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Maybe Doug and others – which Kindle to get? 3G keyboard, 3G touch or is DX worth the bigger price?
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Hi there,
We are considering getting a kindle since our book collecting habit is huge and we are only in kindergarten. 🙂 I am not very technical, so the choices are a bit overwhelming to me. Of you that have them, do you like the 3GTouch or 3GKeyboard better? And I noticed the DX is quite a bit more than the others, but it has that nice big screen and maybe other features different than the other two? Anyone recommend that one over the others, even though more expensive? Also, alot of our old ebooks are in pdf format – will they show well on the Touch or Keyboard ones or only on the DX one well? What features do you use the most or have found very handy on any of them? We have ruled out an ipad because we have an iphone and that is enough “i”s for the household right now and ruled out the Kindle Fire since it seems mostly geared toward movies and stuff and not so much books. But I did notice books have to be specifically formated for download to a kindle where other books can be other formats to be on a tablet or computer. Have you found this to be a problem or are pretty much all the books you need for schoolwork and otherwise formatted for kindle anyway? And one last question: does the internet connection allow you to look something up on the internet quickly? Like say you are reading a nature book with a story about a red fox and your child asks what a red fox looks like – can you pause in your ebook and go look up a picture for them quickly and easily on the kindle internet? Thank you for any help!!
I have a Kindle keyboard and it does handle PDFs okay. You have rotate to landscape mode to read it clearer. Not sure on the others though. Some pictures within the PDFS may not show up well though if at all.
I also have the Kindle Fire and LOVE it!!! It also handles PDFS like a dream and I am super excited to start putting more PDFs on it including a majority of the SCM books. Have you thought about the Kindle Fire? It is a bit more in price but it is a color screen and the children’s books have the “read to me” feature. The other Kindles do have a text to speech feature but it is very robotic and fast reading..no pausing at punctuation, etc.
HTH,
Julie
oh..and the internet features on the e-ink Kindles is not really meant for researching, etc…well, at least the keyboard one I have at home. It is there but difficult (for me anyway) to use. The Kindle Fire has websurfing and I do beleive it can do what you just asked above, though I have not tried it yet. The Fire is a “tablet wanna be” and since I could not get an Ipad (way too expensive), my dear hubbie got me the Fire
As for books – yes the easiest to use on the Kindle are in Kindle format from Amazon – and PDF’s…..
BUT – The Kindle format is the same as the MOBI format (Mobipocket) – so you can read any .mobi (or some are labeled .prc from the palm pilot days) that doesn’t have copy protection on it. I think most free places to get books for free have relabeled them as Kindle, but not all…
And if you have a book you really want that is in EPUB format (the other main book format) and it doesn’t have copy protection on it – there is a free program called calibre that will change it to mobi.
hth!
Oh, and just so everyone knows— Amazon has now blocked the experimental browser on all the new Kindles.
Amazon has made the newest Kindles with 3g do that you can only get to the Amazon store.
Kind of a bummer.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page when looking at a Kindle– its in the fine print.
We just got a new Kindle Touch with wifi and free 3g.
And it is true— the only place I can go is Amazon.
I guess if you have an older one— your lucky.
Just so you know.
Hi there,
Thank you for all your input!
Julie, regarding the Kindle Fire, it looks like you can get all the kindle books on it but does the shiny screen of the Fire make them hard on your eyes to read compared to the “E Ink” display that looks more like paper? That “read to me” feature on the Fire versus the text to speech feature on the ereader sounds very nice but how do you find the books that have that feature? I did a little search on amazon without much success, but I am not sure what to look for.
And regarding what R7blessings posted, the 3G Kindles can’t do internet searches, like google? That would be pretty useless to only be able to go to the store. Bummer. 🙁
Thank you for any further information you ladies can share!
The glare can be an issue sometimes, but with my poor eyesight I find the backlit quite useful at times. I do have a booklight for my Kindles (they are called Kandles) but that is a bit bulky to carry around. The Fire is a bit heavier than the keyboard version as well, but I am really liking my Fire now.
When you look at a book where more informatoin is given (reivews, etc) There should be a secton that tells you if it is text-to-speech enabled. I tried a few books just of the top of my head and did not see that listed anymore. Interesting….
let me keep checking….okay…found it. If you look under the “product details” section of the book, it will show Text to Speech. IF it is available, it was say “enabled”.
HTH,
Julie
Julie,
I saw what you were talking about on amazon with a children’s book saying enabled. One more question on that – so does that mean that that story will be read more like a book on tape with correct pauses for punctuation and maybe so inflection in the voice reading it? I heard an example of the text to speech on an ereader Kindle (not the Fire) and it was very robotic. Is this text to speech enabled on the children’s book different? I also went to Best Buy to look at them in person and saw an app on the Fire for like Cat in the Hat books (and I am assuming other children’s books) that were read more like book on tape plus additional education like game things on some pages where you could touch something and it would say what it was and such. Is that something different too? That you buy through the app store instead of amazon as a kindle book? It is all so confusing! Thanks for any help! 🙂
That’s weird about the experimental browser issue because I got a Kindle Touch for Christmas and my experimental browser works just fine. I am able to go to any website (given there’s not alot of “stuff” or it takes forever). You just go to Menu, touch Experimental, then touch Web Browser.
Ah hah! You have to be accessing wifi in order to browse other than the amazon store.
I pasted this from the Kindle 3G page:
Kindle Touch 3G’s experimental web browser is based on WebKit. It’s easy to find the information you’re looking for right from your Kindle Touch 3G. Kindle Touch 3G enables you to connect to the Kindle Store and access Wikipedia – all over 3G or Wi-Fi. Experimental web browsing on other websites is only available over Wi-Fi.
If you don’t have wifi at home then you will only be able to view the store. However, if you have wifi at home, like I do, then you can view any website, which I am able to do.
Let me try out the talking on a kid book I have now. It is mainly on the very young children’s books though.
Our family have several kindles. Mine is a Kindle Keyboard. I use free computer (Mac or PC) software called Calibre which converts pdf, epub, etc. to mobi (kindle) format. Epubs convert beautifully, pdfs which are text-only or primarily text convert OK. I then email the file to my kindle (more in a moment on that) or I can transfer it via usb cable to the kindle. Also, Amazon has a conversion service available through the whispernet. Once you have registered your kindle, you will receive a kindle address (it will be whatever email you use to register it – youremail@kindle.com or youremail@free.kindle.com). You can then email pdfs or mobi files (or whatever) to your kindle from your computer or laptop. It’s free if you use wifi and a small charge if you use 3G, unless you send it to the free kindle email. If you put convert in the subject and attach the pdf, amazon will convert the book to kindle format. I find this works very well with text-only pdf books which don’t have illustrations, photos, or charts. The kindle keyboard allows you to view pdfs in “sideways” format, which is much easier. The kindle touch does not turn pdfs sideways. Most public domain books which you can get in pdf format are also available in mobi/kindle format at manybooks.net, archive.org, and other free ebook websites. I prefer the e-ink used in the black & white kindles (and nook simple) to the backlit screen of the amazon fire or nook color, which are more like small tablets. I can read my kindle for hours with no more eye fatigue than a paperback book would cause. I don’t like reading from backlit computer screens. I don’t like the kindle experimental browser at all, and don’t use it. I’d be more tempted to use a computer (or a smartphone) to look at the red fox photos. (Or a book or encyclopedia, of course.) Oh, I also use ReKindleIt, which is a free button for your browser which allows you to send web articles to your kindle to read later. That’s really nice and I use it quite a bit.
let me keep checking….
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