GeorgeBaby

Amazon allows you to have multiple Kindle devices on a single account (much like allowing multiple computers to use iTunes). All accounts would use the same CC for OneClick purchases, but books purchased can be used on all Kindles in the account simultaneously.

See Official Amazon Answer

sstorkel

Not really... If you have a computer and your Kindle is loaded with a free book (e.g. from Project Gutenberg, not a $0.00 book from Amazon), you could certainly use the computer to transfer the file from one Kindle to another. Amazon books, I believe, are DRM-enabled and can't be shared/exchanged. Unless you want to buy two Kindles and swap back and forth?

I'd prefer that mine last for a year! Sadly, it's not going to happen. If you're an active reader and turn wireless off, you'll probably get a week. As I understand it, most of the power is used when drawing the page. After that, I believe the device uses little or no power... though the battery will eventually run dry even if you're not reading. I picked mine up yesterday after not being able to use it for the week or two since I got back from my week-long Pacific coast tour and it insisted on being charged.

BTW, what sort of tour are you doing that only has access to power once a month and also allows you to read for 3 hrs/day?

More than I care to count... For the first couple of weeks I had mine, I think I probably used it for 1-3 hours/day and didn't need to recharge more often than once/week.

staehpj1

I like audio books for on tour and also think the kindle is a good idea, but for those who insist on paper there is always the option of mailing books home as you finish them. That is what we did on our Trans America before I started taking audio books on tour. You can also have real books mailed to you via general delivery if there is someone at home who is willing to help. That works well at least in the US.

nancy sv

We have an entire pannier dedicated to books right now - an ENTIRE pannier!! But even so, we never seem to have books to read. It is really hard to find children's books in English down here in Latin America and my boys LOVE to read! When we do find some, we pick up 20 or 25 of them and fill the pannier. But they read them in a couple of days and we are back where we started. With the Kindles, we are hoping that problem will be solved.

I am awaiting word right now about our Kindles - hopefully they will be released by customs here in Colombia within the hour!! We can't wait to get them!

Ekdog

Are your kids learning Spanish? You might want to buy them some comics or simple children's books and let them read some in the language of Cervantes. What a great opportunity!

KoKoPuff

1: You have stumbled upon the Kindle's greatest weakness and all the other readers' greatest strength. I own a Sony PRS-505, and files are easily exchanged from one device to another. I am not locked into buying from Amazon, but can purchase from multiple sources. Of course the downside to these devices is that they do not have the wireless capability that you find on the Kindle. It's all give and take I suppose.

2: I am probably three weeks out since my last charge, and I am at 3 bars out of 4. I have also finished about 3 books in that time too. This has the same screen I believe as the Kindle, and I would expect the same performance from both devices.

bobdell

e-books I have purchased from ereader.com must be opened with the credit card number that purchased them.

nancy sv

They are learning Spanish, but reading in Spanish is still very slow for them, so they don't enjoy it as much as in English. We want them to have both, but finding the English books was too hard!

TomM

I don't have a Kindle but I do have a Sony eBook Reader and I take it on all of my adventures. I primarily get my reading material from Project Gutenberg.

dcbikeguy

Brief hijack...

I'm no Luddite. I work with technology every day. But I just can't get the whole Kindle thing. I LOVE books. I like having bookshelves full of books. I like buying new books. I loves me some books.

I hereby curse the kindle. Curses.

OK, please carry on...

jurjan

Thanks for the answers guys (and gals).
about our reading time: it very much depends on the weather, if it's raining a lot, we like to sit snugly in our tent and read.
furthermore we like doing shortish days (from 50 km. to 100 km. normally) to give us extra relaxation time.
Why I'd like to be able to go a month without charging?
quite simple: I don't like having to find (and think / plan about) a place where one can charge.
our cellphone is on for one hour each day, and then lasts for more than 6 weeks without charging.
our cameras: we take two extra sets of charged batteries, so we can last the distance.
every device where you have to take a charger:
does it do 100 - 240 V?
what about the different plugs you need to plug it in?
and it's extra stuff (that could be used to carry an extra book LOL).
but: that's my personal way of thinking. However, it seems that with about a week between charges (at most) we'll have to compromise somewhere.

jurjan

Mhh, that sounds interesting, at the moment I'm just researching e-readers. definitely not stuck on a kindle.
I don't need wireless, I just want to read a lot of books in a nicely shaped device.
Now that's the kind of battery usage I was kind of expecting from those e-ink thingies.
thanks

sstorkel

I love books, too! In fact, I own, literally, several thousand physical books. Being able to (potentially) carry all of them with me in a 10oz package, search them all instantaneously, keep my place in all of them without owning a single bookmark, have new books delivered in seconds rather than days, and not have to cut down a single tree is a pretty attractive proposition. If you don't understand that, perhaps you are a Luddite?

Houston

Great thread. Many posts on battery life. Has anyone used a Solio solar charger?, and if so, how long does it take to fully charge the Kindle from a fully charged Solio? Thanks.

Bacciagalupe

I haven't used the Solio, but the Kindle charges very fast from a wall outlet. I think you'd have better luck charging a Kindle with a solar charger than most other power-hungry devices.

BigBlueToe

I'm another book lover. After I read them I keep them, even though the chances are that I'll never read them again. I just like to have them around - especially if I've read them. (I also usually buy a few books that I never read, and I keep them around too. I don't know why.)

ANYWAY, I'm intrigued by the Kindle in that it can seemingly solve some problems I encounter while on bike tours. I don't know that I'd use one much otherwise.

Excess weight is a bad thing on tour, so I only like carrying one book at a time. However, not having a book to read is even worse, so when I start getting towards the end of one book I start looking for a bookstore to buy the next (which might be a few days away.) For awhile I carry both until the first is finished. With a Kindle I could wirelessly download the next book and save myself the trouble of having to find a bookstore and having to temporarily carry two books.

Choosing a good book can be a problem. A couple of times on tour my only option was picking up a paperback at a grocery store rack. Other times I've bought something that looked good, only to find that it was boring and not something I wanted to read. With a Kindle you can download several books. If you start one and decide it's not what you want to read, you can instantly choose another. Again, no searching for a bookstore.

I'm also intrigued by the ability to download magazines, newspapers, and blogs. After some time away from my normal life, I have a hankering to read some news. Some campgrounds have newspaper racks, but they often feature some obscure local paper that's half filled with local news. Sure, the local issues in Winner, South Dakota might be sort of interesting, but I'm thinking I might want to download a paper from my own area, or even USA Today. Maybe Time Magazine. I think the small Kindle isn't as good for this, but it might still suffice for those occasional news fixes.

BengeBoy 

IMHO, this is one of the best features of the Kindle. When I travel I like the ability to read the NY Times or other national papers. Especially nice if you like reading the paper over breakfast (as I do). Wake up, download the day's news, and you're good to go.

Wogster

Not so sure in the US, but here in Canada we have used book stores, so you pick up a couple of paperbacks, when you finish one, you go to the next used bookstore you can find, then sell the one you finished and buy another. Paperbacks are usually light weight and don't require batteries.

DuckFat

There is a good Kindle app and several other ebook readers available for the iPhone. Since the Kindle uses the AT&T network you will have the same download capability (better in 3G areas actually). If you put the iPhone in "airplane mode" where it's not using the radios then battery life is quite good. Battery life is not as good as the Kindle but the Kindle won't act as a GPS, camera, web browser, etc. Plus the iPhone weighs a lot less too.

jurjan

and?
Do you have your kindles by now?
I do hope so.
What are your first impressions?

enjoy them.

staehpj1

I can't say that I have run into too many used book stores when touring, but saw places with an informal book exchange from time to time. They may be less frequent than you would like and the selection was pretty limited.

I don't think I would rely too heavily on finding them in the places I have toured, but then again you may do better at finding them than I did if you are actively seeking them out. I can remember seeing two such exchanges in 73 days on the TA and didn't find anything that looked particularly interesting to read at either. I'd be inclined to think of them as an added bonus if you find one than a planned way to obtain reading material on tour at least in the rural US.

jurjan

+1
Once in a while we are stupid enough to buy books that, when we start reading them, we already own (mostly because the back flap blurp is different and / or it's got a new cover (USA editions versus European etc.)).
We read the book, then, when we encounter a book exchange we try to exchange it, but if there's no book we remotely like (99% of the time, even at the end of our holiday) we just add to the pile, feeling good about upping the quality of the pile (LOL). But... even so, we mostly end up carrying the books home and distributing them amongst friends (the few that still haven't got the same books we do!).

book exchanges are just too few and far in between to really work for us.
however, as always: YMMV

Wogster

Yet here in Ontario, Canada they are quite common. One of the reasons they may be more popular is that for a long time, books were much more expensive here, it's was not uncommon for a book that was $5 in the US to be $8 - $9 in Canada. So if you could get $2 or so back on the used market, it would be helpful. If it's a novel, that you might only read once, you can buy it used, read it and resell it. Many of these same stores sell publishers clear-outs, books that the publisher wants to unload and is willing to do so at a lower price.

BigBlueToe

That is exactly what I do, and it is a real treat to find a good used bookstore in a small town in "the middle of nowhere", and to pick up some treasure. If I had a Kindle I guess I'd miss that. But too often there aren't any bookstores when I need them. Too often I pick a book, only to decide it's not something I want to read. And I don't like carrying ANY excess weight, so carrying two books is not something I want to do. One of the factors that will decide me on the Kindle is its weight compared to a book. (Another advantage is that new releases are typically only availalbe in hardbound, which weigh even more. The Kindle's weight doesn't change no matter how many books it stores, how long they are, or whether their hard or soft bound.

The batteries problem isn't so much of an issue, because I already carry an MP3 player and phone that need to be charged every three days or so. The Kindle seems as if it could go a couple of weeks between charges. Charging one more thing wouldn't be a big deal I don't think.

Lifelonglaugh

Someone mentioned the Solio. I use a solio (a small solar charger) for cell phones and ipods when I tour. It works very well under normal conditions. I have the kind with an internal battery that stores the electrical energy. Another plus for this unit is, you can carge it with a wall outlet as well, so you can carry a "spare" charge as you go even in cloudy conditions. The unit is not as sensitive to sun direction as the instructions imply - at least from my experience, but I am also based in Arizona, so...

I use the kindle on my iphone, so I don't know the specifics of an actual kindle charging, but the Solio has worked well with every other electronic device I have tried. You may need to buy a special charging "tip" for an unusual plugin, but again, that is probably not neccesary as most of those are standard anymore.