Amazon Kindle, Range of books

Ed Sheeran

Hi, I want to get my mother a present for Christmas and thought a kindle would be a good choice. I've researched a bit and I've decided that the Kindle Touch would be best.

One thing I would be worried about is that with the Kindle, you can only buy books from Amazon. I'd like to know, preferably, from someone with a Kindle, do you think that there is a good choice and variety on Amazon, regarding books for the Kindle.

Also, I'd like to know whether or not you're happy with your Kindle and whether or not it would be worth buying. Thanks.

padraig_f

Ed Sheeran wrote: »

Hi, I want to get my mother a present for Christmas and thought a kindle would be a good choice. I've researched a bit and I've decided that the Kindle Touch would be best.

One thing I would be worried about is that with the Kindle, you can only buy books from Amazon. I'd like to know, preferably, from someone with a Kindle, do you think that there is a good choice and variety on Amazon, regarding books for the Kindle.

Yeah pretty much all new books are available. The ones that tend not to be available so much are those published pre e-readers. Some older books are converted but some aren't. This is not a big problem, if an older book isn't available, you still have the option of buying the paper edition.

You don't have to always go through the Kindle store. You can load on epub books that you download, via usb or wirelessly. You can send articles from your web browser to it, this is a feature I use a lot (see the Readability plugin for Firefox). You can send PDF documents to it as well. There's a program called Calibre that will pretty much convert any kind of e-book or document to Kindle format.

Also, I'd like to know whether or not you're happy with your Kindle and whether or not it would be worth buying. Thanks.

Yeah it's a great gadget. Better than real books in many ways, you can set the font up how you like it, it doesn't take up as much space as a shelf of books. Another feature I really like is sample chapter, which Amazon have for every Kindle book. It sends you the first chapter or so free, so you can take a chance on a book you're not sure of, and see what it's like before you buy. I've got a bunch of books this way that I might not otherwise have got.

I'd say for the model, to also check out the Kindle Paperwhite. I've just ordered one of these myself to replace my older model. This is the first one has a backlight, which I really wanted. My older model was fine during in bright light, but if the light was any way dim (say for reading at night with a lamp on), I found it a bit hard to read because the grey background is a bit darker than your average book, so there's not as great a contrast.

They're only delivering this model to the UK at present, but you can get it sent to Ireland via Parcel Motel.

edanto

Hey padraig, I've been gifted a kindle and your post above is really helpful!

Thx

edanto

Hey padraig, I've been gifted a kindle and your post above is really helpful!

Thx