Kindle as and Audiobook Player

[eville]

Hello,
I'm hopefully getting a Kindle 3 for xmas. I'm so excited.

But my question is...
My mom wants a device to start listening to audiobooks. I want to get her this for xmas. She doesn't think she wants a Kindle for a reader. I think once she has one, she will enjoy it.
I've read reviews on the audiobook player on the K3 but am still torn which way to go. Should I get her the Kindle or should I get her another device for audiobooks only?
Opinions?
Thanks.
steve

[GoblinWriter]

Where does she want to listen to them? An iPod or other compact mp3 player might make more sense if she will be walking or listening at the gym or something.

[eville]

Originally Posted by GoblinWriter

Where does she want to listen to them? An iPod or other compact mp3 player might make more sense if she will be walking or listening at the gym or something.

While driving or while at home, Knitting, etc.

[dwig]

The K3 is an adequate audiobook player.

Pluses:
1. Large screen display of book entries.
2. Built-in speakers

Negatives:
1. The various tracks for multi-file books have to be "bundled" into a Collection for easy management when more than one book is on the device at a time. This must be done on the device itself; it can't be done from a PC.

[janvanmaar]

While driving or while at home, Knitting, etc.

I does sound like an overkill to buy Kindle for this purpose but yes, in principle it can be done. The Kindle audiobook player and the speakers are decent.

However, an important restriction may be the space: ~3.2 GB of usable space may sound sufficient but audiobooks tend to be large and there is no way to get more space on the Kindle. Devoted music players or even mobile phones are, or at least can be, of tens of GB.

While it is not important while driving or knitting, it may still be good to know that you cannot use your Kindle in any other way while listening to the audiobook - a restriction that I personally find very limiting and unnecessary, as playing sound in the background certainly is possible - as the built-in MP3 player shows. A pity as being able to list through the book while listening to it may have been a cool feature.

Add the dummy on-device-only collections organization to it.

So in summary, it can be done but I would not do it. If your mom wants an audiobook player then getting one for her may be cheaper and more functional solution, unless you are confident that the mentioned restrictions are not a problem and you are confident that the Kindle would eventually get used for reading books also - in that case it may be good choice.

[ziegl027]

Originally Posted by eville

While driving or while at home, Knitting, etc.

A lot of knitting patterns are available as PDF's. I find my Sony just about perfect for keeping patterns on, and since I can annotate it, I can keep track of rows and so forth. I've also been known to copy and paste free knitting pattern files into a format useable on my Sony.

Can't use my DXG as well, of course, since IT doesn't allow annotations of PDF's, but I'm told the K3 does

[tomsem]

IMO, Amazon screwed up on the K3's Audible integration: you can only download Enhanced format over wifi (instead of the more compact '4'), and it comes in one big audio file rather than in parts that you can manage separately.

The player interface is also kind of clunky. It is very awkward to back up to the start of a previous chapter, there are no bookmarks, and it is missing of the playback options normally found on my iPod ('scan', 2x speed, etc.).

I tried, really tried, to like using Kindle as my audiobook player. But in the end I just went back to using my iPod.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I also stick to my iPod for audiobooks, especially when in the car. I agree that the Kindle is probably overkill. My mom wanted to listen to audiobooks too so I started her with an iPod shuffle. She liked it so much that then I got her an iPod nano so she could have more storage space for her music. Then I got her an iPod speaker dock so she can listen to her music without headphones. She really liked that gift.

Also, you should see if your mom's local library has audiobooks which she can download from their website for free. Audiobooks can be surprisingly expensive.

[terencek]

In fact what I have not seen mentioned anywhere is that the K3 can function as a very nice standalone podcast player, if like me you want to listen on speakers, not headphones.

The trick is to dump your podcasts into the Audiobooks directory on the Kindle, which will recognise MP3s. A fairly basic interface then allows reasonable navigation through your podcast, including the ability to resume from where you left off after any time -- or even days or weeks! I've added Podcasts to my list of Collections for easy access.

Audio quality is good for this purpose, with sufficient volume for personal or small-group listening. Not great for music (for which you'd be better plugging in headphones), but doing it through the Audiobooks folder gives you the interface control over your audio files which you do not get if you put them in a music folder, which only allows background audio without an interface and no selection choice.

[ECampbellGreybul]

Hi All!
I have a Kindle Touch. I want to listen to my audio.com books, in my car, on my car speakers. CAN I OR CAN'T I??? I am a techno-dolt when it comes to knowing what cables or whatever to buy. Can someone please tell me if this is possible, and what I need to purchase to make this happen? The volume on the Kindle Touch is FAR too soft to hear in the car, and I believe that earbuds are against the law ... DON'T TELL ME TO CONTACT AMAZON ... WHAT A JOKE! I spent 36 minutes explaining to a man in India what I wanted and he told me no, that I couldn't do that. I guess I don't believe him. If it's true, then I need someone else's second opinion, because I just don't feel that he and I were communicating ... What we had was a failure to communicate!!

[alanHd]

if you car stereo does not have a line in for an ipod etc but does have a tape deck you could always get something like this.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...0car%20adapter

Edit

Even at a push you could probably get an FM transmitter to work.

[BeccaPrice]

My son's car has a line-in jack (clearly retro-fitted, and not particularly artistically, but it works just fine). My car has a cassette player, and I use a cassette adapter to good effect with my iPod. My husband uses earphones (although I'd rather he didn't)

I called our local police on the question of using ear buds, and they said that, as long as your hearing isn't occluded (like using noise-cancelling headphones, I imagine), ear buds are legal - but that's in Michigan; I don't know where you are. And, I imagine that if my husband got stopped for another reason, the police wouldn't be happy about his earphone use, even if it's nominally legal.

[pidgeon92]

It depends on the features of your car stereo. If your car has an audio in jack, this is your best option. You can get a male-to-male cable that looks like this (about $4-$6 online, I've paid as much as $10 at Radioshack when I needed one right away):



If it has a cassette player, you can get the kind of adapter alanHd suggested.

If you are in a highly populated urban area, an FM transmitter is almost useless. There are no open frequencies here in Chicago, I was only able to use an FM transmitter when I was way out of the city.

If your car stereo won't give you a good option, there are a lot of portable speakers that will work. I have tried out a lot of small speakers, and this one has the highest volume output:

http://www.amazon.com/BoomBotix-Port...ords=boombotix

Earbuds while driving are just a bad idea. You want to be able to hear emergency sirens.