Quote:
Originally Posted by Fletchdad
Hey. I am new here, so please bear with me if I am asking dumb stuff.
I was turned on to the forum from a member of another forum I am active at that deals with online and live poker.
I am thinking about getting a reader, and am on a budget. I only want to read (ATM) so internet etc. is not an issue. Money is. However, I dont want to save 15$ in the wrong place if ya know what I mean.
I am in Germany. I would also look at used stuff - ebay, amazon, is used a bad thing?? - . I have a lot of PDF stuff I want to read. My eyesight is not the best, so I need to be able to adjust font size (this is probably standard??) And I want to be able to buy ebooks anywhere and view them on my reader as well as view some free stuff, and things I have been given over the years.. IDK if certain publishing houses are only viewable on certain readers.
This is probably kids stuff for you all, so links to pertinent threads that answer are fine.
Thanks
|
As always, buying
used stuff has some risk.
And for products with list prices from ca. € 80 to € 200, savings probably won't be that big.
But it might be worth, checking out.
Personally, I can recommend Amazon for that. I find it easier to find and compare products than in eBay. I've sold some stuff there recently. As a seller, you have to define the status of the product (as new, good condition, slightly used, ...). If the description isn't for real, you could send the products back.
From personal experience, I'd say you can expect savings of ca. 20%. Below that, the quality often is too low. You have to decide yourself, whether savings of that range are worth the potential "risk".
As Sweetpea already said:
PDF is one of the "worst" formats for eBooks. If the PDF is scanned pictures, you're basically lost. If it's text, you can reflow it, instead of just zooming in. "Reflow" means, the text gets adjusted to the font size you choose. One of the problems with PDFs: Typically, they are prepared for print, usually in DIN A4 or letter size. If your reader has a smaller display (most are around DIN A5), you either have to zoom and scroll back and forth, which gets annoying rather quickly. Or you reflow the text. This should increase readability, but entirely kills the layout.
This may not be a problem for your typical Stephen King. But often PDFs have a specific design structure. For example text books from university, legal documents and such often look disastrous after reflowing.
Imagine a text book with graphics, text, formulas, headlines, ... All broken down to pure information. Some lost entirely, some looking strange, some mixed together, ...
Buying books "
anywhere" is the most critical part.
Unfortunately, most retailers use copy protection. This is called DRM = Digital Rights Management. Usually, this copy protection can be removed, then you can convert your books to other formats. But removing this copy protection usually is illegal (Germany, for example) and a pain in the ass. But if you want to do this, you're not on your own. You'll get the respective tips without problems...
If you keep the copy protection, the situation basically is:
You buy from Amazon and you only can read those books on Amazon's Kindle reader or in the Kindle apps for tablets/PCs/Smartphones.
Same for many other manufacturers. So, very often you should consider your main source for buying books, before deciding for the respective reader.
Amazon has the biggest collection, but most others are similar. Easiest of course are English books, but German ones are available in increasing numbers as well.
The only exception: Adobe's DRM protection for ePUBs and PDFs has become some kind of a standard. Lots of readers can process this. So you can register your reader with the Adobe account and use those books on various units. For now, that's closest what we've got to "future proof" in eBooks.
Tablets, as you'll find in many threads, become increasingly popular for reading eBooks. Personally, I haven't bought a dedicated reader for 18 months now and mainly use tablets. They're almost as good for reading, but offer additional features, for example using 5 reader apps in parallel = reading books from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo, Weltbild (for Germans), ...
But of course tablets still are more expensive.
As a rule of thumb:
Dedicated reader = € 80 to € 200 (more expensive ones exist, but are kind of "exotic").
Tablets = € 300 to € 600 (cheaper ones exist, but often quality is very low. More expensive ones exist, but are getting rare).
If you want to check out some units...
Personally, I'd recommend:
Dedicated readers:
PocketBook units = variety of readers re. size and screen (with and without touchscreen, for example). Very popular in this forum and well developed firmware.
Amazon Kindle = directly integrated bookstore. You can buy Amazon books without any additional costs directly on the reader. There are models with free 3G access to the bookstore and there are cheap entry models as well. Amazon certainly is one of the market leaders here.
Sony readers = very popular in Germany. They can process ePUB, so they are flexible and you're not stuck to the Sony bookstore.
Tablets:
Apple iPad = If you want to have a cheap model, you can go for the iPad 1. It's 18 months old, but still state of the art. Apple is highly successful in this area and has the biggest number of applications in the market.
Samsung Galaxy Tabs = Seems to be the biggest single competitor of Apple for now. They use Google's Android system and are more "open" than Apple. Less applications than Apple, but still more than enough. Samsung has a huge variety of tablets. You can have the old 7" (ca. DIN A5) model, which is about 14 months old, for a relatively low price.
Hope this helps...
BTW: Don't worry. Everyone had the same questions as you. And even the "veterans" of the scene still from time to time stumble over compatibility issues and such. Lots of people compare the situation of eBooks to digital music about 10 years ago. Most expect, that copy protected eBooks in a few years will fade. But for now, it's still fighting about market share and protecting proprietary formats.
At least, there's one good thing to it: The big players, such as Amazon, seem to be able and willing to sponsor their hardware and aim for margins mainly in the content (books, games, music, applications, movies, ...). So you see prices drop from € 300 to € 500 only a few years ago to € 80 to € 200 for now...