Amazon Kindle

Ooh - let me know, Matt.

Otherwise will try out the DIY route...

I'm thinking of getting a kindle - paper white. Are they generally reliable enough to buy second hand? Or am I wasting my money by not having an Amazon guarantee?

I've broken two kindles, Amazon replaced one free even though it was my fault and then knocked about forty quid off the second even though it was out of warranty.

They might do it anyway, even if you didn't buy it originally?

an Amazon guarantee?

These are worth the square root of fuck all.

Going rate for a second hand one seems to be ~£50 and a new one sans ads is £110. Might take a punt on ebay.

Any particular editions to avoid?

I've had a 3rd Generation paperwhite for nearly three years, gets used a lot, I never bother with a case and it's still perfectly fine. In general Kindles seem pretty tough, I've only broken them by bending the screen.

I'm considering a Kindle, what's it like using them with epub? Does Calibre work as advertised?

I've used calibre in the past and results have been varying.
Some times the spacing is wafty or big line breaks. Other times it's been fine.
Probably caused by the acquisition method of the books (nefarious) rather than the software.

Thanks!
I'll be using epub for library and Gutenberg books.

Calibre and epub works very well.

You can set it so that calibre will automatically convert the book to the correct format and email it to your kindle (you need to also set that up on your kindle account). That means that it will be present on all your kindle readers (actual kindle or phone/tablet) and synchronised to the last place read.

You sometimes need to adjust line spacing or font size on the kindle as different files look different but it's normally pretty good.

and thank you too, that gives me hope; imagine amazon being so money-centric as to not add epub to the kindle...

Although Gutenberg looks to do mobi files anyway which are directly compatible with Kindle. In that case you can just email/copy directly.

My Kindle paper white has gotten itself in a permanent rebooting cycle - has anyone else had this? If so, how did you fix it (if at all)?

I know this is the Kindle thread, but looking for an ereader without having to give money to Amazon, because obviously. However, internet searching seems to show that they have completely cornered the market.

Any less evil alternatives out there?

Nook is the obvious, or maybe Sony. Not sure if they're sold new over here any more but there are plenty on ebay. Or there are Kobo which you can get from AliExpress or similar.

Personally I'd buy a second-hand kindle though. Probably the best e-reader and not giving money to Amazon.

I've only ever read books on my phones, never been a problem with eyestrain.

I’ve done that for ages but got a kindle paper white last week. The backlight is miles better for reading compared to a phone.

Thanks, looking at Kobo, amazed how small the market is for ereaders, assumed there’d be a lot of other players.

Where is the best place to obtain some free ebooks?

The Gutenberg project has eBook transcripts of a lot of out of copyright books that you can download for free.

I has second hand kindle available for cheapzzz...

http://libgen.io/ or some mirror of it
Can often find things using this google search, https://cse.google.com/cse/publicurl?cx=011394183039475424659:5bfyqg89ers

Just thinking that I never use my kindle anymore, ebooks are a bit shit compared to real books.

Interesting, I'm the opposite. When given a real book to read, I find it annoying that I don't have a Kindle version.

In no particular order, I always miss:

One handed reading.
Built in night light.
Built in dictionary.
Search of the book to find previous passages.
X-Ray to figure who the fuck a minor characters is.
Audiobook integration to listen whilst cooking or ironing or driving etc.
Reading on phone when out and about with no bag.
Buying the sequel the moment I finish it.
Wondering where to keep the thing when I've finished it, or recycle it and feel like a book burner, or forget to take it to the local train station book exchange again and again and again.

Probably more.