Which reader app is better: GBooks or Kindle?

[ep1963]

moon+ reader looks pretty darn good.

Anyone else using this?

 

[pokingmon]

Play Books:
+Rendering of fonts and text seems better
+Page turning animation looks and feels really good
+Effortless syncing and downloading of books- seems to be completely automated
-Margins don't seem to get as close to the edges of the screen as Kindle
-Doesn't have the sepia tone reading mode like Kindle (yet!), only B&W/W&B which hurt my eyes at night

Kindle:
+I can preorder books on Amazon.com but not on the Play Store (yet!)
+Sepia reading mode is easy on my eyes at night
+From what I can tell, has more free books, but I could be wrong
-Very easy to accidentally turn a page or randomly goes to a random page and I get lost and have to find my way back to where I was
-Archive and On Device areas are separate. Compared to Play Books it seems like an outdated way of handling things considering how small books are and how much storage devices have.
-Rendering of icons, clipart, images, and even things as simple as italicized words is very poor. (IE: when a word is italicized on my Kindle app the font for that word seems 2 sizes smaller than everything else, and since it's in a seriffed font it's barely readable)

BOOK PRICING: From what I have seen over the past few weeks, the Play Store is quickly catching up to Amazon's pricing. Most of, if not all, of the books in my Amazon Kindle wish list are the exact same price as the Play Store, whereas maybe half of them were a month ago. Amazon may have one or two books that the Play Store doesn't have, but with the Magazines app Google has now, it's only a matter of time before I can switch completely over to Google for comics, graphic novels, etc.

 

[rn701]

They are ALL evil. Remember the big promise that the cost of books would come down when the paper went away? Notice something? It DIDN'T. The profit margin sure went up though. I pay the same for a paperback from B&N as I do an ebook. That's ridiculous. And yeah I do it because it's convenient, but it's still robbery.

Keep in mind, though, that you are paying for the content, not the media. But yeah, they should eliminate the overhead cost instead of converting it to extra profit. Plus I'm guessing the publishers make most of the money, not the authors.

 

[Unicorn Rancher]

Keep in mind, though, that you are paying for the content, not the media. But yeah, they should eliminate the overhead cost instead of converting it to extra profit. Plus I'm guessing the publishers make most of the money, not the authors.

Several years ago, publishers used the price of paper as an excuse to raise the prices on paperback books. If that was a legitimate reason, then e-books should be cheaper now than paperbacks were then, even after COLA, with no cost for paper or printing or shipping books all over the country.

However, we see with iTunes that buying e-music is not noticeably cheaper than buying CDs, despite the much lower "manufacturing" and distribution costs, and zero B&M middle man costs.

 

[Bobbyjams]

What reader do you use for library ebooks? Tried the nook app but it would not find the download, so I'm using Overdrive media console.
Thoughts or suggestions.

 

[alkthree87]

Since I still prefer physical books, I just got into ebooks. I've been using Aldiko reader because it was easy to transfer the books I downloaded online (that I already had copies of). My only complaint is kind of silly: there isn't the cool page turn animation.

 

[ScottColbert]

Keep in mind, though, that you are paying for the content, not the media. But yeah, they should eliminate the overhead cost instead of converting it to extra profit. Plus I'm guessing the publishers make most of the money, not the authors.

Very true-while it depends on the publisher most authors only get 25-30% of of the net profit from each book sold. I went with a small press for my novella and get 50% of gross, which is the exception and not the rule.

As for which is better, all have their pros and cons. All are also free, and have freebies you can sample, so no reason not to have them all and try them out.

 

[steve dave]

What reader do you use for library ebooks? Tried the nook app but it would not find the download, so I'm using Overdrive media console.
Thoughts or suggestions.

The ease of library books on the kindle is the single reason I switched from using my nook. All you have to do is click the Kindle link on your library's Overdrive page and the book shows up in your Amazon account ready to be downloaded to your device. You never have to screw with downloading a book to your pc and messing around with getting it onto your device. It is a game changer for me.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[rockigirl]

Been using Kindle app for years and since I have over 300 books in archive I do tend to use it as it syncs with my phone and laptop. I honestly do not know if you can sync GBooks. I have bought a couple and it does have a nicer interface, more words per page and a more "natural" book feel to it in terms of margin. Kindle does need to work on that a bit more.

There is an email I get every morning that lists free books on amazon for the day sometimes only for a few hours - I have pulled down a massive amount of free books that are later listed for pay (once bought free u always have it).

If I can find that option with GBooks I will likely lean towards it but I have compared about 10 books I liked in both stores and Amazon usually beats them on price even if it is only 40 or 50 cents - when you read a book or two a week that adds up pretty fast.

How do you sign up to receive a daily email of free kindle books? I would love that.

I'm not too thrilled about the kindle app but once I figured out how to change the front size its manageable.

 

[Zooks64]

I use Google Reader and have a feed that gives me Free Kindle Books:

Amazon.com: Top Free in Kindle eBooks

This site also lists free Kindle books and I believe it has an RSS feed as well or an email subscription:

Free Books for Your Kindle | eReaderIQ.com

I think the amount of free or cheap books for Kindle is awesome. For that reason alone I prefer using the Kindle app.

 

[mgurmgur]

Kindle has a built-in dictionary to look up words, GBooks doesn't.
Kindle has more customization options
Kindle has more books to choose from / Kindle Singles / more ebooks on sale

That said, I use both

 

[sudiptoc]

Some other really good dedicated ebook reader apps are:

Moon+ Reader (excellent!)
Aldiko
FBReader

 

[newbieg]

Here is my question-i am thinking of buying the Nexus but want to learn Spanish and so read Spanish books on the Nexus AND look up a word in the Spanish/English dicitonary. This is possible on Kindle touch but not on Kindle fire.

Does anyone know if this is possible on the Nexus? many thanks!

 

[pastorjamie]

Can someone who has the Nexus 7 answer this: Can you highlight/create notes on the GBooks app on the N7? You cannot on the regular android app. Hoping that you can on the 7".

I like Kindle's ability to have a web page with all of my highlights and notes. I can web clip that with Evernote and have all of my research in one place. Boom.

I really wish the GBooks would have that same kind of ability. The GBooks app is just plain nice looking.

 

[kwarner666]

I started e-reading with the original Nook. I therefore have a lot of content from them. I do like their android app for various reasons (most already mentioned).
The best thing about it is Free Friday - every Friday a pay book is offered for free for that day only. This is a blog and there are a few people who leave a list of 'always free' books in the comments section. With the price of books, I am reluctant to buy one without a reasonable expectation that it is going to be 'worth it'. Free Friday gives me the opportunity to get some gems that I never would have paid for. It is also good for the author/publisher because, on more than one occasion, I have purchased more books from an author I found on Free Friday.

Looking up the definition of a word is better on the Kindle app than it is on the Nook app. Nook looks it up online, Kindle looks it up from a local dictionary.

 

[Westfire]

I prefer GBooks but dang it I wish they would open the app up to allow you upload your own epub and other books like you can do with music in GMusic.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[dparrothead1]

I use Aldiko, Kobo, Kindle, B&N, Play Books and Overdrive for library books. Believe it or not, they don't all offer the same selections.

 

[dcosta43]

I prefer the kindle over the google books app, the kindle app is more "polished" you can say as the google book one, I read books on plenty and i wanted to be able to say the google app is better (i like the page animations and font options) but when it comes down to functionally i say the kindle is better, the ease to look up words as you read and better syncing is to me why

 

[STC09]

It's a sample size of only one but I'm amazed how much better Amazon's Kindle on Android (KOA) was than GBooks for a favorite title. Google's version was "scanned only" meaning that I could zoom in but the text did not wrap. On the KOA I can read while on the treadmill; I can't on Google Books. Sucks for people with poor vision too.

Price was another surprise: Google wanted an extra 25% for an inferior product.

Google has matched Amazon's price for that particular book and now offers both a scanned and flowing version.

Too late in this case though.

Music prices now look to be equivalent to Amazon too. Should I assume there's no DRM on Google's tracks either?

 

[pdhahn]

I personally use Moon+ Reader alongside Dropbox and Calibre on my desktop PC. Aldiko is very nice as well, I just prefer M+.