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Which Kindle?
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We received Christmas money from our parents and my grandparents, and I was thinking about getting a Kindle (although I enjoy the look/feel/smell of books so much it’s hard to make that leap:) From what I see there are three models; Kindle, Kindle touch, and Kindle Fire. Do any of you have thoughts on which one is best for using with SCM/CM? I don’t really know the difference between the three, and don’t need anything fancy. One that will let me download free books, and maybe have audio for the kids to hear the books, if that’s an option, would be great. We also have DSL internet if that matters (probably showing my ignorance here:) Thanks!
I think mostly just reading, although it would be good to be able to look up pictures of related information sometimes, so that would need website viewing.
Oh, I am interested also as I would love to get one of these for the kids. Especially the books that are harder to find? Is it easy to find downloads for those harder to find in print books?
I have a Kindle 3G Keyboard. I’ve had it since last March. I use it for reading, though it can be used to listen to audio books as well. I have no interest in using it for the internet, so the new Kindle Fire doesn’t have a big draw for me. I love mine.
With that said, we’re saving for a Kindle for the kids to use. I think we’re going to go with a Kindle Touch 3G. Mostly because a touch screen is familiar to the kids thanks to daddy and mommy’s ipod touch. We don’t want a Kindle Fire – they don’t need videos, games, and internet.
I have a Kindle 3G from last year too (so it has a keyboard etc.)
It works great for book reading, does ok with PDF’s (rotated, so you do have to page down to see the rest of the page). It has a Text to Speach so it will read Kindle Books in a computer voice (not too bad). And you can buy Audible books (I haven’t) if you want a well-read book.
It does have a limited internet browser – it works pretty well. I can use it to access my calendar so I can see appointments etc. I can access my gmail for emails, it works fine (if a bit slow) on the Organizer here, and other basic things. It doesn’t have any parental controls – but then it doesn’t do videos or flash games or stuff like that so I think there would only be so much trouble a kid could get into usnig it… (but of course they could do emails etc.)
I have to admit that since I got a smart phone I use the Kindle less… the smart phone fits in my pocket. But I do love both!
I saw a kindle fire this weekend and spent a bit of time playing with it. The touch screen is nice, and the kindle bookreading part is of course good. It is about twice the size of my iTouch (which I read Kindle books on…) and about half the size of an iPad. It was suprisingly heavy… the other kindles I have handled are very thin and light. The app store (android) was as bewilderingly full of apps as the itunes store is…I saw a lot of familiar apps so I guess there is a lot of overlap between the android and apple apps. The web browser worked great – websites looked good – normal LOL – not all weird like they do on my ipod… I did not try typing on it though. No camera.
I think if you were not looking for internet access or to read color magazines on the kindle – a regular kindle would be just as good. Maybe better if you don’t want the added bulk or the distraction factor that the fire offers. The kid who had one here – his parents got it for him for christmas and then commented on how he hadn’t read a single book on it yet LOL – I wonder why! Although I don’t honestly think he is reading much for pleasure anyway (9 year old boy in pub school with some ADD and dyslexia issues) – a kid that does not want to read is not going to do so because you give him a video game machine to read on instead of a good book LOL. Parents want to buy something to do the job for them, that child needs to be read to by a loving adult. But I digress…
The kindle fire is a totally cool device though for multi-tasking, reading, email, internet research etc. For a college student – it would be awesome! Wonder if you can plug a keyboard into it? I don’t know about its audio capabilities…but it would not fit easily in a pocket for mobile listening. I am not in the market for a kindle, so I think for $199, I would replace my ipod touch with the latest model and continue to read on that, to have the camera, video and audio capabilities.
Hope that helped at all
I probably should have clarified that I am not technology fluent right now, nor do I care to be:) I don’t even know what an Ipad/ipod is, although I’ve seen adults and children moving things around on their screens constantly without interacting with other people for hours:) From the posts, maybe the 3G like suzukimom mentioned would work best? So a Kindle 3G is not a Kindle Touch? Tristan, can you even still buy a Kindle with the keyboard? I think that would be the way I might want to go. Thanks for the info so far.
You can buy it with a touch screen OR with a Keyboard. The 3G with a keyboard is $139.00, the 3G with the touch screen is $10 more.
The only drawback with the 3G is that the kids can get to the Kindle store from anywhere. We have the one without 3G and turn the Wi-Fi off. The Kindle Bookstore, unfortunately, is atrocious. Every time I type in the name of a book, I see a pornographic book with the same title. It is important the kids never go into the store to look for their own books…if you have the 3G, I think it’s harder (impossible?) to turn this feature off.
hm – I never go to the bookstore, so I never noticed that…. and I never enabled 1-click buying on my Amazon account, so I can’t buy anything through my Kindle (so if my kid is looking at it, they aren’t going to buy anything.
We have a Kindle Touch with the free wifi.
Did you know that you can go to— Manage Your Kindle—-then there is a place where you can choose what ‘kind’ of ads and so forth that you want to see on your Kindle.
We dont have a desktop or wireless in the house– so
The Kindle Touch with free wireless is great.
And there is a passcode to put on it to keep kids off the internet.
The Kindle isn’t the only option, though. We have an Aluratek Libre Color. ( http://aluratek.com/libre-color-ebook-reader-with-7-color-lcd ) which sells for around $120-$130 (in Canada anyway).
It has a color LCD display, and can play audio and video files. The 7inch display is the same width but is taller than the 6 inch Kindle display, so that if you are holding it sideways you get a widescreen video feel, which makes it nicer for looking at PDFs. It will also display PDFs fairly well in the ‘portrait’ direction.
It also uses the same file system as a Windows computer, so I can organize all my file on my desktop (sorting into different subjects, different years, etc.) and then just drag and drop the whole thing onto the eReader. There is no Wifi or 3G or internet browsing or anything, so I don’t have to worry about giving it to my kids. The only files on there are the ones I have put there from my computer.
Anyway, I’m not really trying to sell you on this device in particular as much as to just let you know that there are different options. You just need to know what you want.
Joanne
I got a Kindle Touch with Wifi for Christmas from my hubby. My hubby has an iphone but all I have at home is a regular PC, no ipad, ipod. I am getting my first laptop next month. I tell you all that because I also am not tech savy but the Kindle Touch is very easy to use. I have downloaded so many free books already. I have had it since November and have yet to pay for a single book. It does have experimental web so I can check my email and look at a few things on the web. It is very slow because it is experimental and you can’t view blogs easily, however I can view and comment on SCM just fine!
You can set up a password that must be typed in before the Kindle can be accessed. I looked at soooo many e-readers before choosing the Kindle Touch. I almost got the Nook but my local library’s e-books are in Kindle format so I chose the Kindle. I think you can convert them to whatever format you need but the more simple the better for me. My husband tried to get me to get the Kindle Fire. I have a hard enough time staying off the internet as it is so I opted out of that one.
Plus, my husband and I are in the market for a laptop so I can do alot of school related stuff without being tied to my desk and I figured we could put the extra $100 toward that. I bought the $99 Kindle Touch with the ads and so far they don’t bother me one bit!Hope this helps in some way! Good luck shopping!
Plus, my husband and I are in the market for a laptop so I can do alot of school related stuff without being tied to my desk and I figured we could put the extra $100 toward that. I bought the $99 Kindle Touch with the ads and so far they don’t bother me one bit!- The topic ‘Which Kindle?’ is closed to new replies.