Kindle ebooks vs Kobo ebooks

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by detayls

I don't understand all this rooting and DRM stripping. Here's my take:

• [
• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about DRM removal - that's just silly paranoia
  

You obviously never had books go missing from your Archive that you bought. I have and I had to call Kindle support to put them back. Luckily I keep all my invoices on my 4000+ books or I would've loss those books. I now keep all my books backed up on Calibre.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Yes but that epub made not be the publisher's version if it's before July 2010. It's called a kepub. Here's some screenshots of one I bought. So you can see what it looks like and why you don't want to buy one of these. They don't even have the images. All downloaded in ADE.

You see before epub was dominant on the market there was Lit and Mobi (Not Kindle) and so books were in that format. So Kobo would convert those books to look like this. They still sell them too so you just got to be careful when buying older books. I bought one last Christmas by mistake.

Nice. If Kobo makes their line spacing a liiiitle bit bigger still, and they make sure there is a white line between each line of text in the book too as they do here, then they may actually succeed in putting NO text on the page at all. To reach that elusive goal, they could of course make the display of the title and page number a bit bigger too, I suppose.

So, if a book is before 2010, I need to watch out with Kobo. I've not bought many books at their store (as often BoB or Diesel were cheaper), but I've been lucky apparantly.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by detayls

I don't understand all this rooting and DRM stripping. Here's my take:

• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about rooting - it's an eBook reader. Get over it.
• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about DRM removal - that's just silly paranoia
• Buy from one place - I chose Amazon
• Enjoy the synching - why I chose Amazon - I have iPhone and Kindle
• Wait for the price to be right with sales - pay $1.99 or less
• Borrow as much as you can from your local library - you will be amazed
• Find the correct reader for comfortable reading - Paperwhite
• Use a bolder font and don't be ashamed of older eyes - caecilia is the only choice
• Read more shop less

Then here is my response to that, point for point.

• Rooting can sometimes open the door to very useful functions that can, at least for some people, greatly enhance the reading experience. It's not your decision to deny them this. Of course, I'd like to see a reader that does not need to be rooted to customize, but companies want to lock stuff down to lock you into their walled garden. Which brings us to the next point....
• Removing DRM is paranoid? Oh, so you mean that games and music that became unplayable because the DRM-servers went off-line because of a company going bust are all just made up? People did NOT loose access to those games and music? And BooksOnBoard is not belly up? If Adobe decides to pull their de-encryption key from their ADE server, for whatever reason (maybe because a judge orders them to, because they didn't pay publishers or something), all your books bought with them become useless and unreadable.
• Happy shopping. I often buy cheaper from other places, and I'm not locked into one reader as you are (because of your previous point).
• Many people have only one device to read on; as do I. And if I had multiple, I'd not read the same book on multiple devices. Syncing is of no use to me. This syncing feature, combined with not removing DRM, gives Amazon the power to remove books from your device remotely. They have done it before. If necessary, they'll do it again. They are a huge company. Therefore I don't trust them. Or any other big company for that matter. I'll manage my own media, seperate from their systems. (And that, surprisingly, requires DRM-removal.)
• I often do.
• I can't. In the Netherlands, the books I want to read are not in the library and they don't offer ebooks, except on a very, very limited scale. Gutenberg has more stuff in Dutch ebook-format than the Dutch libraries themselves. They actually point to Gutenberg for everything that's out of copyright.
• That's a matter of opinion. If something else comes along that I deem to be better / is better, I'll buy that reader. I can, and you cannot. All because I removed DRM, and you didn't.
• You have no idea. There are fonts around that are MUCH better than Caecilia, in readability, lines per page, characters per line, and all at the same time at that. I created one myself.
• ---

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Nice. If Kobo makes their line spacing a liiiitle bit bigger still, and they make sure there is a white line between each line of text in the book too as they do here, then they may actually succeed in putting NO text on the page at all. To reach that elusive goal, they could of course make the display of the title and page number a bit bigger too, I suppose.

So, if a book is before 2010, I need to watch out with Kobo. I've not bought many books at their store (as often BoB or Diesel were cheaper), but I've been lucky apparantly.

July 2010 is when they started adding publisher's versions. You use to be able to preview the books but I think they took that feature away.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'd like to see a reader that does not need to be rooted to customize,

I would argue that the Kobo Glo fits this to a T. (And the Mini).

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by detayls

I don't understand all this rooting and DRM stripping. Here's my take:

• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about rooting - it's an eBook reader. Get over it.
• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about DRM removal - that's just silly paranoia
• Buy from one place - I chose Amazon
• Enjoy the synching - why I chose Amazon - I have iPhone and Kindle
• Wait for the price to be right with sales - pay $1.99 or less
• Borrow as much as you can from your local library - you will be amazed
• Find the correct reader for comfortable reading - Paperwhite
• Use a bolder font and don't be ashamed of older eyes - caecilia is the only choice
• Read more shop less

Surely you jest....or are you looking for an arguement?

[Shopaholic]

Originally Posted by detayls

I don't understand all this rooting and DRM stripping. Here's my take:

• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about rooting - it's an eBook reader. Get over it.
• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about DRM removal - that's just silly paranoia
• Buy from one place - I chose Amazon
• Enjoy the synching - why I chose Amazon - I have iPhone and Kindle
• Wait for the price to be right with sales - pay $1.99 or less
• Borrow as much as you can from your local library - you will be amazed
• Find the correct reader for comfortable reading - Paperwhite
• Use a bolder font and don't be ashamed of older eyes - caecilia is the only choice
• Read more shop less

Opinionated much?

[Josieb1]

[QUOTE=detayls;2518926]I don't understand all this rooting and DRM stripping. Here's my take:

• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about rooting - it's an eBook reader. Get over it.
• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about DRM removal - that's just silly paranoia
• Buy from one place - I chose Amazon
• Enjoy the synching - why I chose Amazon - I have iPhone and Kindle
• Wait for the price to be right with sales - pay $1.99 or less
• Borrow as much as you can from your local library - you will be amazed
• Find the correct reader for comfortable reading - Paperwhite
• Use a bolder font and don't be ashamed of older eyes - caecilia is the only choice
• Read more shop less

The only comment I would add to this, baring in mind I don't agree with much of what you said is that in the UK we cannot borrow library books that can be read on a Kindle, so anyone wanting to buy cheap books would probably have a Kindle but would need a ePub reader for library books.

Its not always possible to have one ereader for all options.

[athenat]

Originally Posted by detayls

I don't understand all this rooting and DRM stripping. Here's my take:

• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about rooting - it's an eBook reader. Get over it.
• Ignore ALL the foofuraw about DRM removal - that's just silly paranoia
• Buy from one place - I chose Amazon
• Enjoy the synching - why I chose Amazon - I have iPhone and Kindle
• Wait for the price to be right with sales - pay $1.99 or less
• Borrow as much as you can from your local library - you will be amazed
• Find the correct reader for comfortable reading - Paperwhite
• Use a bolder font and don't be ashamed of older eyes - caecilia is the only choice
• Read more shop less

Totally agree....

[BeccaPrice]

I can't use the Collections manager without jailbreaking my kindle, and I use it frequently.
putting lots of books into collections the way they want you to is just too painful.

I like to back up my books, and be able to format shift so I can read on either my kindle or my sony.

we all have different needs.

[chilady1]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I buy from the cheapest place. Period.

I wont be locked into a device. I cleaned up my books in Calibre and convert them to mobi and epub.

DITTO!

[haydnfan]

I find it funny that someone finds kobo books to be cheaper, but prefers reading on the kindle. It is the mirror image for me. This is why the walled garden is terrible for the customer. It takes away freedom. Down with DRM!

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by bokolobs

Thanks for the responses. Turns out the Rabbit books are $13.99 each ($58 for the 4 books) on Amazon so even with the additional features such as syncing, etc. and ease of buying, I just can't justify the $26 price difference to myself. With the discount codes I used with Kobo, I bought the 4 books for a total of $31.00. I have some issues with the formatting and conversion (page breaks). But I could live with them.

I have a friend though who insists on buying only from Amazon even though I mentioned the codes and price difference to him. I don't fully get it. I told him to try to convince me to do the same. Because really, I want to buy from just one store. I want to buy books using only my device and wifi. I want my highlights and notes backed up. I want immaculate formatting. But do those features amount to almost 50% of the price? I'm still not convinced.

I just looked and the books are $11.99 from Amazon in the U.S. You haven't told us where you are but I'm guessing, and it's just a guess, Canada.

Why in the world would you challenge him to convince you of anything? Do what you want? Buy a Kobo and forget about it.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

I find it funny that someone finds kobo books to be cheaper, but prefers reading on the kindle. It is the mirror image for me. This is why the walled garden is terrible for the customer. It takes away freedom. Down with DRM!

Kobo and other EPUB-sellers are not always cheaper.

However, I greatly prefer EPUB over AZW(3) or MOBI. Even if the EPUB-sellers are more expensive, they stand a chance to sell a book to me, if the price difference is not too great.

For example, let's say I want to buy a series that consists of 5 books. Kobo, or another EPUB retailer sells them for €4.99 a piece, for a total of €24.95. Amazon has a bundle, for a price of €23.15 (after converting from $ to €). Then I would still go for the EPUBs.

If Amazon would sell the bundle for €19.95 or even less, then I'd start thinking aboutu buying there, and then just convert the AZW into EPUB, and use the converted file as my base format.

Yeah, you've seen that right; having a book as an original EPUB is worth about a €1 price premium per book, for me. If it's more than that, then I start looking at the Amazon offerings. It doesn't matter too much for me, as I don't buy hundreds and hundreds of books a year. Because I also read free classics, I buy around 30-40 books a year; at most.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by detayls

[*]Ignore ALL the foofuraw about DRM removal - that's just silly paranoia

Those who think that concern about losing access to DRMed media is paranoia should check out the Obsolescence section of the Wikipedia article on DRM.

It lists nine instances in the past seven years where people have lost access to DRMed ebooks because providers either went out of business or decided to stop supporting a particular DRM system.

It also lists several instances of loss of DRMed music and video.

It's not paranoia to think that it'll happen again.