Kindle owners: Educate me about Kindles

Rubber Ducky

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 11:11 am

The schools here have closed because of Coronavirus, and wonderful DDIL wants Kindles for 2 of the grand-ducklings.

DS #2 wants a Kindle in the event that BMG sends everyone home early.

How do Kindles work? What books are free? How does the subscription work? When you download a book, does it stay in the Kindle forever? What if you run out of storage room?

I need recs on which version(s) to buy. We are looking at the black-and-white models that use wi-fi, not the Fire ones that use a browser.

amother

Wheat

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 11:33 am

If you just want to download books, you want a paperwhite kindle probably.
The freebies aren't much of a selection (though they do have a lot of classics for free), and I found paying for a kindle unlimited subscription not to be worth it for me (didn't care for their selection either). So I buy the books I am interested in.
But you can borrow books from the library electronically, check out your local system.
If you buy and download a book, it will stay loaded unless you delete it (you can always download it again, unless you delete it permanently). If you run out of storage you won't be able to download more, but you would have to have downloaded a ton for that to happen.

WitchKitty

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 11:56 am

Truth is, I get most of my books from vk embarrassed

Kindle does have a lot of good classics for free, but most of their paid ones aren't that great. Lots of books that I wanted I couldn't find there, on the other hand you can get some frum books by Chaim Walder for example.
If you'd like I have and can transfer lots of books in azw3, like Harry Potter and things like that, I don't know what kind you'd like.
I have the simple type (8th gen 2016) and it works great, it's just cheap because it's not waterproof and doesn't have a built in light.
I have about 300 books and I used up 1GB

amother

Purple

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:05 pm

The fire is a tablet and if you are buying for reading do not get it.
You might just want the basic kindle rather than paying for the paperwhite.
What sort of books would he want to read?
if you have amazon prime, you anyway have access to kindle unlimited, although I haven't seen it's such an amazing selection.
You can buy books from amazon, borrow from ebook libraries or load your own books on. Ebooks do not take up much space-I have several thousand and I've only used a 1gb or so.
Project Gutenberg is a good website for free download of classics.
I use a program called calibre to upload my own books to the kindle.

amother

Purple

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:05 pm

WitchKitty wrote:

Truth is, I get most of my books from vk embarrassed

Could you elaborate on what vk is? I struggle to find books. thnx

amother

Mauve

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:48 pm

If you like classics, Gutenberg.org has plenty. It's worth getting a Paperwhite just for those.

amother

Mauve

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:49 pm

The Paperwhite is worth it. It has a built in light, and if you buy the latest model, it's water resistant.

amother

Mauve

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:50 pm

Ebook libraries are now in higher demand, so unless the library orders more copies now, there won't be much available. But for whatever books are left on the digital shelves, it's probably still worth getting a Kindle.

amother

Mauve

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:51 pm

You can always delete a book from the Kindle, but ebook files are not large, so you aren't that likely to run out of storage.

amother

Mauve

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:56 pm

And a warning: It may be book time, not screen time, but you can really lose track of how many books you're reading because you don't feel the weight.

amother

Mauve

Sun, Mar 15 2020, 2:57 pm

The price will vary based on where you shop. Ebay and Mercari sometimes have good deals on the better models.

WitchKitty

Wed, Mar 18 2020, 6:35 am

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

Could you elaborate on what vk is? I struggle to find books. thnx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VK_(service)
They don't care too much about copyrights.