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Originally Posted by sun surfer
Part of it also may have had to do with my rebel spirit - If the majority were jumping off the Kindle cliff and telling me that I should too, should I have no follow? No!
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If people all go like "Oooh... wooow.... *slobber*... Wannahaaaaave!" over a device, without even wanting to see its flaws or shortcomings, then it's almost guaranteed that I WON'T be getting it, because I don't feel well being with such people on forums or in real life.
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Since then things have evolved of course, and I can use calibre somewhat well enough now, and Kindles no longer have keyboards
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The first Kindle was just plain uuu-gly. (IMHO.) I don't need a physical keyboard on a reading device. I don't use it for typing anything except when searching for a book.
I had a Cybook Gen3 for a few months in the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008, as you can see by the registration date on the left. I didn't like it; not as a reader, and not with regard to getting content for it, so I sold it; at quite some loss. After selling the Gen3, I didn't post here for almost 3 years.
The Kindle Touch is the first e-reader that made me go like: "Yeah, e-readers are now usable." Not only with regard to the device, also with available content, which seemed to suddenly explode somewhere in 2010. Calibre had grown from a small hobby project into some serious heavy-weight stuff in the e-reading world. So, I started looking into e-readers again in 2011.
I chose to use EPUB as my base format, Calibre as a conversion / library tool (what else?
) and the Kindle Touch to actually read on, because I liked that reader the best at that time.
The Paperwhite is exactly what I wanted: a thinner, lighter Kindle Touch with a built-in light. I'd be quite happy if the Paperwhite was just refined every year (KPW2, 3, 4, 5...). Then I'd just jump from 1 to 3 to 5 or 1 to 4 to 7 or something.
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So I began to wonder how many others have never owned a Kindle on this site, given how dominant Amazon have been in e-reading. I realise there's quite a few happier with other brands and products, but many of them have also owned Kindles before.
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The Kindle is not my first choice by default.
I also don't buy books at Amazon. I only do that if there is no other option, or if they are VASTLY cheaper than the cheapest EPUB seller.
Calibre + de-DRM-ing gave me the possibility to buy and de-DRM EPUBs, and then choose the reader I like best at the time I'm wanting to buy one. Last year, that was the Paperwhite. This year, I won't buy any. If Kobo or Bokeen or someone else pulls some sort of epic feat next year, waltzing the KPW1, 2 (and 3) into the ground and stomping on it for good measure, I'll buy that.
I don't really care what the device I have uses, as long as Calibre can convert to it without problems.
So yes, I have a Kindle, but no, I'm not a Kindle or Amazon fan(atic) per se.
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Originally Posted by ProfCrash
I still chuckle at the walled garden comments on this site. If Amazon has a wall, it is about two feet tall and has massive holes cut through it not to mention tunnels. Pretty much everyone here is capable of removing DRM, I would guess just about 75% of the posters here strip DRM, so I don't buy the walled garden line.
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On the other hand, i wouldn't be surpised if MobileRead only makes up like 0.01% of all the people who use e-readers...
I would not be surprised if there are many people that just buy books at Amazon and have it sent to their Kindle, just to delete it after they're done reading it, fully trusting on Amazon's cloud forever. (Replace Amazon with Kobo or Sony or B&N or any other company that has its own reader+book store combination.)