Quote:
Originally Posted by echoleaf
I searched online for the last 15 books I've read to see what ebook formats they were available in, since I've never read/bought an ebook: - 6 books not available in any format
- 6 books were mobi, Kindle & pdf
- 2 books were Kindle & mobi
- 1 book was Kindle & pdf
- 1 book was Kindle only
1. Does Amazon have a lot of books not available anywhere else? |
These are all presumably Secure PDFs, so the PDFs are only readable by Adobe Digital Editions and the Sony Readers. Since the Kindle's AZW is essentially identical to MOBI, ebooks are usually available in MOBI if they are on the Kindle. There are a few exceptions, so 1 Kindle only ebook sounds about right. The only "Kindle and PDF" ebooks I can think of are from O'Reilly. These are actually available directly from the
publisher as a DRM-free bundle of PDF, ePub and MOBI. So this is one case where buying the Kindle only version is a bad deal. The MOBI version is optimized for the Kindle, but should be ok on other MOBI capabile EInk readers.
In the US the Hanlin V3 is sold as the EZ Reader. It is possible to order the BeBook from Europe, but shipping is faster for the EZ Reader. I have a Kindle and an EZ Reader. There isn't much to choose between them for MOBI ebooks, the Kindle has a cleaner font but the EZ Reader shows more text per page. I like the EZ Reader's directory support, which is a big help if you have a lot of ebooks. I did not try CHM, but I doubt this is all that great on the EZ Reader. It is sometimes possible to use Windows MobiPocket Reader to convert CHM to MOBI, but this often does not work. The Kindle does not read PDFs, you have to convert them to AZW (MOBI) and this option is also available for other devices via Windows MobiPocket Reader.
Buying for the Kindle is extremely easy, even without Whispernet. If convenience is paramount, then the Kindle is best. The Cybook (available in the US from Books on Board) may today have better MOBI support than the EZ Reader, but Hanlin has a much shorter software upgrade cycle than Bookeen and it is catching up. The Cybook does not have directory support. The EZ Reader does not have dictionary support.