E-readers

[in4]

Does anyone take an e-reader with them? I'm doing my legwork before buying one and wondered what the general  consensus is. I'm thinking there are three main issues: 1. Charging 2. Dedicated e-reader or one with other capabilities, perhaps mapping 3. General suitability for touring ( robustness, battery life, screen readability in varying light, availability of books.)

Any takers?

[Danneaux]

Hi Ian!

Memory (an a quick search of the Forum's archived posts) shows the Kindle to be the dedicated e-reader of choice by sheer numbers.

The latest Kindle Fire is essentially a tablet that happens to be an e-reader. By coincidence, I was looking at one yesterday, and thought it "more" than expected.

Best,

Dan.

[honesty]

I have a Kobo ereader which i take with me. This was because i didn't want to cund the Amazon lock in (i know you can get round epub books onto kindle with calibre but its sort of illegal and a few more steps than normal)

i have the e-ink screen variant as its light, can be read in any light (back lit version) and you don't have to think about charging unless your away for more than a few weeks.

You can get android driven versions branded as ereaders - fire for example - but they are basically marketing exercises being small screened android tablets in reality with the associated benefits and downsides.

[sdg_77]

We both use Kindles and find them to be very useful as an alternative to paper books.  I think they succeed by being aimed at this one purpose and not trying to be a phone/GPS/ereader/www browser  all in one package.  Sending pdfs to the kindle works well but reading them always seems to involve re-sizing the screen display,  so I guess one is to some extent, stuck with whatever Amazon have in the Kindle store.

Battery life is good,  enough for several days of normal reading activity.  The wifi connection via HTC & Samsung mobiles works well too,  so it is possible to buy more books once away from home provided your mobile has a good data connection.

The only downside I can find is that photographs & maps are pretty dire on the screen - we have the original 'standard' models,  the newer fire versions are much better from what I hear.

The Android Kindle 'app' is ok - certainly good for straightforward reading and colour photos/maps look better -  but the battery life is nowhere near the same.

sdg.

[Andre Jute]

I think Richie has a Kindle with him on Richie's World Tour or Go Mad on a Nomad -- see http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=4851.0 -- for how he uses it.

I have an iPad, an iPhone, an Android smartphone, and none of them will have battery power left after more than a day's local ride if you use the GPS even sparingly. As touring companions they are simply a nuisance.

Unless you want to go into contortions with solar charging or hub dynamo charging, none of which works either well or at all, or for more than one pretty small device, the only tablet worth considering is the plain Kindle, and that only for it's outstanding battery life and it's excellent screen for plain reading. On every other aspect (maps, sending email) it is slow, though Richie and others claim the exceptional battery life makes up for it. The battery does last forever, and I suppose that's what matters most when you go bush. After a three day credit card tour with a good deal of map reading  and book reading deep into the night, and a thrice daily visit to the groups I correspond on, and e-mails home, I put the Kindle straight back on the bookshelf because it didn't need charging. (I just took it off the shelf to describe it accurately, and it turns out to have some charge left after a year or so on standby... Try that with an iPhone...)

However, the Kindle has another advantage not mentioned above: over at least part of your tour it will give you a free connection to the internet. I don't know if you still get that with a new Kindle but mine has it.

PS I have a Kindle 3 keyboard model, virtually new (I'm a writer, I bought it for professional purposes for which it is too slow, and replaced it almost instantly with an iPad), for sale, complete with expensive, thick, wrinklefree, glare-free screen protector and expensive Tuff-Luv leather (maybe PU -- it's suspiciously unmarked even considering it got so little use) case with built-in stand, charger, cable, all packaging, instructions, free connection to the Internet. Drop me a note at andrejute at coolmainpress dot com if you're interested. I'm in Ireland and the charger is for European voltages. Comes with a set of CoolMain Press ebooks by me and some authors I edit.