Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizla
Re: accessible book formats, the Kindle does not support the global open-source format epub which is popular with all other e-readers. Amazon does this to lock you into their purchasing environment. So if you want to utilize the huge-range of free content available on the internet, you will have to learn to convert it into the amazon proprietary format in order to read it. This is not difficult (you use a free program called Calibre) but may not be possible for you mum. You will probably have to do stuff like that for her, but if you do want to get the free stuff, you will probably have to help your mum to some extent no matter the e-reader you choose. Of course, your mum might be a computer guru  |
If by locking you in you mean that you can buy books from Amazon and pretty much every independent e-book vendor, most sell Mobi and E-Pub because it makes good sense to sell both, and all the websites that provide public domain books for free, which provide books both in Mobi and EPub, then yes you are locked in.
Essentially, you cannot buy books from Sony (sucky bookstore), Barnes and Noble (already not available for any one outside the US without jumping through hopes) and Kobo but you can from a large number of other sites.
Nevermind that Amazon has the largest e-book store which means that she is likely to find what she wants to read there at a competitive price so she probably won't have to leave Amazon.
And you talk about Kindle owners being foaming at the mouth fan boys. I am starting to wonder if Jon has managed to take over your account and passing on his anti-Amazon campaign under another name.