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Kindle Recommendations?


samingeorgia

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I'm thinking about getting either a Kindle or a "Fire", but don't know the difference. Since I'm asking this question, you can tell I'm not a real tech freak. I view electronic devices as tools, not sources of entertainment (unlike my daughter and granddaughter!) -- what do you folks suggest?

Additional background: I had a tablet which I rarely used, so I gave it to my granddaughter. There was an app that showed the position of the stars just by pointing at the sky; that was cool for an hour or so....

Yes, I am an old geezer.

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I have an older Kindle Fire which I love and use constantly for reading mostly but also to watch movies, etc. (I have Prime membership) in the winter on the treadmill.  I also sometimes use it to check email when on vacation.

My husband has the Kindle Paperwhite which he practically has glued to his hip.  He reads voraciously all sorts of books and subscribes to 2 online magazines.  He rarely uses it to do anything web based, just read.

Look carefully at the descriptions of the range of Kindles and decide just what it is that you want to do with it and how.  There are even differences in e-readers if that is your primary purpose.  I'm sure others will chime in with their favorite device.  I also have a Surface Pro not used nearly as much as I should.  My Fire is the go to for travel.

Maybe go to a place like Best Buy and try them out.  Feel and see the differences.  And good luck!  The technology changes quickly but, if you like your device, it does what you want/need, and doesn't wear out, it will make you happy.  My fire is about 5 years old.  My husband's is only about a year old but his previous basic reader lasted about 6 years and finally pooped out or he wouldn't have replaced it.

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We both have Nooks (Barnes & Noble) and love them.  I bought an iPad Air thinking for travel.  Used it for email but not for much serious work, even the spreadsheets that I thought I'd do on it.  Now my husband is using it for his travel computer (mostly sitting in waiting rooms) and as a reader and email and internet and everything when he doesn't want to walk upstairs (it's hotter up there) to his desktop computer.  Movies, too, and TV like UConn basketball games when I want to watch a TV show.  He loves it and uses it all day/night long for all the various purposes.  I continue with my large laptop for mobility and my desktop for work (home office) and my iPhone 6 Plus (the larger screen for my old eyes) when it's too much trouble to take my large laptop.  So, I still take my Nook with me for reading and minor internet with it's larger screen than my iPhone 6 Plus.  I looked at the Surface Pro and loved it, but then loved the Surface Book even more with it's larger screen, more USB ports, and substantial cover for both protection and privacy.  A flat, light-weight laptop.  I may order the Surface Book soon.

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I have owned a Kindle, one of the earliest, a Nook, and an iPad.  I am a tech geek to a point, and they all had their good points.  If you are not going to be using the device for anything but reading, I would go with the Kindle or the Nook.  My personal preference was the Nook, but my Kindle was old enough that it did not have a touch screen.  The iPad (or other tablet device such as the surface pro) is the most versatile, but the Nook, or probably the Kindle Fire, are nice compromises in that you can download books, games and videos on them and they generally are less expensive than true tablets. My husband has a Kindle fire and and iPad, and he uses both devices depending on what he is doing. 

Going to a store that carries multiple devices and handling them is good advice; you might also check among your friends who are geographically close to you and see if any of them use any of these devices and would be willing to let you borrow them for a day or two to see how hard or easy they are to use. 

All of my devices are still in use - my mother has my kindle to read on, and my son has my Nook because he can't afford a tablet and I won't give him my iPad.  I would base a decision on personal preference for what you will be using it for, and price point for you personally.  Although I do think that my first Kindle was in the nature of a gateway drug....

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One nice thing about our Nooks, old as they are, is that everyone in our family can read the same books, even our grown daughter who doesn't live with us.  (Hubby would buy a Nook and then hand it down to me when he wanted a newer one and then to our daughter as we handed down again.)  When he buys a book or downloads a free book, magazine, whatever, we all have access to it. 

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JMO but if you aren't going to use it for the internet, get an e-ink version like the Paperwhite.

Battery life lasts a really long time and the screen is far easier to read. Size of storage isn't important as a book is generally pretty tiny at around 1 MB. My wife purchased a Nook and while she'll say she reads with it all the time she hasn't touched it in 6 months. She gets books from the library and reads about 1 per week.

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I love my (now ancient) Kindle Keyboard; wireless only.  You can't beat the e-ink for reading even in bright light.  It is *just* an e-reader; in theory it has a rudimentary browser in it but it is abysmally slow trying to do anything online.  It does download books quickly.  As it ages I have found the wireless gets flaky at times and forgets the password to our wireless network which I find annoying.  I also wish there was an easier way (say, via the desktop application) to put books into collections.  However, for reading I love it.  You can still get them, and you can get the Kindle Unlimited which is like an online subscription library:  read a book, return it, get another -- and unlimited means what it says.  Then you have the option to purchase any book you want to keep, also to loan books you have purchased to others.  They also have a discount program to buy paper copies of books you have on Kindle, should you wish.  You can share Kindle books with all your electronic devices (computers, tablets, phones) should you wish.  But Amazon retains ownership; once you are gone there is no library left behind for your family.  That I don't like.

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In my Nook, I can arrange by categories as I choose (although, it'll suggest, too) and search by title, author, how recently purchased, etc.  The books are ours.  Hubby uses the app on his iPhone, iPad, etc., to read also, but my iPhone screen doesn't work with my old eyes for prolonged reading.  I have read from my desktop, though, when it's research for something I'm working on on my other monitors.

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Catherine, you mention leaving behind a library -- that's another topic for discussion! The younger generation seems to have as much use for a printed book as they do for a butter churn. I plan to go through the books in my den and put some kind of sticker on the ones that they should be careful with after my journal has been posted to the great general ledger in the sky. I have some pretty rare and out-of-print books relating to history and collecting and these do not need to be discarded.

I do plan to have my old "Package X" volumes buried with me, kind of like a Pharaoh.....

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I have a Kindle Paperwhite and a Kindle Fire HD6. I use the fire when I'm away from the office to check my e-mail, and some internet browsing. Also, have a music app and use the fire with a bluetooth speaker when we're on vacation etc. The Paperwhite is exclusively for reading, if you have the Amazon kindle unlimited account, you can 'borrow' up to 10 books at a time. I love reading, slow times of the year I might read 3 or 4 books a week.

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2 hours ago, samingeorgia said:

I have some pretty rare and out-of-print books relating to history and collecting and these do not need to be discarded.

Ah, even these, in this day and age.  My mother in law had some rare (like, pristine first edition) books including Audubon bird books.  None of the rare book dealers wanted them.  We gave a lot of them to a library (and even they didn't really want them and had to be persuaded).  The Gutenberg Project and Google Books has killed the rare book market.  If you really want them to have good homes and you are done with them personally - sell 'em on AbeBooks before your AJE.

 

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I have been introduced to some wonderful authors and books through Bookbub, that I probably would not have come across without it.  I also get emails with specials from http://robinreads.com/   There is some overlap between the two, but not always.  I love getting books (including cookbooks!) for free.  And they are almost always available in multiple platforms, so that you can choose between Amazon for Kindle or BN for Nook. 

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I love the sample book feature; I have avoided purchasing a load of turkeys that way and also took a chance on something out of my ordinary that turned out to be great.  There are also lots of free books - but sometimes it's better to pay a small amount for a version with better e-formatting.  I got Dante's "Divine Comedy" and opted for a paid version with reviews that lauded the formatting, as the reviews on the freebie version said navigating was hard due to the lack of e-formatting.

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Catherine, my book group is just winding up "Divine Comedy" half way through Paradiso.  We began in January and won't finish until next month.  What an amazing book!  Our leader has taught it in university several times and is just full of insights and thought provoking questions.  It's such a challenging spiritual journey...

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Don't forget to check out your library. I can borrow most any ebook I want for 3 weeks. I don't own it, but that does give me the incentive to read what I borrow, rather then buy a ton of books that I never get around to reading. And I can always buy it later if I decide I want to own it.

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@Margaret CPA in OH one of my goals is to read it in conjunction with an Italian version.  There is an old Italian saying:  "Traduttore, tradittore" which means "the translator is a traitor."  Not as stark as it sounds; rather it is a statement that there are *always* trade-offs to be made.  Do we keep the scansion here, sacrificing these two nuances of meaning?  Or do we keep the nuances and ruin the flow of the text?  So my idea was to see if I can learn more, and more deeply, by reading both together.  

"S'io credesse che mia risposte fosse a persona che mai tornare al mundo, cuesta fiamma staria sensa piu scosse."  "If I believed that my response was given to a person who might return to the world, this flame would cease all movement."  Ah, but you lose the sense of the shocked stillness, the frozen-ness, of that cessation.  Traduttore, tradittore.

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1 minute ago, PaulH said:

Don't forget to check out your library. I can borrow most any ebook I want for 3 weeks. I don't own it, but that does give me the incentive to read what I borrow, rather then buy a ton of books that I never get around to reading. And I can always buy it later if I decide I want to own it.

If you have Amazon Prime you can also borrow one book a month, same reason.  Not all books are available through Prime Lending.  But I will check out the library, too -- thank you, @PaulH!

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Our leader recommended that we use the Mandelbaum translations which have the original Italian on one page, the English on the facing page.  He often reads the Italian and explains some nuances that even the translator couldn't quite manage.  I haven't a clue about the Italian, personally, but enjoy his reading of it.

I commend you on this undertaking and wish you to get as much out of it as I am.

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I have never read the Divine Comedy entirely, in English or Italian, but Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle did an excellent fantasy version of the story entitled Inferno.  Nominated for both Hugo and Nebula awards in 1976, it is highly entertaining and borrows the geography of Dante's Hell.  If you want something a bit lighter than the original, I highly recommend this book.   i know we have some science fiction aficionados on this board.

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