficult time
getting any content for it, which kinda defeats the purpose.
Given the givens, I'd suggest you look at a
Cybook Gen3 (there's lots of information on it in the
Cybook subforum here). It has the same display as the Kindle (size and all), costs a fair bit less, reads Mobipocket books (encrypted and not) just fine, and is smaller and lighter with better battery life than the Kindle. It's also available in the U.K., with warranty support.
The only thing you really give up is the keyboard, but if you don't make notes in your books that doesn't matter. It doesn't have a wireless delivery for books, but since you can't use that feature on the Kindle where you are
anyway, that's not much of a trade off.
Have a look at the Cybook subforum, and see if that device might not suit you better.