Is the Kindle really such a mediocre reading device? - Page 5

ApK · 10-02-2011, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Rehorst

Simple text files are sometimes put into pdf format to prevent most people from tampering with them. For example, pdf is a good file format to use for resumes, especially those that will be posted to web sites.

Pretty sure Harry was referring to simple text EBOOKS.

HarryT · 10-02-2011, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApK

Pretty sure Harry was referring to simple text EBOOKS.

Yes, I was.

Meemo · 10-02-2011, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibex333

.............................

WTF?! EPUB is not supported?!

I have to use converters? And if I want reflow I have to email files to Amazon?! Are you kidding me? We are talking about a 60 year old man here... He doesn't know how to deal with this shit... I should have recommended him a Nook..

Now off course the standard reply would be... "You should have done your homework before recommending anything to anyone!" But with all the positive reviews it was hard to see through the BS. Virtually EVERY ebook reader supports reflow and many support EPUB! I wonder if the new Kindle Touch is also crippled in the same horrible way, and if it is so, I would have to wonder how anyone in their right mind would buy this device over the Nook...

The ONLY nice thing I noticed about the Kindle is the fact that, for technical PDFs, it is nice to be able to scroll horizontally through the graphics/pictures on the page.. But then it is also necessary to enable reflow when needed.

Lets put it this way... Kindle is a MAC. And Nook is PC. Nuff said.

Wow. Way to make a good first impression, with your 7 whole posts.

Well, yes, you should've done your homework. If ePub and PDF are vital to your reading existence then Kindle probably isn't for you. Maybe you could've been a skosh less insulting to towards 60-year-olds. We aren't senile, y'know - I've got a Kindle and had a Nook Classic for about a year, and I infinitely prefer the Kindle (and gave away the Nook). Then again, I prefer Macs over PCs too. Personally, I avoid PDFs - they suck on a 6" screen. They just do. On both readers. At least the ones I've tried. So I avoid them. It is possible for lots of folks to do that, y'know. And despite the fact that I'm ancient at 60 - I absolutely know how to convert an ePub to a mobi file - and I know how to liberate it first. How old are you, anyway, 15??? Plenty of folks did their research before buying Kindles, knew they didn't handle PDFs well, knew they didn't do ePubs, and still bought Kindle for the great bookstore and fabulous customer service.

I hated my Nook. I don't like B&N for customer service, and I don't like their DRM. I do have a Nook Color now, but I bought it refurbished and rooted it with an SC card and leave it on the CM7 side, and I don't buy B&N books. (I do pick up some freebies, though.

) Everything I tried to do on that original Nook took way more steps to accomplish than on my 2nd gen Kindle - except checking the time - thanks to that sucky LCD screen. The Nook Touch is a much nicer device, but still, no thanks. I'll stick with the much better Kindle bookstore and the much more accommodating Kindle CS, who won't treat me like a criminal or moron, or a moronic criminal, if I call with an issue.

Other than that, I have no opinion....

ibex333 · 10-02-2011, 03:15 PM

I am NOT a troll. I was genuinely angry about not being able to help my friend!

The reason why I recommended him a Kindle over the Nook, is because back then, I had the 1st edition of the Nook, NOT Nook STR and Kindle 3 was already out. I figured, rather than recommending him an outdated device, I should recommend something new and "improved"?

Yes, it was probably dumb of me either way, but again, given the reduced price of the Kindle, and the hundreds of positive reviews, I couldn't have imagined that the latest model of the Kindle is actually worse than the 1st edition of the Nook!

Oh, and I used Calibre to convert all those PDFs he wanted to Mobi. The files simply don't open on the Kindle, or so he tells me...

And I didn't come to a Kindle forum to bash the Kindle. Yes, I ended up bashing it in the process, but my intention was to voice my disgust with this piece of $@&^ of a device and hopefully get some advice on how I can make those PDFs "readable" on this guys Kindle.

And I don't understand why so many people bring up the Kindle store to defend the Kindle. (sort of like people bring up the Apple store to defend their products) I, and thousands of other people out there DO NOT buy e-books! So how is the book store relevant? It is nice to have. Absolutely. But is it necessary? Is it something that is a huge bonus, and a huge boon over the competition? There are free books available online, many of which can be obtained very legally and absolutely free. Now, why is it that I should bother with any "stores", when I can get what I need for free? And when the manufacturer doesn't let me read what I obtain on the internet, forcing me to PAY for THEIR version of the SAME thing, I see a very big problem with that. Also keep in mind that many books people read, may not necessarily be written in English, and when that is the case, many of these books pretty much MUST be obtained through "not-so-legal" means where, again, the Kindle store is completely irrelevant. There was one occurrence where I actually BOUGHT a book from the Kindle store to read on my PC, and I really regretted doing that, because the book was very poorly formatted, and the page numbers were non existent.

Nyssa · 10-02-2011, 03:33 PM

You thought inflammatory language and the gnashing of teeth was going to get you further than "please" and" thank you"?

The first thing that jumps out at me from your post is

Quote:

"The files simply don't open on the Kindle, or so he tells me..."

So I have to ask...have you looked at the PDFs while on his Kindle, yourself?

HarryT · 10-02-2011, 03:37 PM

My God. What kind of PIECE OF SHIT is that Nook garbage if it won't read books from the most popular bookstore in the world????? WHY would anyone BUY that GARBAGE???

Harry_Y · 10-02-2011, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

My God. What kind of PIECE OF SHIT is that Nook garbage if it won't read books from the most popular bookstore in the world????? WHY would anyone BUY that GARBAGE???

pidgeon92 · 10-02-2011, 03:46 PM

Why on earth would you recommend and do tech support on a piece of hardware you haven't researched and have never used?

By the way, there are reasons for those "hundreds" of positive reviews. The Kindle works exceedingly well using the formats that are available for purchase in the Amazon Kindle store. My Kindle works A-OK.

Serpentine · 10-02-2011, 03:50 PM

You can try using the PDF reflow in Duokan; it's pretty solid. It might not be the best solution, but it might be worth it in this case. You also gain 'native' epub support. Anyway, just a shot in the dark.

HarryT · 10-02-2011, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

Why on earth would you recommend and do tech support on a piece of hardware you haven't researched and have never used?

Yes, quite. I think that's the point we're all making. It's really rather silly to recommend a device to someone that you know nothing about, and then criticise it because it doesn't do things that it was never actually intended to in the first place.

ibex333 · 10-02-2011, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nyssa

You thought inflammatory language and the gnashing of teeth was going to get you further than "please" and" thank you"?

The first thing that jumps out at me from your post is

So I have to ask...have you looked at the PDFs while on his Kindle, yourself?

Off course I have. The "or so he tells me", was about the mobi converted books...

And I don't see how the Kindle or Nook stores are relevant for someone who simply doesn't use them. What is relevant however, is the devices ability to read e-books in various formats regardless of how those e-books were obtained. Not everyone reads e-books in English, and there are other websites to get them other than Amazon or B&N.

HarryT · 10-02-2011, 04:01 PM

There are indeed, and ePub is the standard format used by pretty much everyone except Amazon. The point still remains, though: why buy a Kindle if what you actually want to do is read ePub books? The most elementary research would have told you that the Kindle doesn't support ePub.

Nyssa · 10-02-2011, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibex333

Off course I have. The "or so he tells me", was about the mobi converted books...

How does that change my question? If you are helping him, then shouldn't you look at it yourself? Shouldn't you try converting it, and loading it onto his Kindle and see whats happening so that you have a better understanding of where things are going wrong? This is especially true if you feel it is above his experience level as you indicated in your original post.

What it boils down to is this:

No one is going to want to help you, much less be able to help you, if you're going to spend your time insulting everything, defending your insults and not giving any actual helpful feedback with which they can work.

kennyc · 10-02-2011, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

My God. What kind of PIECE OF SHIT is that Nook garbage if it won't read books from the most popular bookstore in the world????? WHY would anyone BUY that GARBAGE???

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry_Y

kennyc · 10-02-2011, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibex333

Off course I have. The "or so he tells me", was about the mobi converted books...

And I don't see how the Kindle or Nook stores are relevant for someone who simply doesn't use them. What is relevant however, is the devices ability to read e-books in various formats regardless of how those e-books were obtained. Not everyone reads e-books in English, and there are other websites to get them other than Amazon or B&N.

Yes there are and you should choose your ebook reader accordingly.

10-02-2011, 03:15 PM	#64
ibex333 Junior Member Posts: 9 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: Nook Classic, Nook STR	I am NOT a troll. I was genuinely angry about not being able to help my friend! The reason why I recommended him a Kindle over the Nook, is because back then, I had the 1st edition of the Nook, NOT Nook STR and Kindle 3 was already out. I figured, rather than recommending him an outdated device, I should recommend something new and "improved"? Yes, it was probably dumb of me either way, but again, given the reduced price of the Kindle, and the hundreds of positive reviews, I couldn't have imagined that the latest model of the Kindle is actually worse than the 1st edition of the Nook! Oh, and I used Calibre to convert all those PDFs he wanted to Mobi. The files simply don't open on the Kindle, or so he tells me... And I didn't come to a Kindle forum to bash the Kindle. Yes, I ended up bashing it in the process, but my intention was to voice my disgust with this piece of $@&^ of a device and hopefully get some advice on how I can make those PDFs "readable" on this guys Kindle. And I don't understand why so many people bring up the Kindle store to defend the Kindle. (sort of like people bring up the Apple store to defend their products) I, and thousands of other people out there DO NOT buy e-books! So how is the book store relevant? It is nice to have. Absolutely. But is it necessary? Is it something that is a huge bonus, and a huge boon over the competition? There are free books available online, many of which can be obtained very legally and absolutely free. Now, why is it that I should bother with any "stores", when I can get what I need for free? And when the manufacturer doesn't let me read what I obtain on the internet, forcing me to PAY for THEIR version of the SAME thing, I see a very big problem with that. Also keep in mind that many books people read, may not necessarily be written in English, and when that is the case, many of these books pretty much MUST be obtained through "not-so-legal" means where, again, the Kindle store is completely irrelevant. There was one occurrence where I actually BOUGHT a book from the Kindle store to read on my PC, and I really regretted doing that, because the book was very poorly formatted, and the page numbers were non existent. Last edited by ibex333; 10-02-2011 at 03:53 PM.

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10-02-2011, 03:37 PM	#66
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,556 Karma: 93980341 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	My God. What kind of PIECE OF SHIT is that Nook garbage if it won't read books from the most popular bookstore in the world????? WHY would anyone BUY that GARBAGE???

10-02-2011, 03:46 PM	#68
pidgeon92 Wizard Posts: 3,144 Karma: 8426142 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Chicago, IL Device: Kindle PW2, Kindle Voyage, Kindle DXG, Boox M90, Kobo Aura HD	Why on earth would you recommend and do tech support on a piece of hardware you haven't researched and have never used? By the way, there are reasons for those "hundreds" of positive reviews. The Kindle works exceedingly well using the formats that are available for purchase in the Amazon Kindle store. My Kindle works A-OK.

10-02-2011, 03:50 PM	#69
Serpentine Evangelist Posts: 416 Karma: 1045911 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Cape Town, South Africa Device: Kindle 3	You can try using the PDF reflow in Duokan; it's pretty solid. It might not be the best solution, but it might be worth it in this case. You also gain 'native' epub support. Anyway, just a shot in the dark.

10-02-2011, 04:01 PM	#72
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,556 Karma: 93980341 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	There are indeed, and ePub is the standard format used by pretty much everyone except Amazon. The point still remains, though: why buy a Kindle if what you actually want to do is read ePub books? The most elementary research would have told you that the Kindle doesn't support ePub.