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Old 11-30-2012, 11:38 PM   #1
schulzmc
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iPad Mini Review from a Kindle Fanatic

I've owned 5 different Kindles, including a first hour order of the original Kindle. I read a lot and have spent many hours with a Kindle in hand. I also travel a good bit and in the past have had two devices with on every trip - my Kindle and an iPad or MacBook. I've now had an iPad Mini for a few weeks and have used it instead of an iPad and Kindle. Here are some thoughts:

Pros:
1. One light device that is a joy to hold and use.
2. No eye strain from hours or reading on a non-e-ink device.
3. Battery life is not an issue as long as I charge each night. I had one day with two flights and a five-hour delay and was on the Mini reading, watching movies, and checking email for about 10 hours and I still had 12% of battery when I plugged it in for the night.
4. More flexible device. I'm posting this on my Mini. Try doing that on a Kindle.
5. Screen size is perfect. Like the difference between a standard paperback and a trade paperback. More text per page with the same font size.

Cons:
1. Need to bring a charger. (See #3 above. I never took a Kindle charger with when I traveled.)
2. I had to move away from a brightly lit airport window to read one time. The e-ink screen would have handled the glare with ease.
3. No in-app book purchasing. You can buy books from the Mini but have to use Safari. It's a little convoluted and not nearly as convenient.

All in all - I am probably done buying Kindles. My wife just took over my Paperwhite. The iPad Mini is now my e-reader of choice.
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Old 12-01-2012, 12:06 AM   #2
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#3 is the reason why I have a Paperwhite. When time permits, I read for hours at a time and find that the Mini (or any tablet) will not have enough battery life to last me all day's reading.

Also, sometimes when I read, I want to just read and not have my emails notifications popping.
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Old 12-01-2012, 12:37 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by techiegirl View Post
#3 is the reason why I have a Paperwhite. When time permits, I read for hours at a time and find that the Mini (or any tablet) will not have enough battery life to last me all day's reading.

Also, sometimes when I read, I want to just read and not have my emails notifications popping.
With my usage pattern I only charge my mini every other day, it has plenty of battery if reading is mostly what you use it for.

There is a Do Not Disturb setting that turns off all your notifications.
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Old 12-05-2012, 01:45 PM   #4
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I have not really had an opportunity to try my Mini for pure reading. I have had it for less than a month and I've been traveling for a fair part of that time.

I do enjoy the fact that it makes travel easier because of its smaller profile. That was one of the reasons I bought one and it succeeded admirably on that score. And I also brought one of my Kindles with me because I knew there would be no "learning curve" there!

I will have to give the Mini a workout with regard to reading. That was never an option with the regular iPad as its size is, IMHO, too ungainly for that purpose (i.e., curling up in bed for a long read!).
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Old 12-10-2012, 10:39 AM   #5
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I love my ipad mini but I find there is one major set back in the mini for me, even if I agree with all your points Schulzmc: no shared file! If you want to use another app than ibook to read, you have to think ahead and charge the books in itune in each app you will need them.
And copy them 3 times if there is 3 apps you might need...It's absurd.

On the go, you might need to switch app because ibook doesn'do much execpt open and read...I would like to be able to open an app and go take the book I need from the ibook file, on the mini. That would be logical. That's what you do on a Android tablet as a matter of fact.
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Old 12-10-2012, 11:01 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deneb View Post
I love my ipad mini but I find there is one major set back in the mini for me, even if I agree with all your points Schulzmc: no shared file! If you want to use another app than ibook to read, you have to think ahead and charge the books in itune in each app you will need them.
And copy them 3 times if there is 3 apps you might need...It's absurd.

On the go, you might need to switch app because ibook doesn'do much execpt open and read...I would like to be able to open an app and go take the book I need from the ibook file, on the mini. That would be logical. That's what you do on a Android tablet as a matter of fact.
All iPads are the same in this regard. There is an eBook share app that can be used to copy files for more than one app but each app has its own copy. Android (at least version 2.X) is that way also. I had to root mine in order to get at the locations to copy files but they don't share much better than Apple does. I think some Android apps may be designed to use each others folders perhaps but I am not aware of which ones.

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Old 12-10-2012, 12:44 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by DaleDe View Post
Android (at least version 2.X) is that way also. I had to root mine in order to get at the locations to copy files but they don't share much better than Apple does. I think some Android apps may be designed to use each others folders perhaps but I am not aware of which ones.

Dale
That's not been my experience with Android at all. I've used Aldiko, Cool Reader and Mantano Reader and I had no issues getting any of them to look for books in a specific directory of my choosing (had all my books on /mnt/sdcard/books). No root required. The lowest Android version I've used is Froyo (2.2). Perhaps you just didn't comb through the app options more thoroughly?
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Old 12-10-2012, 05:11 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd View Post
That's not been my experience with Android at all. I've used Aldiko, Cool Reader and Mantano Reader and I had no issues getting any of them to look for books in a specific directory of my choosing (had all my books on /mnt/sdcard/books). No root required.
And I have used fbreader and Moon + Reader Pro. The latter puts its books in /mnt/sdcard/books/Moon+Reader and fb reader just looks in /mnt/sdcard/books and finds all the Moon+Reader books anyway. So, to make things easier, I don't download anything via fbReader because it doesnt care where the books are. Moon+ requires an import. But yeah, no root required (that said, both my Android phones are rooted)
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Old 12-10-2012, 05:23 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deneb View Post
I love my ipad mini but I find there is one major set back in the mini for me, even if I agree with all your points Schulzmc: no shared file! If you want to use another app than ibook to read, you have to think ahead and charge the books in itune in each app you will need them.
And copy them 3 times if there is 3 apps you might need...It's absurd.

On the go, you might need to switch app because ibook doesn'do much execpt open and read...I would like to be able to open an app and go take the book I need from the ibook file, on the mini. That would be logical. That's what you do on a Android tablet as a matter of fact.
What about the Kindle app?
I read mostly on my Kindle, but it's great being able to switch to an ipad like that.
Or am I misunderstanding what you are trying to accomplish?
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Old 12-11-2012, 02:14 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deneb View Post
I love my ipad mini but I find there is one major set back in the mini for me, even if I agree with all your points Schulzmc: no shared file! If you want to use another app than ibook to read, you have to think ahead and charge the books in itune in each app you will need them.
And copy them 3 times if there is 3 apps you might need...It's absurd.

On the go, you might need to switch app because ibook doesn'do much execpt open and read...I would like to be able to open an app and go take the book I need from the ibook file, on the mini. That would be logical. That's what you do on a Android tablet as a matter of fact.
While I agree that the application sand-boxing and lack of shared files/folders is annoying, there are workarounds to having to pre-load books via iTunes to different apps. I just store my ebooks on Dropbox and use the "Open In..." functionality in the Dropbox app. Of course, it does require either an active internet connection or that you have starred the file in the Dropbox so you have an offline copy. It's still inefficient in terms of storage space (e.g. you might have a copy of the same book in Dropbox, iBooks and Bluefire) but unless Apple relaxes its policies, it's a decent enough workaround.
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