Sunday 15 January 2012

Samsung Galaxy Note In Lieu Of Kindle Reader

So I was planning to get me an ereader finally this year as a christmas gift to myself. Kindle seems to be the best bet since Kobo is not available here in the UK. Sony ereader?... Those seems to be the top contenders in the market at the moment (in the UK anyway). Kindle seems to be getting cheaper now. But if I buy Kindle I can only read Kindle books on it. And that kind of monopoly applies to every other "brand". Granted Kindle choices of books is vast but still limited to Kindle. So how about the smashwords ebooks that I got which I still need to read? I like them in my reader too. iPad therefore seems like a good choice since I could load all of these reader applications and read Kindle, Kobo and whatnots in it. But the iPad is very big. I want to be able to put it in my pocket. The pocket-size version of iPad is an iphone but I find my iphone's screen too small. Some pdf files gets too tiny for my old eyes to read that it renders reading pdf files on an iphone impossible. So I looked further afield. Tablets seems like a viable option. There is a Samsung tablet and a Blackberry one. They both look good. The Blackberry one became a null and void choice because for some reason Kindle for Blackberry won't work in the UK. It only allows you to use it if you are in the US. Unfair! I do not like the loss of the Kindle books choices. Anyway, I like my choices so Blackberry is out. The Samsung tablet seems fairly up in the market with reading apps. It uses the Android platform. Then I found a sweet solution, SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE!! Screen is half the size of tablets. Approximately 1.5 bigger than an iphone. Can be loaded with reading apps. It is a smartphone. Runs at 1.4GH and packed with two processors (dual-core)! Oh my!! Looks to be the best in the market. *gleeful smile*

Here is the downer, it is expensive. But I bought one for about 30% off the retail price from an amazon seller. You could probably get it even cheaper at ebay with a lot of cunning and patience I didn't have. A lot of people do not like the big screen and big size of the phone. But it is just the right size to read my books with and still be able to put it in my pocket at the same time. I would call it a pocket-sized ereader. It got good internet browsing capabilities and is supposed to be the fastest in the market. My unit is only limited by the quality of signal I get on my phone network. If I get WiFi, it's faster. I read/send emails on it. I am not much of a games person, but you could probably load it with games for when you get bored, don't feel like reading, waiting in line in a queue, etc. I also encountered a few "bugs" and kinks in the software, like some apps don't work properly. One time it wouldn't obey the "grid view" button and I had to turn it on and off. The transition from page to page does not "feel" as smooth as it does with the iphone. Or maybe I am used to the iphone and not with this one yet. It also got an "S Pen" to help you navigate the touch screen but I don't use it much. Anyway, I'm not yet done playing with it, but I think this is the best in the market in terms of ereaders. So for bookish people out there, I say the Samsung Galaxy Note is the best tech you could lay your hands on if ever you are looking for an ereader.

11 comments:

  1. FYI, if you are still thinking about getting a regular reader, you can read any books you want on a Kindle as long as they are in .mobi or .prc format. All Smashwords books are available in those formats, you just choose that format to download from your Smashwords library. Everyone seems to think that they can only buy from Amazon, but that's not true at all. I buy all the time from Smashwords, Fictionwise, Samhain, Carina Press and All Romance.

    For DRM free books in EPUB format, you can also convert those to .mobi using free Calibre software (very easy to use - I'm not at all techie and I figured it out on my own). Regarding DRM free PDFs, you can either convert them to .mobi yourself using Calibre, or if you have a Kindle account, you can send them to Amazon and they will convert them for you, for free. Once you've converted them, you can read the resulting .mobi files in your Kindle reader on your phone (or your Kindle if you have one) and make the font bigger, etc.

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  2. JenM - I wont be buying kindle now that I have Samsung Galaxy Note. I can read kindle in it with the kindle app. I didn't know that you can convert other formats into kindle readable forms by sending it to amazon. Thank you for the info!

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  3. I was about to say the same thing Jen told you about converting documents.

    But the important this is you're happy :) Congrats on your new reader.

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  4. Juju at Tales of Whimsy.com - Yep, defintely happy with it! :D

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  5. JenM - Maybe next year when I am upgrading again, I might reconsider getting a kindle for what you have said about it...

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  6. Good to know, thanks for the info :D Cos one day, one day I will get something

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  7. Blodeuedd - Or something to consider when thinking about buying a gift for somebody who might like a reader :)

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  8. There is a program that others have told me about that will convert any ebook format to the format you want it in, Calibre. I just need to figure out if it will work for me to buy an Amazon ebook to convert over to Nook, since I got the Nook for christmas.

    Best of luck to you with your purchase. :)

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  9. Melissa (My World...in words and pages) - There is such a software which converts files from one format to another and I have heard a lot about Calibre but I haven't tried it myself yet. if you've tried it, let me know what you think :)

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  10. Cherry, I've only played with it a little bit. Converting to and from PDF forms to make the format my Nook reads as a "book" and not just a "document." And it seems to work really nicely.

    I haven't had a chance to take an Amazon book and convert it over to Nook. I have to find time to see about finding the books on the computer and if I can convert. lol. Time time time...

    But I'll let you know. :)

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