The new Kindle 3

[steve10574]

Who's 3G is it surely it just has a sim card in it? Could put that in iPad :-)

[Goldberg]

It think it needs to be taken apart to find it, if it has one! There is no slot for one from what I could see.

But I guess someone will hack it

[spraky]

Like I said, have never had a Kindle, so anyone have first hand experience of pdf's on this Kindle 3, as that would be one of the main uses for me, to carry some manuals with me.
i.e how easy to read or zoom, search document etc.

[casio]

I've already got mine I got my kindle 3 delivered on the 28th of Aug and its been with me everywhere ever since, you will need a cover for it though its very delicate or atlest it feels it to me -the amazon ones are crazy expensive for what they are, I made one for £4.50 and it looks good and has extra functions -although its missing a light at the moment but that could change easily

ive not had an ebook reader before and I use a software on my phone to make it work like a wifi hotspot so i bought the £109 3g-less version and its great hardware wise the keyboard is very stiff (although tha will change with use I'd think) -the screen though, is amazing. but there are some downsides to it,

it wont accept epub files which is what the majority of the books that are out for the ipad/iphone are, but its not a big problem using a program called Calibre you can convert them (loads of other fomats to .mobi which are supported) -and send them to your kindle.

Back on topic The main issue I've with it is its total lack of organisation and content management, you can fill it with 3,500 books but you cant make folders on it via the computer and it wont even list books by genre

I was hoping i could make a folder for an author like Lisa Lutz and then put her books in there and it show up like that on the kindle but no, thats not how it works, well strictly speaking you can create folders and put the authors books in there but it ignors them and displays all the books in a long friggin list. you can list them on the device by Author, title or most recent first, all of which are next to useless when you have upwards of 900 books on it

On a side note, if you want some books to get you started grab these from the thread rap started in the iphone section http://www.digital-forums.com/showthread.php?t=820908 there are loads of decent books in there not just the fiction ones there's freakonomics which I really enjoyed as well as loads of others, you'll need Calibre to convert them from epub though but it'll grab the meta data, reviews and artwork for the books and you can dodge paying for the newspapers and blogs subscription (which is something like £16 a month) by using the news option thats built into calibre for free (it doesnt limit you to only uk news sources either) Amazon also want to charge you to read blogs again this is something calibre does "out of the box" again for free.

the only other option you have that can organise the content are Collections which are like playlists but in book form and you can only create them on the kindle which means you have to add books to them one at a time which is tedious when you have 100's and 100's books and is about as much fun as watching x-factor.

According to amazon that is the only way to do it, Athough they said they would pass my feedback on to the business team which I guess means it was ignored and deleted. they said it was designed to make it not need a computer, but if you dont have access to a computer how did you go online to order it? -they didnt answer that one

As you can guess I was PISSED at the lack of management applications to let me organise it via a computer, seriously Amazon dont do anything at all, even though they make some kindle software for the pc and mac but that only lets you read on your computer it wont even let you rename a book through their software. which means you're stuck with drag and drop to get books on there which turn in to massive pain in the arse especially when you have to flick through 90+ screens to see all the looooong list of books this is when I considered selling it,

think of it as an ipod/ipad/iphone with no itunes, its like being able to buy music from itunes but then they make it as difficult to manage it as they could, like the apple hardware it'll work without a computer but not as well as it could.

After a couple more hours of searching for a way to bend it to my will, and make it work the way I wanted it to, I stumbled across some 3rd party beta test software that lets you organise the collections on your computer which is better than anything amazon can offer.

to automate it and do everything through the computer as much as possible and make things WAY simpler and faster. I load any books I want into the calibre software, covert them to a compatible .mobi file then send them to the device via usb. then load up the kindle collection manager software and create the collections adding books to the collections on mass when you create the collections or one at a time which is way easier with a mouse and a full size keyboard lol

then you apply the changes you've made and restart the kindle (press home, then menu, then click on settings, then press the menu button again and go down and click on restart, it takes about 40 sec to fully restart but when it does and you list the content by collections the chaos of a massive book list is dodged and a sense of calm arrives on the kindle. if I had'nt found the beta software it'd been sold already. It was really annoying -especially if like me you have 1000's of paperbooks around the house organised the way you want them, Apple have it nailed as far as ibooks on the iphone/ipod/ipad their UI is sublime in comparison and shows how it could have been done so much better, if only I could have connected it to itunes and used the sync function -yes I love my iphone and no I dont care who knows lol

serously Amazon have the opertunity to make it SO much better with the addition of some dedicated kindle management software, they could roll it into the kindle for pc software they already provide making it amazons answer to the itunes store, it'll play audio books but with the mess they made of the management i'd stick to an ipod or mp3 player

The 3rd party Kindle Collection Management software is availble for free all you do is fill in the details and a valid email address, you get an email from them with the link to the software which you download and run and your golden,

Hope this helps

[casio]

quick addition, I was going to post the specs and what i used for my kindle case in the morning but i may as well post em now with a couple of pics of it in action

it did only cost £4.50ish and I got everything from Asda, the notebook I destroyed in the making of it was £2 (its one of them asda own brand, moleskine knock offs) the velcro was £2.20 for 6ft of it and the glue was simple superglue that I had around the house -you could use that new pritt stick or a glue gun anything really,

I cut down the edges of the spine leaving one sheet at the back then after cleaning the whispy bits of paper I glued it down over where the spine used to be (I used loads of glue on that bit to make it work the way I wanted) then using velcro I stuck the soft tabs on to the back of the kindle and the hooks on ontop of the lift up section in the back of the notebook and stuck it together, if you need more protection you can just slide it into the pockets at the back theyre easily enought to keep it safe although its a faf to get it out for a quick read while your on the lav (thats why the velco was handy lol)













I have made a couple of others and they were less than a pound each although they look less than a pound each lol

[DJ OD]

Who's 3G is it surely it just has a sim card in it? Could put that in iPad :-)

It'll be locked down anyway. Think of it like the 3G dongles. That even with no credit they still can connect to their service provider's homepage to enable you to buy credit. Sure there may be a way to proxy spoof it a bit like the Three 3G hack, but if that can be done, the hole will be closed pretty quick.


DJ OD

[maltloaf]

I seem to remember they were o2 in the uk, can't remember where I read that though.

I've started reading books in bed on my iphone mostly, the iPad stays downstairs. Does the Kindle have any kind of backlight or lighting at all ? useless for me if not as the missus turns the main light off when she starts snoring !

[spraky]

Don't think there is any backlight, but lighted covers are available.

Anyone on the pdf question, i.e are they good to use with manuals in pdf format.

[casio]

theres no inbuilt light or backlight but as mentioned you can get a case with one built in or you can get seperate one I bought one (mighty bright) a year or so ago and I use it almost every night and its great, much better than the smaller ones like the ones in the lighted cases

as for the PDF support, every pdf ive thrown at it has worked although ive also converted them to .mobi format and theyre just like any other book, its not so much zoom more changing the font size, the images are spot on just in grey scale

I would recommend the kindle if you need to carry books, or manuals etc Ive yet to charge mine and as i mentioned in the other post ive used it every opertunity ive had, saying that the text to speach function reading a book to me through my car stereo is a little jarring in the beginning but after a while it gets easier to follow the flow

EDIT this is the light I use at the moment but ive got one of these on its way to be delivered

[spraky]

as for the PDF support, every pdf ive thrown at it has worked

Cheers m8, that's me sold.

[Cooleo]

Kindle's 3G is done via Vodafone in the UK. Inside is an actual simcard with unlimited data. It cannot be used in another device as it is tied to the device via its mac address.

I'm so tempted to buy one..

[flik]

No backlight = Massive fail for me ! Glad I found that out before ordering one. What a shitter

[casio]

to be honest m8 it doesnt really need one, its easy to read even in dim light, saying that the amazon case's with the light built in draw their power through the 2 mounting holes on the side of the kindle itself so by adding a case you'd build in a light (Although its a £50 addition)

Ive seen a couple of other ereaders that had a touch screen and they were like looking into a dark mirror ive not seen one other than a sony (probably wrong with the brand) with a backlight and it looked terrible, even the reviewer said it was hard to read in daylight and not bright enough in the dark,

I look at it like this, I'd need a light to read by when its dark if I have a paperbook, I dont see a problem using one with the kindle, if it reflected the light when its dark or made it hard to read, I'd agree that its a fail on amazon's behalf but in truth its just like reading a paperback in bed, -only you dont want to fall asleep and dribble on it... obviously

[mug]

Yup, Calibre is like the iTunes of the eBook world. It inter-converts formats, stores your books and transfers them to almost any device. Therefore you don't have to buy your books from Amazon, you can buy them anywhere and just convert to Mobi format for viewing on the Kindle.

Can any format be converted ?. I have loads of downloaded books in lit, epub and pdf. Some of the pdf's are textbooks with diagrams and can be upto 50mb. Can the kindle handle big files with pictures ?.

[dannyboy]

Here's the kindle 3G opened up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD-wPmowR-Y

[flik]

to be honest m8 it doesnt really need one, its easy to read even in dim light, saying that the amazon case's with the light built in draw their power through the 2 mounting holes on the side of the kindle itself so by adding a case you'd build in a light (Although its a £50 addition)

Ive seen a couple of other ereaders that had a touch screen and they were like looking into a dark mirror ive not seen one other than a sony (probably wrong with the brand) with a backlight and it looked terrible, even the reviewer said it was hard to read in daylight and not bright enough in the dark,

I look at it like this, I'd need a light to read by when its dark if I have a paperbook, I dont see a problem using one with the kindle, if it reflected the light when its dark or made it hard to read, I'd agree that its a fail on amazon's behalf but in truth its just like reading a paperback in bed, -only you dont want to fall asleep and dribble on it... obviously

It might not matter to you but it does to me as I do a lot of reading in pitch black conditions. No wonder the battery life is awesome. Will wait until Kindle 4 or an Android tablet that can operate in similar temperature conditions.

[DJ OD]

Kindle's 3G is done via Vodafone in the UK. Inside is an actual simcard with unlimited data. It cannot be used in another device as it is tied to the device via its mac address.

The SIM itself won't have a mac address. It will be when the device connects to the 3G network it will check the kindles mac address with Voda's list then connect on success.

So in theory putting the sim in a device where you can spoof the mac address for one on Voda's kindle list will make it work.

The fact the kindle offers web browsing as well will mean that it should be undetectable on a third party device until someone starts to download a blu-ray movie... Then Voda will kill the sim probably.


DJ OD

[Goldberg]

"Whoa, it's kinda Pornographic" - Excellent!

Here's the kindle 3G opened up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD-wPmowR-Y

[casio]

Can any format be converted ?. I have loads of downloaded books in lit, epub and pdf. Some of the pdf's are textbooks with diagrams and can be upto 50mb. Can the kindle handle big files with pictures ?.

Yeah they all work with Calibre, my whole e-book collection is a mixup off all the file types you mentioned and more but with calibre it just gets on with it.

this is a quick screen grab of the file types it will import/convert hth

[mug]

Yeah they all work with Calibre, my whole e-book collection is a mixup off all the file types you mentioned and more but with calibre it just gets on with it.

this is a quick screen grab of the file types it will import/convert hth

Thanks, can it do it in batches because I have a few hundred to convert. Also I noticed it doesn't have a slot for a SD card, is the internal memory enough ?.