Best Kindle for just reading books

[TheFaQQer]

Mostly in bed while away from home, maybe on the tube too.

Try the app on a small tablet then

Of all the gadgets that I've bought over the years, and there have been more than a few, the Kindle is the one that gets used the most. Now if I could just get my wife to use one, so that I don't have to keep buying a paper copy and a Kindle copy of books...

(I'm tempted to "win" one next time I'm at the UKOUG conference in December so that she has to use one)

[darrylmg]

Try the app on a small tablet then

Of all the gadgets that I've bought over the years, and there have been more than a few, the Kindle is the one that gets used the most. Now if I could just get my wife to use one, so that I don't have to keep buying a paper copy and a Kindle copy of books...

(I'm tempted to "win" one next time I'm at the UKOUG conference in December so that she has to use one)

+1 to this.
I have all my books on my tablet and it goes with me to all my hotels and b&bs and holidays.
Plus if I get board of kindle books, I just open the CUK app and see what the other contractors are moaning about.

[Platypus]

I barely use my Kindle these days, I use the app on my iPad.

I do take my Kindle on my summer holiday as it works better than the iPad in bright light plus if it gets sand or beer on it, it doesn't matter since it cost so much less then the iPad!

[psychocandy]

Kindle is brill. Got a Fire non HD one which was pretty cheap.

Used to have a nook and that was truly pants.

[Sysman]

The 3G is pretty wonderful at times, although increasingly free WiFi is ubiquitous.

I have the old classic Kindle Keyboard 3g, before they announced touch and paperwhite. I like physical page-turn buttons, works far better when reading in the bath in a sandwich bag

Do you often take a bath in a sandwich bag?

[dundeedude]

I may as well propose another solution...

Kobo Glo
Kobo Aura (not the huge HD version, it's huge!)

Both are touchscreen without a keyboard. I use a Kobo Glo because I don't like Amazon (especially their book prices!) at all. You have plenty more options with a Kobo device, such as:

*Buy books from just about anywhere online and place them on the device
*Rent books from your local library and read on the device for 2 or 3 weeks. This uses the 'Overdrive' service, and the availability of books seems to vary wildly between library districts. For example Edinburgh libraries has a huge amount, whereas Perthshire has about half as many books available. I find this quite useful and have requested ebooks to be added that I wanted to read and had them made available within 24 hours, which was quite impressive.
*Upload out of copyright ebooks as required from appropriate projects throughout all the internets.

The Glo is essentially an Amazon Paperwhite in hardware terms but with much less restrictive formats supported - in fact it supports just about anything.

You can manage your ebooks using Calibre (Kindle, Kobo or just about any ebook reader) and I have found it to be invaluable for scheduling download of various magazines that appear to be free, such as The Economist.

I wouldn't bother with using a tablet, phone or computer screen to read books. Although not obvious in the beginning you can cause quite severe eye strain over time. An ebook reader, on the other hand, really is as close to reading paper as possible without using paper. I have the LED backlight down at 1% and it's bright enough for most situations - I've yet to use a brighter setting, although admittedly I've only used it in the UK so far.

[d000hg]

Although I prefer the real buttons I realised there is a case where it's a PITA. I have been reading a couple of Terry Pratchett books on the Kindle recently and there are so many footnotes, which are not shown at the bottom of the page but at the back of the book... with my Kindle that means moving the cursor to each one and hitting enter to jump to the footnote. Being able to touch the link would be FAR better.

[TheFaQQer]

Both are touchscreen without a keyboard. I use a Kobo Glo because I don't like Amazon (especially their book prices!) at all.

Apart from the library, where can you legally get eBooks cheaper than Amazon does them? The way that Amazon "negotiates" prices with publishers generally means that Amazon is always going to be the cheapest - or certainly that's what one magazine publisher repeatedly says.

[Fishface]

they work best with free flowing text - any books with tables or diagrams are not compatible with the black and white versions.

[RSoles]

I have had two kobos, I liked them, but the wife managed to break both their screens.
I agree that any books with technical diagrams or photos are pretty poor on a Kindle ( I have a fire hd).