Any kindle ebook reader here? I‘m thinking of buying a kindle
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To say a little bit about me first, it hasn’t been long since I started reading light novels, a few years at most. It wasn’t until my older sister introduced me to JNC and let me read her premium ebooks that I seriously got hooked on them. But unfortunately not every series gets licensed by JNC and there are some I really would like to read who got licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment instead (Accomplishments of the Duke‘s Daughter, The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior and 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! for example).
It‘s a pity that this publisher doesn‘t offer such nice premium ebooks like JNC, so I obviously have no other choice than buying the ebooks on platforms like amazon, kobo etc. I also thought about buying the physical copies, but since I don‘t have a lot of space and most of my space is already occupied with manga and western novels, it‘s a no-go. Another issue would be, that english books aren’t that easy to get in my country, sometimes the price is extremely high for just a small and thin book, the other time it’s simply out of stock or currently unavailable... But that aside.
So after some thought the kindle or ipad with kindle app seems to be the best choice. The kindle and/or ipad doesn‘t take much space, it’s easy on the eyes (in the case of the kindle) and it is also quite practical for taking your whole library with you on vacation (when I think back of my past vacations where I always took around 10kg books or more with me...).
I already checked some books I want to buy, the picture quality seems overall pretty decent (at least on the ipad) and I also heard that you can remove the drm (though I also heard that it‘s quite difficult to remove the current drm and keeping the overall quality at the same time). But this is secondary right now. Before I make the final decision it would be nice to get some feedback, so are any kindle ebook reader here? Are kindle ebooks are good choice?Update: Thank you for the info @myskaros, but I already knew about it through my sister. I just forgot mentioning it.😅 This is quite a stupid and also sad issue, but letting this aside I want to know if kindle ebooks would be worth it despite this.
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About Kindle in particular, in case you weren't aware, there was a pretty large ordeal 2 years when Amazon decided to take down huge swaths of light novels without offering any explanation or recourse. This affected mainly JNC, I believe, but various titles published by Yen Press and Seven Seas were also removed. You can read about it more here:
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3666/regarding-missing-modified-titles-from-amazon
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I‘m using a kindle, mostly for a looot of western novels, but also for some light novels (until now I only have some published by Seven Seas Entertainment). It‘s quite practial, if you always want to take your whole library with you. Both my father and sister mostly read and buy their books on kindle now. You save space, which you wouldn’t be able to do otherwise and would need to select which series you will buy or not sooner or later. It‘s the perfect device for taking with you on vacation. It’s very durable, you can even take it with you on the beach and read it like a physical book under the sun. For example with an ipad this wouldn‘t be possible due to the reflection on the glass and some other small issues.
Setting aside the issue with amazon banning a lot of light novels due to unknown reasons some years ago, their ebook quality has improved a lot in the last years, the picture quality has gotten much better than before, though it still isn‘t as good as J-Novel Club premium ebooks. But if you want to enjoy the colorful illustrations of the light novels I recommend reading them on an ipad or any other tablet who support the kindle app. After all, every book you will download to your kindle device (the paperpack model etc.) will be only in black and white.
Some years ago it was also really easy to strip the drm of your kindle ebooks using calibre, also a reason why kindle ebooks are so popular. But I‘ve heard that is has gotten a lot harder since then, though it shouldn‘t be impossible. Unfortunately I have no knowledge about how to remove the new drm and on the same time keep the quality of the ebook, maybe other kindle reader know more about it. -
Neither of my Kindle readers are on the forum, so I'll have to answer for them.
As readers, they're fine. Less than half of what is on mine are Kindle books, though, the majority being from here.
I do convert JNC ebooks to mobi format and send them to be managed by Amazon. I don't count on Amazon having every book I might want to read. For example, High School DxD only has a few of the novels available on Kindle, so those I buy in paperback
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There are also colour eInk readers (not a Kindle), but they are rather new and the quality of the displays isn't so good at the moment.
As for Kindle, sure they are nice to handle and weight next to nothing but have bad UI and the resolution isn't too good on the low price models (main problem with the UI is that light novel titles are kinda long and are cut off early with an ellipsis which sometimes cuts off the volume number and makes managing/finding them on the device a pain). I get most of my non JNC books from kobo where you can get downloads of the books with adobe DRM. I don't know if those are readable on a Kindle without striping the DRM.
I only have a low price kindle from 2018, but I really loved reading on it until the display was damaged. I then switched to an 8-inch premium tablet (since I only read indoors).
For reading outside, I would always recommend an eInk reader. Nothing beats that under the sun, except for real books ;)
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Bluntly, the kind of lock Amazon has on the Kindle - in addition to the book-removal incidents already mentioned - means I would never recommend one.
To the best of my knowledge, Kobo doesn't lock down their e-readers, if you want an e-ink screen; you can load non-encrypted ePubs/PDFs from anyone, including the ones JNC sells directly. I don't use an Android tablet, but most of them should be able to use the reader apps from most of the major digital bookstores, and there should be a number of generic ePub readers for unprotected books like JNC's.
I use an iPad; reader apps are available for all of the platforms I'm aware of. (I do prefer the built-in Books app as a reader, and it reads standard ePubs just fine; I use Dropbox to copy them over. And there are methods to strip the DRM from some online stores so I can read those books in the Books app as well.)
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@adelaideroseamaryllis said in Any kindle ebook reader here? I‘m thinking of buying a kindle:
Update: Thank you for the info @myskaros, but I already knew about it through my sister. I just forgot mentioning it.😅 This is quite a stupid and also sad issue, but letting this aside I want to know if kindle ebooks would be worth it despite this.
I guess the main reason I brought it up is that as a past offender, it's harder to trust that Kindle won't remove more books again in the future, so it would be unfortunate to get stuck on a device that only has (legitimate) access to an incomplete library. If you were to get a non-Kindle device, you might feel more confident about future books always being available for it.
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I've owned kindles for 12 years, first a Kindle 2 and since 2017 a Voyage. I also own an iPad 2021.
Reading for long periods is much nicer on a Kindle than on an iPad since the weight is 7.23 ounces instead of 16.7 ounces, and (to a much lesser extent) because e-ink is a little easier on the eyes. It is black and white though, so you'd also install the Kindle app on your computer or tablet if you want to view the illustrations in color.
I use Calibre (free app) to convert the JNC premium editions to mobi format, which just takes a couple of clicks.
Amazon removing some JNC titles didn't affect me since I get my JNC books directly from JNC.
My iPad is nice for reading the morning paper, general web browsing, and for reading the JNC pre-publications. It would be acceptable for book reading though doubling the weight over a Kindle could make your hand and arm tired unless you propped it up on something.
If you do choose a Kindle over an iPad or kobo, don't be scared of the "with ads" cheaper version. "with ads" just means when you turn it off the lock screen shows a book ad. You turn it on, swipe, and the book ad goes away. There are no ads while you read.
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I love my paperwhite kindle.
It's simple to use, weights almost nothing, and is easy on the eyes either at day or night.
But what I love the most is the integrated dictionary. You just touch a word, and lo and behold! You can see the definition from different sources. (The bad thing is that you get a little too used to this and then you touch a word in a physical book expecting to see the definition in there too. Not that it ever happened to me, of course.)
Also, being able to select and keep a record of your favorite cites from your books is nice.
As for JNC, I also buy my LN here. It's a little bit cheaper, and you can convert them to different types. -
I like my stepdads 3rd gen Kindle, but considering upgrading to a smaller form factor (no keyboard, touch screen) mostly for the screen light. Currently on sale for Valentine's day.
My biggest issue with a Kindle reader however, is I can't read j-novel pre-published translations. So I have a Fire 8 (the 7s screen resolution sucked, only 1gb of ram, and it felt slow) on order, though I will need to hack it to load the play store for access to the j-novel app, which doesn't appear to be in the app store.
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@kurzaa said in Any kindle ebook reader here? I‘m thinking of buying a kindle:
I like my stepdads 3rd gen Kindle, but considering upgrading to a smaller form factor (no keyboard, touch screen) mostly for the screen light. Currently on sale for Valentine's day.
My biggest issue with a Kindle reader however, is I can't read j-novel pre-published translations. So I have a Fire 8 (the 7s screen resolution sucked, only 1gb of ram, and it felt slow) on order, though I will need to hack it to load the play store for access to the j-novel app, which doesn't appear to be in the app store.
You can also read the prepubs in a web browser (Chrome, Safari), though I don't know if the bundled Fire browser will work for that. I had a 7 years ago and the "silk" browser was pretty bad.
