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> Unless you're prepared to get technical, you can only read Amazon books on your Amazon Kindle paid for with your Amazon wallet. That hasn’t been true for a v

> Unless you're prepared to get technical, you can only read Amazon books on your Amazon Kindle paid for with your Amazon wallet. That hasn’t been true for a very long time? Unless by "technical" you mean sending an email with the file in question attached. E-Book platforms sometimes even directly support sending that mail. > Other than Kobo and Amazon, no book retailer … in the UK. From what I’ve heard, Tolino devices are decently popular in Germany, they are made by an alliance of booksellers.

Tomte 1y ago
Tolino is a rebranded Kobo with modified firmware, I think.
- Semaphor 1y ago
  The other way around, it’s different hardware that nowadays uses the Kobo software. Kobo also only started developing them in 2017.
  - Tomte 1y ago
    Thanks!
- Semaphor 1y ago
  See sibling discussion, turned out I was wrong
paxys 1y ago
I don't think it was ever true. Even way back you could always plug in your kindle via USB and drag and drop whatever books you wanted on it. As long as they were .mobi format they would read perfectly fine.
- Semaphor 1y ago
  Yeah, but I’d have been willing to count that as "technical" for extremely untechnical people ;)
esskay 1y ago
You can also jailbreak most kindles. I picked up my first one a couple of weeks ago here in the UK and intentionally bought it from Argos (high street shop) rather than Amazon so that I'd stand more of a chance of the installed firmware being slighly older as the jailbreak currently available was patched in the latest version (apparently it happens a lot, someone just finds a new way around it). Took about 20 minutes to have it jailbroken and KOReader installed, I can now wirelessly copy over books from Calibre on my Mac to the kindle and don't have to touch amazons storefront at all.
- andrepd 1y ago
  If you're going that route then perhaps pocketbook or kobo would be a better option.
  - esskay 1y ago
    For the UK the Kindle's still the cheapest option at the moment. Mine was £94 here: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4079659 https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4079659 Searching around for the pocketbook it's not sold in the UK but on their German store the cheapest model looks to be the 'Basic Lux 4 Ink Black' for €109 so seems the most price comparable. The Kobo is more expensive though, the cheapest model is the Clara black & white edition and costs £129.99, at which point you may as well get a Kindle Paperwhite kids* as those are only £10 more. *All kindle kids editions are the same as the non-kid versions, but come with a case, charger and extended warranty, there are no hardware or firmware differences.
    - worble 1y ago
      The article links to https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/pocketbook-basic-lux-4-ink-black-6-8gb-wi-fi-e-reader-pb618-p-ww/version.asp https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/pocketbook-basic-lux-4-ink-b... for pocketbooks in the UK
      - esskay 1y ago
        ah completely missed that, thats a pretty decent price then! I wonder if they're just getting rid of stock as Pocketbook did pull out of the UK market a while back.
graemep 1y ago
> E-Book platforms sometimes even directly support sending that mail. I believe that stopped many years ago: https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/baen-books-can-no-longer-be-sent-to-a-kindle https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/baen-books-can-no-l... Its not difficult but I think a lot of non-technical users will have trouble with it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email/
- Semaphor 1y ago
  Oh wow. The last few times I used it, it was promotional books, so I didn't realize it stopped being allowed for paid books. That does suck indeed.
criddell 1y ago
Yes - that's what is meant by technical. As soon as you mention file, you've lost a lot of people. Amazon isn't winning because it's the least expensive, it's winning because it's the easiest. They have a huge selection and one click to buy a book that shows up on all your devices without having to do anything more is where the bar is. If you ask people to manage their own books or expect them to understand what an epub or pdf or azw is (never mind encryption!) you are limiting your market to a pretty small slice.
- Barrin92 1y ago
  > As soon as you mention file, you've lost a lot of people. Attaching documents to an email is the one thing most people can actually do because without it you're unable to deal with your insurance, doctor, tax guy or what have you. In addition to web browsing it's the only thing my boomer parents with very few computer skills have figured out. You basically bureaucratically die otherwise in the modern world The biggest issue is that most people probably don't know that Amazon even offers that feature, they I assume intentionally don't really advertise it much.
  - chihuahua 1y ago
    The average person: "Fine, then I'm just going to be unable to deal with my insurance, doctor, and tax guy."
  - int_19h 1y ago
    I think it's more that people don't know that you can get ebooks as files from other stores to begin with. But then also you need ones that don't do DRM, which complicates things further. But, yes, Amazon is also deliberately vague regarding those emails. Most of their documentation presents it as a way to "keep your documents in your Kindle"; the fact that books are a subset of those documents is not exactly highlighted.
- Zak 1y ago
  > Yes - that's what is meant by technical. As soon as you mention file, you've lost a lot of people. I believe you, and I'm sad about this. I had hoped as the Internet grew in importance, the proportion of people with basic computer skills would increase.
AdmiralAsshat 1y ago
> … in the UK. From what I’ve heard, Tolino devices are decently popular in Germany, they are made by an alliance of booksellers. Pretty sure that, these days, Tolino devices are literally just Kobo hardware with Tolino firmware loaded onto them. Which admittedly has made some of us regular Kobo users a bit envious, because Tolino devices somehow support sideloaded cloud syncing, while standard Kobo does not. So Kobo clearly knows how to do it, they just choose not to. :(
- Semaphor 1y ago
  > Pretty sure that, these days, Tolino devices are literally just Kobo hardware with Tolino firmware loaded onto them. I only read the German Wikipedia entry [0], but the way that sounds is that they are different hardware, but now using an adapted Kobo OS (with ways to switch between the normal Kobo mode and Tolino). But that’s just my impression, I have no further clue :D edit: This [1] says you are right [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolino https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolino [1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-kobo-clara-hd-and-tolino-shine-3-have-the-same-hardware https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-kobo-cla...
  - AdmiralAsshat 1y ago
    Could be. My own frame of reference is the following: https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/tolino-epos-3-e-reader-hands-on-review https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/tolino-epos-3-e-reader-... > The Epos 3 hardware is based on the Kobo Sage. Kobo took over manufacturing and product design for the Tolino Alliance a number of years ago, when they bought a controlling interest from Deutsche Telekom.
dghlsakjg 1y ago
I read that sentence the other way around. That a book licensed on Amazon can only be read on a Kindle/Kindle App without difficulty.
- Semaphor 1y ago
  Oh, good point, didn't realize that could be read differently
thaumasiotes 1y ago
> That hasn’t been true for a very long time? Unless by "technical" you mean sending an email with the file in question attached. Was it ever true? It's even easier to just load the book over a USB cable, assuming you have it in mobipocket. It's a "technical" process in the same sense that using a USB key is a "technical" process - one that everyone is already familiar with. Though I do remember that the packaging for my Zen Stone specifically indicated that it would only work with a Windows computer. That wasn't true; it showed up as a USB device and you could transfer files just fine regardless of your operating system. There wasn't even an alternative proprietary method to use on Windows. The manual carefully covered the meaning of the directory structure on the device. I'm not quite sure why they claimed to require Windows.
- Semaphor 1y ago
  Having to own a desktop would be somewhat technical already. And you need the right format. Nowadays, they support epub and you have the email thing (though as a sibling mentioned, they are apparently not allowing automatic email deliveries for paid books anymore)
- int_19h 1y ago
  > one that everyone is already familiar with. You'd be surprised. Many people genuinely aren't familiar with it these days because it's not necessary for other devices they're using day-to-day. E.g. most don't upload music to their phones in this manner like we used to 20 years ago - more often, it's all "in the cloud", so you just install the app and sign in.

Tomte 1y ago

Tolino is a rebranded Kobo with modified firmware, I think.

Semaphor 1y ago
The other way around, it’s different hardware that nowadays uses the Kobo software. Kobo also only started developing them in 2017.
- Tomte 1y ago
  Thanks!
Semaphor 1y ago
See sibling discussion, turned out I was wrong

paxys 1y ago

I don't think it was ever true. Even way back you could always plug in your kindle via USB and drag and drop whatever books you wanted on it. As long as they were .mobi format they would read perfectly fine.

Semaphor 1y ago
Yeah, but I’d have been willing to count that as "technical" for extremely untechnical people ;)

esskay 1y ago

You can also jailbreak most kindles. I picked up my first one a couple of weeks ago here in the UK and intentionally bought it from Argos (high street shop) rather than Amazon so that I'd stand more of a chance of the installed firmware being slighly older as the jailbreak currently available was patched in the latest version (apparently it happens a lot, someone just finds a new way around it). Took about 20 minutes to have it jailbroken and KOReader installed, I can now wirelessly copy over books from Calibre on my Mac to the kindle and don't have to touch amazons storefront at all.

andrepd 1y ago
If you're going that route then perhaps pocketbook or kobo would be a better option.
- esskay 1y ago
  For the UK the Kindle's still the cheapest option at the moment. Mine was £94 here: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4079659 https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4079659 Searching around for the pocketbook it's not sold in the UK but on their German store the cheapest model looks to be the 'Basic Lux 4 Ink Black' for €109 so seems the most price comparable. The Kobo is more expensive though, the cheapest model is the Clara black & white edition and costs £129.99, at which point you may as well get a Kindle Paperwhite kids* as those are only £10 more. *All kindle kids editions are the same as the non-kid versions, but come with a case, charger and extended warranty, there are no hardware or firmware differences.
  - worble 1y ago
    The article links to https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/pocketbook-basic-lux-4-ink-black-6-8gb-wi-fi-e-reader-pb618-p-ww/version.asp https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/pocketbook-basic-lux-4-ink-b... for pocketbooks in the UK
    - esskay 1y ago
      ah completely missed that, thats a pretty decent price then! I wonder if they're just getting rid of stock as Pocketbook did pull out of the UK market a while back.

graemep 1y ago

> E-Book platforms sometimes even directly support sending that mail. I believe that stopped many years ago: https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/baen-books-can-no-longer-be-sent-to-a-kindle https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/baen-books-can-no-l... Its not difficult but I think a lot of non-technical users will have trouble with it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email/

Semaphor 1y ago
Oh wow. The last few times I used it, it was promotional books, so I didn't realize it stopped being allowed for paid books. That does suck indeed.

criddell 1y ago

Yes - that's what is meant by technical. As soon as you mention file, you've lost a lot of people. Amazon isn't winning because it's the least expensive, it's winning because it's the easiest. They have a huge selection and one click to buy a book that shows up on all your devices without having to do anything more is where the bar is. If you ask people to manage their own books or expect them to understand what an epub or pdf or azw is (never mind encryption!) you are limiting your market to a pretty small slice.

Barrin92 1y ago
> As soon as you mention file, you've lost a lot of people. Attaching documents to an email is the one thing most people can actually do because without it you're unable to deal with your insurance, doctor, tax guy or what have you. In addition to web browsing it's the only thing my boomer parents with very few computer skills have figured out. You basically bureaucratically die otherwise in the modern world The biggest issue is that most people probably don't know that Amazon even offers that feature, they I assume intentionally don't really advertise it much.
- chihuahua 1y ago
  The average person: "Fine, then I'm just going to be unable to deal with my insurance, doctor, and tax guy."
- int_19h 1y ago
  I think it's more that people don't know that you can get ebooks as files from other stores to begin with. But then also you need ones that don't do DRM, which complicates things further. But, yes, Amazon is also deliberately vague regarding those emails. Most of their documentation presents it as a way to "keep your documents in your Kindle"; the fact that books are a subset of those documents is not exactly highlighted.
Zak 1y ago
> Yes - that's what is meant by technical. As soon as you mention file, you've lost a lot of people. I believe you, and I'm sad about this. I had hoped as the Internet grew in importance, the proportion of people with basic computer skills would increase.

AdmiralAsshat 1y ago

> … in the UK. From what I’ve heard, Tolino devices are decently popular in Germany, they are made by an alliance of booksellers. Pretty sure that, these days, Tolino devices are literally just Kobo hardware with Tolino firmware loaded onto them. Which admittedly has made some of us regular Kobo users a bit envious, because Tolino devices somehow support sideloaded cloud syncing, while standard Kobo does not. So Kobo clearly knows how to do it, they just choose not to. :(

Semaphor 1y ago
> Pretty sure that, these days, Tolino devices are literally just Kobo hardware with Tolino firmware loaded onto them. I only read the German Wikipedia entry [0], but the way that sounds is that they are different hardware, but now using an adapted Kobo OS (with ways to switch between the normal Kobo mode and Tolino). But that’s just my impression, I have no further clue :D edit: This [1] says you are right [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolino https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolino [1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-kobo-clara-hd-and-tolino-shine-3-have-the-same-hardware https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-kobo-cla...
- AdmiralAsshat 1y ago
  Could be. My own frame of reference is the following: https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/tolino-epos-3-e-reader-hands-on-review https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/tolino-epos-3-e-reader-... > The Epos 3 hardware is based on the Kobo Sage. Kobo took over manufacturing and product design for the Tolino Alliance a number of years ago, when they bought a controlling interest from Deutsche Telekom.

dghlsakjg 1y ago

I read that sentence the other way around. That a book licensed on Amazon can only be read on a Kindle/Kindle App without difficulty.

Semaphor 1y ago
Oh, good point, didn't realize that could be read differently

thaumasiotes 1y ago

> That hasn’t been true for a very long time? Unless by "technical" you mean sending an email with the file in question attached. Was it ever true? It's even easier to just load the book over a USB cable, assuming you have it in mobipocket. It's a "technical" process in the same sense that using a USB key is a "technical" process - one that everyone is already familiar with. Though I do remember that the packaging for my Zen Stone specifically indicated that it would only work with a Windows computer. That wasn't true; it showed up as a USB device and you could transfer files just fine regardless of your operating system. There wasn't even an alternative proprietary method to use on Windows. The manual carefully covered the meaning of the directory structure on the device. I'm not quite sure why they claimed to require Windows.

Semaphor 1y ago
Having to own a desktop would be somewhat technical already. And you need the right format. Nowadays, they support epub and you have the email thing (though as a sibling mentioned, they are apparently not allowing automatic email deliveries for paid books anymore)
int_19h 1y ago
> one that everyone is already familiar with. You'd be surprised. Many people genuinely aren't familiar with it these days because it's not necessary for other devices they're using day-to-day. E.g. most don't upload music to their phones in this manner like we used to 20 years ago - more often, it's all "in the cloud", so you just install the app and sign in.