Which reader app is better: GBooks or Kindle?

[Flur]

What's with all this having to choose? You don't have to pick one - you can install all the apps and comparison shop (and comparison sample). It's the best of all worlds.

 

[Flur]

This particular book was available "scan only" as a sample. Presumably the full version is the same.

I failed to emphasize earlier to check whether a book is available with word wrap before buying. Some, like mine, aren't.

If you buy epub format, the words will always wrap. With PDF, not so much. Anything that's a scan will never wrap. If all a vendor has is the PDF version, it's probably best to keep shopping.

 

[gburns]

Each is good in it's own right, imho. I like the kindle only because I can send ebooks to it. Also, my wife was given my Fire, so we can still have the same libary. Google needs to add the ability to send your ebooks to the reader.

 

[natehoy]

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.

In many cases, I pay significantly more. I went looking for a copy of Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky". Google Books didn't have it at all. B&N and Amazon wanted $6 for it. This is for a book that was originally published in the 1940s.

I can buy a used paperback of it for about a buck including shipping. But an electronic edition of the same book costs me 5 dollars more.

This is precisely why I own NO e-books from anyone. I already have a significant library of books, and when I want to expand that library it's always cheaper by a vastly significant margin to purchase them on the used market, where I don't have to worry about my right to read it being taken away from me (short of physical force) and I can loan it, give it away, or resell it at will.

I will note that I actually PREFER to read books on an e-reader. If someone had a service where I could hand in a paperback copy of a book plus a crisp dollar bill to transfer my rights to the book to an open e-pub or other open version I retain control over, I'd spend about $100 in the first day the service was available, and I'd continue buying used paperbacks and buying the "license upgrade" to the e-pub format.

 

[iamhephzibah]

I was spoiled by the Fire's ability to highlight and better margins... I hate the Play Books but IMO its better than the Kindle app for android.

 

[slbailey1]

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.

The price of eBooks did go down until Apple and the book publishers started fixing prices.