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Kindle Readers Unite!

DigitalAR

DigitalAR

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 30, 2022
262
393
Hi everyone,

I just got a Kindle paperwhite a week ago and I love it. In fact I am 2 books in.

Figured I’d ask the great MR community of any tips and tricks when using a Kindle.

For example, I’m still fiddling with font sizes but I like to keep my margins thin and narrow so read more quickly.

Lastly I’ll mention that this time around I only have 1 book loaded on my kindle at a time. It kinda forces me to commit to the book I intend on reading and prevents me from starting a bunch of different books and slowly trudging forward on them.

Also of course my device has Bluetooth turned off and airplane mode is off as well.
 
I love my Kindle. I’ve had my current Paperwhite since 2013 and it is still going strong. I’ve had a Kindle since the second generation Kindle.
 
I love me Kindle (Paperwhite). It’s still inferior to paper, but I can’t argue about all the many advantages of a device and e-ink.

However they do badly need to find a way to annotate book with a stylus.
 
yaxomoxay said:
I love me Kindle (Paperwhite). It’s still inferior to paper, but I can’t argue about all the many advantages of a device and e-ink.

However they do badly need to find a way to annotate book with a stylus.
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Have you had a look at the Kindle Scribe?
 
I have an older kindle I love the display but it being a "uni-tasker" (does only one thing) it generally sits in the corner and I opt for my iPad mini.
 
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HDFan said:
Wouldn't it be better to post this to a Kindle forum?
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Yes. But also no.
ucfgrad93 said:
I love my Kindle. I’ve had my current Paperwhite since 2013 and it is still going strong. I’ve had a Kindle since the second generation Kindle.
Click to expand...

I had the paperwhite from 2015 which was great. I now have the 2018 version and love it.

The new scribe looks incredible in person but definitely not as portable.
 
I tried a Kindke Oasis for a while and the concept ws great - small, light, waterproof and even had cellular. But I just couldn't get into it. It was sluggish and the paperwhite screen just didn't jump out at me (LCD type screens never bothered my from a fatigue standpoint.)

Plus, I have over 1,000 books (a lot of history, sports, etc) and I found a fair wouldn't even work on a Kindle (but fine on a Fire or an iPad.) Plus, no built in speaker for Audible books, you need to bluetooth to an external one.

A lot of people like the paperwhite display because it looks, well, like paper. But I didn't care for it.
 
I had the original PaperWhite that I jailbroke just to install custom screen saver. I'll be honest, the Emily Dickenson screen saver picture freaks me out a bit.😬 I don't know if it's the jail break or the screen saver, but my PaperWhite's drained even when not in use for weeks.
I brought a new PaperWhite when it became water proof/resistant. I was thinking about jailbreaking that for a customer screen saver too (sorry Emily Dickenson), but I learned I could set my current book cover as the screen saver. No battery drain, no Emily Dickenson save screen. Much rejoicing in Mousseland.
 
ucfgrad93 said:
For me, the fact that only does one thing is a huge plus. With no alerts I can fully concentrate on what I’m reading.
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Yup... this is why I love it also. No distractions. Just open and read. I haven't bought a physical book in a very long time. I know I don't have any plans on doing so in the future... Graphic novels aside. Those I still buy!
 
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rhett7660 said:
Yup... this is why I love it also. No distractions. Just open and read. I haven't bought a physical book in a very long time. I know I don't have any plans on doing so in the future... Graphic novels aside. Those I still buy!
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Almost all of my reading is on my Kindle. Rarely do I read physical books anymore.
 
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Still have two of the original Kindles, both working, and a few subsequent ones including the wonderful PaperWhite. These are absolutely unparalleled for reading outside in the daytime, the battery lasts forever, and they all just work really well for their intended task. That said, I do all about 95% of my other reading in the Kindle app on my iPadPro. It has a much larger screen, works in dim-to-no light in darkness that is the more frequent reading environment for me, and provides all the other things an iPadPro can do.

I also rarely buy books to read anymore. My reading habits coincide with online digital book availability from our local library offerings at no cost beyond the taxes we pay anyway to support the service. I still acquire physical media infrequently for things like cookbooks (I know, this one makes no sense today), how-to books, the large beautiful “coffee table” books that might strike my fancy, etc. We’ve donated hundreds of hard-bound books purchased a long time ago and relish the extra space we have as well as the budgetary savings. We had no high-value books like first editions or rarities so nothing investment grade.
 
SalisburySam said:
Still have two of the original Kindles,
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I have the Kindle Keyboard (my first Kindle) that I use only for the text to speech feature. Some days I just want to close my eyes and have someone read to me. I know, I know, audio books are better. One of these days I'll do audio book.
SalisburySam said:
I still acquire physical media infrequently for things like cookbooks (I know, this one makes no sense today),
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It makes perfect sense to me. All the online recipe have some long winded, irrelevant preamble before getting to the recipe.😒 To paraphrase Capt'n Bligh: I asked for the recipe, not the history of your misfortunes.🤨
 
Mousse said:
I have the Kindle Keyboard (my first Kindle) that I use only for the text to speech feature. Some days I just want to close my eyes and have someone read to me. I know, I know, audio books are better. One of these days I'll do audio book.
Click to expand...

i have over a thousand Kindle books and the Alexa reading feature is briliant. It had bugs in the past (like it would just quit reading for no reason sometimes). But now, it can run for hours without issue and the voice is not robotic, it actually sounds like a person performing an audio book, with all the proper pauses and inflections. It really is remarkable.
 
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Rafterman said:
i have over a thousand Kindle books and the Alexa reading feature is briliant. It had bugs in the past (like it would just quit reading for no reason sometimes). But now, it can run for hours without issue and the voice is not robotic, it actually sounds like a person performing an audio book, with all the proper pauses and inflections. It really is remarkable.
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I have not tried the Alexa reading. I have done audibile in the past and liked it. Might have to give it a shot.
 
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rhett7660 said:
I have not tried the Alexa reading. I have done audibile in the past and liked it. Might have to give it a shot.
Click to expand...

It helps if you have an Alexa type speaker - like an Echo Show 10, with a really nice speaker. But it works with the app on a device too.
 
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Rafterman said:
i have over a thousand Kindle books and the Alexa reading feature is briliant. It had bugs in the past (like it would just quit reading for no reason sometimes). But now, it can run for hours without issue and the voice is not robotic, it actually sounds like a person performing an audio book, with all the proper pauses and inflections. It really is remarkable.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that you could do this. I gonna give it a try.
 
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I absolutely love the paperwhite. It’s been such a great device to help me get back into reading and have less distraction. Plus, less physical items! I have recently grabbed a Kobo 2E for my work bag and that has been amazing, more easy to customize if needed.
 
DigitalAR said:
Yeah same. Had no idea

What do you do? Just simply ask Alexa nearby to read aloud the book that’s currently open on my paperwhite?
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The easiest way for me is to go into the app, the "Play" tab at the bottom of the screen, go to the Kindle Library section and "See All". A list of all your books will be there. Select one, then it will ask you to select a output source, e.g., an Alexa device, or whatever has a speaker that the app can see. I use an Alexa Show 10 (the one with the pinning screen). It has a nice speaker.

The app also lets you select what chapter to start on and it remembers where you leave off. It can also remember your progress location from another device.

By voice, I would imagine you just say "Alexa, read 'so and so book.'" Though I don't know how you control which chapter to read.
 
Suddenly myself and my wife can’t buy books from the Kindle store on our Kindle devices where we could a few days ago. Books come up but with no purchase price. We can only buy books via the Amazon website on our iPads. This has only happened in the last few days. Anyone else? Any clues why this has happened?
 
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