K3 audible book samples & sources & battery life

[cybmole]

1. I'd like to both see & hear how kindle 3 handles audible format books. are there any free samples or sources that can be used for testing playback ?

2. what effect does listening to audio books have on battery life. it will surely drain it faster - but how fast ?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by cybmole

1. I'd like to both see & hear how kindle 3 handles audible format books. are there any free samples or sources that can be used for testing playback ?

2. what effect does listening to audio books have on battery life. it will surely drain it faster - but how fast ?

You can use any MP3 file to test this (free audiobooks on gutenberg.org for example), just drop it into the Kindle /audible directory and it will show up as an item that you can open from your Home screen. Or you could sign up for 30 day 'free' trial on Audible and try actual content.

Yes, the battery drains faster, perhaps 5-10 times faster than with normal reading (but that's just a guess). TTS also drains the battery faster, and probably moreso than audio playback. I haven't found it to be an issue.

I am finding there is a little more 'noise' in the circuitry than with K2, or at least that's been my impression (but I need to do a direct comparison to confirm this). Every so often there's a fraction of a second 'dropout', particularly when first starting up a new audio session, as if there's some background process that is interrupting (freeing up memory?), or when the screensaver kicks in. When wifi is on and actively downloading, it causes some whining noises. But no need to have wireless on, and the 'dropouts' seem to diminish after awhile.

Another issue is that when you download content over wifi, you have to download the entire audiobook, and it is in the largest format, 'enhanced'. A 26 hour audiobook I have takes roughly 750MB of storage. The format '4' version that you can download to the computer and move over with USB cable would be about half that size, and split into 3 parts. So if you need to manage space, you can't use the wifi download option except for smaller audiobooks, and the only way to check the space requirements on Kindle itself is to use its browser to visit your library listing on audible.com. The link in 'Archived Items' won't give you this information. (I should see what happens if you try to download something you don't have enough space for...)

Given Kindle's limited storage, I will probably stop using it for audible content once the iPod Touch I've ordered arrives (depending on how well the audible app works). I would really like to see Amazon come out with a 'hybrid' format (audio plus text) of some sort that would be playable on Kindle (or via Kindle or Audible app for other platforms). I'd like to be able to do straight reading, or text searches, then have it read to me - like TTS, only with an actual performance rather than synthesized one.

[cybmole]

[QUOTE=tomsem;1124088]You can use any MP3 file to test this (free audiobooks on gutenberg.org for example), just drop it into the Kindle /audible directory and it will show up as an item that you can open from your Home screen. Or you could sign up for 30 day 'free' trial on Audible and try actual content.

QUOTE]

well no - the functionality for mp3 is not the same as the claimed functionality for audible files. ( the latter should have chapter select & speed controls ? )
I went to audible.co.uk but there was nothing about a 30 day trial - just 2 join now options ?