Kindle

[wakka]

Kindles are good, and there's no need to use the Amazon Store if you don't want to. I have an older Kindle 3 (still sold as the Kindle Keyboard I think) and it's got support for MOBI (its native format), PDF, ePub, and image files too - you can use Mangle to convert your downloaded manga to read on your Kindle. Its black and white screen is perfect for manga's small monochrome pages.

You can transfer books onto it by USB, but even more conveniently each Kindle has its own email address. Email books to that address as attachments and they'll automatically pop up for reading. If you use a Mac I recommend Calibre for organising and transferring your ebooks. There may be a Windows version too, I'm not sure.

[QualityChimp]

Kindles are good, and there's no need to use the Amazon Store if you don't want to. I have an older Kindle 3 (still sold as the Kindle Keyboard I think) and it's got support for MOBI (its native format), PDF, ePub, and image files too - you can use Mangle to convert your downloaded manga to read on your Kindle. Its black and white screen is perfect for manga's small monochrome pages.

You can transfer books onto it by USB, but even more conveniently each Kindle has its own email address. Email books to that address as attachments and they'll automatically pop up for reading.

I agree with everything my main man Wakka just said, but didn't know about the email thing! I'll have to look into that!

I have the keyboard model too. I use Mangle and read the whole Akira series on it. Text was a liiitle small, but other stuff was fine (Initial D, Lone Wolf & Cub etc).

I don't have the 3G version, but I'm unsure if you'd have troubles in Japan. I use my mobile as a wireless hotspot and connect that way of I'm not near a wifi connection.

I bought the official case off here as it uses the Kindle's power for the light.

I love it and use it nearly every day. It's made me read more and try a greater variety of books.
I'll spoiler it in case you've not read it, but The Hungry Caterpillar ate through:

->Open Spoiler<-

one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon.

No wonder he had a stomach ache!

Other books I can highly recommend include:
Beyond Aukfontein
The Tale of a Window Salesman
Another World

All of which were written by intelligent, witty and incredibly handsome authors.

[Dogg Thang]

The current Kindle (Paperwhite I think?) has a built in light that's ideal. It's almost like the old GBA SP light and so isn't anywhere as glary as displays with a proper backlight, works with the strength of the e-ink. As QualityChimp says though, you can get the Kindle cover with light for the slightly older model and that works great too. Only downside there is that it only has one light strength and it's a pretty intense for such a small light - not a problem reading at all but might bother someone trying to sleep beside you.

The e-ink displays are great though. Like QC, I have read so much more since getting one just because of the handiness of it. Haven't read the Hungry Caterpillar though. Even the trailer for the Human Centipede put me off so I wasn't going to go for the book spin-off.

[randombs]

Cheers for the replies.

Jake told me the Paperwhite is Japan's cheapest model. At ?59, sounds like the way to go. Concerned about buying a Kindle in Japan and syncing it with a UK Amazon account but it seems like you can do this, just that you're not meant to keep switching accounts or something.

I never read in bed, always on the train, so not worried about a light but if it's the same price as the non-light one here I think I'll go with that.

Also I got muddled up: I don't have vouchers, just stuff to trade so I could just sell instead.

My main question is speed:

I'd love to take a PDF of my teaching methodology book. It's picture-heavy but really for reference so not worried if it takes too long to load a page but curious. I won't read mangas but I'm assuming you manga readers would have an idea how quickly it can draw a page as that's basically pictures, isn't it?

@QC: Cheers for the links!

[wakka]

It draws a page of manga really fast. Less than a second. PDF takes longer though...maybe a second or 2 per page, depending on density/complexity of images. I don't think it has much RAM so that's probably the bottleneck.

Bear in mind though that this is on the Kindle Keyboard, which is 2 versions out of date at this point. They've probably upgraded the spec by now.

[sj33]

They've literally just launched the Kindle here in November and didn't even bother with the regular model, just the Paperwhite as their low-end model for 7980 yen, the Kindle Fire for 12,800 yen and the HD for 15,800 yen.

[randombs]

Mind you, if it's really slow I can use the iPad. I wouldn't be reading the teaching book for long periods.

I think I'll just try my luck with a Japanese one. I'll take the first Dune book with me

[randombs]

Got my Paperwhite today. Missus bought it for me from Amazon's site so it was registered to her but it was straightforward register it to me instead.

PDF performance for the teaching book is fine but the writing is hard to read unless I put it in landscape mode and zoom in and then it gets annoying. I guess I'll keep that one on the iPad. Sheet music is decent enough in landscape mode.

Just found a mobi of 1Q84 so will leave the book at home and just read it on the Kindle. Tomorrow's Akihabara trip will be fun

:update:

Also just got Treasure Island, Dracula and Frankenstein for free from the Kindle Store. Gonna raid their free books!

[QualityChimp]

I've just discovered Kind of Book!

They find a selection of at least 6 free Kindle books for the UK every day.

I've joined their Facebook page so I'll get notifications too.

I've downloaded The Chimera Vector and Reign of Blood so far, but there's a real mix of genres on there.
Naturally, none of them are by massive, well-known authors, but I've found some brilliant new ones that have been able to publish on Kindle but would never have been able to afford to in printed form.

http://kindofbook.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kindofbook/544610712217927