Kindle

redlead

As all kindle books are bought through the US store, does that mean all the books you buy are in US english? i.e labor instead of labour or organize instead of organise. I want to buy one but I think that that may put me off it.

pleasant Co.

vibe666 wrote: »

the advantage is that it's got a touchscreen, rather than having to use a d-pad and buttons.

I see a touchscreen being poorly implemented (on e-ink they've done the best they can) as a negative.

vibe666 wrote: »

the first obvious advantage of that is that if you ever decide to type anything into your kindle (searching for books on the kindle store etc.), you're not going to be there all day trying to do it.

All day, really? come on, the touch aspect would be a little faster but in practical use (it's an ebook reader, not a tablet) you'll see little real world advantage.

vibe666 wrote: »

you also don't have to keep scrolling through menu items until you find the one you want and then click on it. as soon as you can see it on-screen, you can select it on the touchscreen, job done.

You're making it out like scrolling through a few menu items is a laborious undertaking, in reality you're going to save a few precious seconds.

vibe666 wrote: »

the touch also has a headphone jack and speakers, which were present on the kindle 3, but missing from the kindle 4.

Yep, that's an advantage alright. It's one I'd never make use of personally but you're right it's an advantage.

Thanks a million for replying and apologies for block quoting, it seemed like the easiest way to respond to your points.

richardw001

redlead wrote: »

As all kindle books are bought through the US store, does that mean all the books you buy are in US english? i.e labor instead of labour or organize instead of organise. I want to buy one but I think that that may put me off it.

You can buy from either .com or .co.uk for ebooks

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056044467

(Skip to the end as the instructions there are fairly straightforward)

Tar.Aldarion

i wanted the audio, bigger memory and not to scroll through the keyboard with the kindle 4. the kindle 3 was the solution. cant wait for it to get here

you dont have to type often but by god it annoyed me when i did on the kindle 4 in teh shop. still it would be a rare thing

vibe666

Speedsie wrote: »

Can you get the Kindle 4 with 3g, or does it just come with wifi?

only the kindle touch and kindle 3 have the 3g option. the regular kindle 4 and kindle fire are wifi only.

phantom_lord wrote: »

Has anyone any experience of doing this? Really tempted to get the touch.

yup, that would be me.

my kindle touch shipped from amazon yesterday and arrived at my viaddress a couple of hours ago.

i also have a kindle fire that arrived a few days ago and also an unfortunately bulky children's toy which has been classified as having a much heavier shipping weight than it actually has, due to something called "dimensional weight" which means that large but relatively light packages incur extra charges based on their dimensions rather than their real weight.

i asked and the people at viaddress have offered to see if they can re-pack all 3 items (for free) into a smaller package to reduce the extra shipping costs as the bulk of the toy means the shipping would be double the estimate i made based on its weight alone, but i'll have to wait a couple of days as they have a backlog in their re-packing warehouse due to thanksgiving.

anyway, you live and you learn.

shipping time shouldn't be an issue tho if you order soonish as amazon use UPS for their express delivery and viaddress use DHL to ship to Ireland, so 24 hours + 3 days and you're sorted, assuming you call DHL when it arrives in Ireland to sort out customs (assuming they catch it) fairly quickly, you should have in your hands inside a week at most, even at this time of year.

vibe666

also regards to the keyboard/touchscreen thing, if you plan on taking it out with you, you'll want to password protect it to keep it out of thieving hands but that might be an annoyance with no keyboard.

i've seen a review of the touch and it actually seems to be fairly well done, so we'll see what we shall see. i've bought it for my dad for xmas and he's just gone and bought a kindle 4 for my step-mum's birthday (grrr!), so it won't be too long before i can do a side by side comparison of the two and compare them to our old kindle 3 and the new kindle fire that my wife is getting for xmas.

one thing i will say tho is that all these feckers i'm buying great pressies for better be getting me something pretty freaking awesome this year, or i'm likely to go postal!

GoldCircle

The Irish ones are on sale in Dublin airport for just €99.

I'm waiting for the Touch, though... guy there reckoned by end of Feb. or early March (TBC, of course).

Charlotteh

I am looking to buy a easy to use kindle. What kindle should I buy?

vibe666

they are all easy to use, they were all designed to be as user friendly as possible and they've done a pretty good job of that imho.

also, they're onto the 4th generation of them now so i imagine that they've incorporated a lot of extras based on some criticisms of the older models.

but for now in ireland, you have the option of the kindle keyboard (3rd gen model) or the kindle 4. both are easy to use, one has a keyboard (and is an earlier model, but still very good) and the other has no keyboard (which most people don't seem to mind) but is a bit smaller and lighter for it.

Charlotteh

vibe666 wrote: »

they are all easy to use, they were all designed to be as user friendly as possible and they've done a pretty good job of that imho.

also, they're onto the 4th generation of them now so i imagine that they've incorporated a lot of extras based on some criticisms of the older models.

but for now in ireland, you have the option of the kindle keyboard (3rd gen model) or the kindle 4. both are easy to use, one has a keyboard (and is an earlier model, but still very good) and the other has no keyboard (which most people don't seem to mind) but is a bit smaller and lighter for it.

Thanks for that info , Do u think the toach or keyboard is better and just stick to wifi somebody said 3G isn't all it's made out to be on it... Sorry about all the questions I'm really new to this and don't want to spend all the money on wrong one!! I have an iPhone so don't need Internet access or do I need it for down loading books?

vibe666

it depends on how much you plan on travelling with it and if you think you might use the 3G or not.

if you are travelling a lot, definitely go for the 3G model as it is totally free to use anywhere in the world that you can get a mobile data connection and the kindle comes with a basic web browser, which although it won't play any animations or anything like that, is still usable for gmail and basic news websites and that kind of thing and even with the most heavy usage you can manage, the battery will last up to a week due to the low power requirements of the e-ink display and anything up to a month when just used just as an offline ebook reader with wireless and 3g disabled.

if you're only using it at home and wouldn't use it for anything other than reading books, then the basic kindle 4 or the kindle touch would do fine, but you'll have to wait until next year to buy it in europe unless you want to import one from the US as you can't get them here yet.

you can download books via wifi or 3g (from the amazon kindle store, browsing either directly on the kindle, or from a pc, pushed wirelessly from amazon to the kindle), or (from anywhere other than amazon) with a usb cable connected to a pc using a piece of software called calibre ebook manager.

richardw001

Guys - an update on this - there's been a bit of time now and have to say I'm very happy with my Kindle keyboard.

For those of you who are thinking of going for the touch versions - one thing I would suggest is compare the amazon reviews so far with those for the keyboard.


The touch as a much higher ratio of one star reviews - perhaps this will balance out over time as expectations are always high with new versions of things - however I would suggest people read before they buy - so they are getting it from "the horses mouth" (a lot of people on the amazon reviews have experience of both)

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Touch-e-Reader-Touch-Screen-3G-Special-Offers/product-reviews/B005890G8O/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

versus

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Keyboard-Free-Wi-Fi-Display/product-reviews/B004HZYA6E/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Hope this helps people

InTheTrees

I love my kindle w/keyboard. For me its the perfect e-reader. I love the buttons instead of a touch screen because I touch the screen all the time and dont want the page turning when I do.

I also have a Kindle Fire. And its a totally different machine. Not an e-reader at all.

Zimmerframe

Another vote for the keyboard version. I have had touch screens from the first palm pilot to my current iPad but I don't see the need of a touch screen on the kindle, 99.9% of the time, all that's needed is a "next page" button. If nothing else, the screen remains free of fingerprints.
The keyboard does come in handy when using the 3g version for a bit of "emergency browsing".

If anyones interested I just ordered from
www.gruupy.com (no affiliation)
a kindle light, seems OK for the price.

InTheTrees

Zimmerframe wrote: »

The keyboard does come in handy when using the 3g version for a bit of "emergency browsing".

I was actually thinking the other night that I really dont need the keyboard, I have used it since the first few weeks I had the thing.

Except...ergonomically the extra few inches makes it more pleasant to hold than without. I think.

The nice thing about "e-readers" is that they're not massively priced gadgets so you can always get another.

rookav

GoldCircle wrote: »

The Irish ones are on sale in Dublin airport for just €99.

I'm waiting for the Touch, though... guy there reckoned by end of Feb. or early March (TBC, of course).

I just ordered a 3G Kindle Touch from amazon.com - I'm having it shipped to someone in the US, but there seemed to be no problems if I wanted to select a Irish address. It should be fine to get one shipped here, although I'm not sure how much the duty would end up costing.

iamfromcork

Got the kindle fire.one of the guys i know kid who's eight wanted an ipad lol this is for him. It's playing video great (has to be mp4) Music plays great, web surfing great. Problem is you can't access amazon.com for games or books etc and it won't lets you use android market for angry birds/plants vs zombies ,can't download either and put on through the micro usb. So good for films(you already have),books (pdf or kindle files that i already had) and internet. Really nothing else til amazon allow you to access the site in europe.

rookav

iamfromcork wrote: »

Got the kindle fire.one of the guys i know kid who's eight wanted an ipad lol this is for him. It's playing video great (has to be mp4) Music plays great, web surfing great. Problem is you can't access amazon.com for games or books etc and it won't lets you use android market for angry birds/plants vs zombies ,can't download either and put on through the micro usb. So good for films(you already have),books (pdf or kindle files that i already had) and internet. Really nothing else til amazon allow you to access the site in europe.

You can't access amazon.com? That's a bit mad. I thought all Irish amazon kindle accounts were via the US site?

According to this chap you can get around the problem of buying books in UK, so I presume it's the same in Ireland: http://ukreaders.co.uk/

blastman

My Kindle Touch landed this morning, looks very nice. It's supposed to be a Christmas present so I'm refraining from taking off the plastic screen cover in case I'm not allowed it yet! Cost me €94, pleased enough with that.

rookav

blastman wrote: »

My Kindle Touch landed this morning, looks very nice. It's supposed to be a Christmas present so I'm refraining from taking off the plastic screen cover in case I'm not allowed it yet! Cost me €94, pleased enough with that.

cool!

have you had a sneaky go yet? if so, dying to hear how you got on with kindle store, etc.

i won't be handing over the one i got until christmas day, so could do with a heads up!

FakePlasticMan

Great thread guys..lots of good info

There's quite a few posts comparing the Touch version with the keyboard version but what about the 2 main ones available here in Ireland, the new basic Kindle 4 and the older Kindle 3 with keyboard and 3G?

Looking at PC Worlds site, they stock both but there is a price difference of €70.

I really want to pick up a Kindle, so is it worth spending that extra €70 for the keyboard version, giving me twice the storage, 3G connection and apparently twice the battery life? Is is a lot bulkier than the new one to hold and is the screen quality the same on both?

Other option is of course waiting till Jan/Feb and get the Touch version.

Thanks in advance

eclectichoney

I was going to wait for the touch but the more I thought about it I went for the basic model. I actually end up touching the screen quite a lot when I am holding it which would end up turning pages etc. on the touch when I didn't mean to.

If all you do is read books, I would go for the basic model. It's true that the keyboard is a bit annoying to use on it, but so far I have not used it at all (except for trying it out), when I thought I would have. Also I tend to browse amazon on my laptop and buy the books that way and then transfer them to my kindle so I don't even need the wireless tbh let alone the 3G. The smaller size is a big plus I think having held and used them both in Currys.

I thought it would be better for looking at pdfs of journal articles etc. It can still do this, but it's not as user-friendly to read as ebooks as the text is quite small etc. as the pdfs are obviously not designed with ereaders in mind unlike kindle ebooks. Consequently I don't think I'll end up using it to read these so much, which also means no real need for the keyboard to annotate. It depends how you plan on using the kindle tbh.

bitter_lemon

i just got my first kindle ever! i thought it would be great instead of lugging around books.
its the small lite one without the keyboard.

i have my laptop set up with my 3g dongle but it can't seem to connect or dosen't find it. i can't use it untill i get this sorted. can anyone help?

robinph

@bitter_lemon: You'll need to physically plug the Kindle into the laptop in order to transfer books to it, then you should get hold of a copy of Calibre. As it sounds like you've not got WiFi I'm not sure how you go about registering a non-3G Kindle to your Amazon account.

Surrealean

I thought I should add my two cents to this.

I received a very nice little Kindle yesterday, and was delighted - it's something I never would have considered getting myself but was a very thoughtful gift. I digress.

I logged onto the Kindle e-store through the Kindle and found it... a little patchy. Shrugging, I went online; got directed to Amazon.co.uk as an Irish customer, naturally. Tried browsing for e-Books only to be told to go to Amazon.co.uk because I'm not IN the UK.

OK - very counterproductive, but OK.

Back to Amazon.com. Search for books I want.

This title is not available for customers from your location in:
Europe

How curious! Back to Amazon.co.uk - yep, there's the book I want, right there, and available, but I'm STILL not a UK resident, and must therefore use Amazon.com.

The following conversation takes place with a customer service agent:

You are now connected to Parmod from Amazon.com.
Me:I imagine there must be some copyright issue at work, but can you please explain to me why certain eBooks are not made available in my country? It seems like a system designed to encourage piracy rather than discourage it.
Parmod:Hello, my name is Parmod, I will be happy to help you.
Me:Thank you, I'm glad to hear it.
Parmod:Yes, you are right David, all the books will not be illegible for the purchases in all the countries.
Me:On what grounds, if I may ask?
It's a digital download, one would imagine it should be available regardless.
Parmod:I can understand your concern David, due to some restrictions, and it also depends on the author of the book.
Me:That, unfortunately, is not a very satisfactory answer. I am more than willing to give Amazon my money but you are saying I cannot avail of your services because I live in Ireland. Would I be better off purchasing a different eReader?
Parmod:I am really sorry David, if there is a restriction on the purchases there is no way to do any thing on this case, there are a lot of other books which are illegible for the purchase in your country and that you can purchase only.
Me:There is no need for you to apologise, it's not your fault. Thank you for your time, and Merry Christmas.
Parmod:Thanks David
Happy holidays and Marry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks for visiting Amazon, we hope to see you soon, have a wonderful day.

Now, I don't fault the agent; he/she was just repeating policy, though it came out as being ridiculously vague. I'm still clueless as to why I can't buy these books. Finally, to add insult to injury, I was asked automatically if my query had been addressed. When I told the survey no, it gave me to opportunity to get a call from an agent higher-up; but there was no option for Ireland. The closest was the UK, which automatically added the code +44 to the front of my number and made calling me impossible.
___________________

tl:dr? Amazon apparently don't want Irish money, making them a veritable rarity today.

Tar.Aldarion

got my kindle 3 keyboards wifi + hemp cover yesterday...already on my second book, love it.

Tar.Aldarion

Surrealean wrote: »

I thought I should add my two cents to this.

I received a very nice little Kindle yesterday, and was delighted - it's something I never would have considered getting myself but was a very thoughtful gift. I digress.

I logged onto the Kindle e-store through the Kindle and found it... a little patchy. Shrugging, I went online; got directed to Amazon.co.uk as an Irish customer, naturally. Tried browsing for e-Books only to be told to go to Amazon.co.uk because I'm not IN the UK.

OK - very counterproductive, but OK.

Back to Amazon.com. Search for books I want.

This title is not available for customers from your location in:
Europe

How curious! Back to Amazon.co.uk - yep, there's the book I want, right there, and available, but I'm STILL not a UK resident, and must therefore use Amazon.com.

The following conversation takes place with a customer service agent:

You are now connected to Parmod from Amazon.com.
Me:I imagine there must be some copyright issue at work, but can you please explain to me why certain eBooks are not made available in my country? It seems like a system designed to encourage piracy rather than discourage it.
Parmod:Hello, my name is Parmod, I will be happy to help you.
Me:Thank you, I'm glad to hear it.
Parmod:Yes, you are right David, all the books will not be illegible for the purchases in all the countries.
Me:On what grounds, if I may ask?
It's a digital download, one would imagine it should be available regardless.
Parmod:I can understand your concern David, due to some restrictions, and it also depends on the author of the book.
Me:That, unfortunately, is not a very satisfactory answer. I am more than willing to give Amazon my money but you are saying I cannot avail of your services because I live in Ireland. Would I be better off purchasing a different eReader?
Parmod:I am really sorry David, if there is a restriction on the purchases there is no way to do any thing on this case, there are a lot of other books which are illegible for the purchase in your country and that you can purchase only.
Me:There is no need for you to apologise, it's not your fault. Thank you for your time, and Merry Christmas.
Parmod:Thanks David
Happy holidays and Marry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks for visiting Amazon, we hope to see you soon, have a wonderful day.

Now, I don't fault the agent; he/she was just repeating policy, though it came out as being ridiculously vague. I'm still clueless as to why I can't buy these books. Finally, to add insult to injury, I was asked automatically if my query had been addressed. When I told the survey no, it gave me to opportunity to get a call from an agent higher-up; but there was no option for Ireland. The closest was the UK, which automatically added the code +44 to the front of my number and made calling me impossible.
___________________

tl:dr? Amazon apparently don't want Irish money, making them a veritable rarity today.

I believe you can register a different email (.co.uk etc)to use the different stores. Believe I saw people doing that.

Surrealean

In fairness, that seems like a really logical thing to do, and I might end up doing that. Seems a nonsense to have to go to the bother though, as (I imagine, at least) it would mean registering a second, unnecessary account to my Kindle. Not all that onerous a task but it shouldn't be needed in the first place.

Tar.Aldarion

Yep plus any unforeseen problems that will inevitably arise.
As I have one 24 hours I'm not the best to help. The other thing is they have different prices and deals in different countries I think.

This cover has really made the transition to ebooks very easy for me, feels quite booky somehow, lovely screen on kindles btw...




A lot of little annoying problems with kindles. I couldnt even get my version shipped to this country from the uk, or any version.

juke

Surrealean wrote: »

I thought I should add my two cents to this.

tl:dr? Amazon apparently don't want Irish money, making them a veritable rarity today.

Make sure your wifi/3g is turned off on your kindle. Then just log on to amazon.com, click manage your kindle, and change the country settings - change your address to a UK address and confirm. You will then be asked do you want to change and will be prompted to use the .co.uk site. Buy online from .co.uk. No need for new e-mail address or different credit card. You can turn on the 3G/wifi to download the books - but I always turn it off again straight away.