Question about e-book kit

3 Jun 2011

My aged mother has expressed an interest in getting something to read e-books on. The main thing that attracts her, I think, is the ability to increase the text size. She isn't tech-savvy and has been known to go into rant-mode about 'the world in ruined by technology' conveniently forgetting the fact she drives a car, has silicon chips in her microwave and washing machine and even has a mobile phone - but that's my mother for you.
Anyway, we would download books for her via our laptops and she would just read them.
What gadget would you recommend? If you can imagine yourself into the situation of an 82 year-old with dodgy eyes (macular degeneration), arthritis and titanium/steel joints (funnily enough she doesn't mind THAT technology LOL) who used to read avidly until age and eyesight slowed her down all the better.
Over to you.

3 Jun 2011

cheap laptop and a projector- 6 inch high letters on the wall should be readable lol

4 Jun 2011

Kindle - just over a hundred quid. Loads of free books, loads of cheap books, loads of good books. Text size adjustable and you can 'synch' your kindle with laptops and phones at no extra cost and it will open the book at the page you stopped reading at last time. Being 'synched' means it will open on any of your machines (laptop, desktop, phone) at that page.
Long battery life and better to read (easier on the eyes) than reading from a pc screen.
sold online from amazon, but can buy from John Lewis's and Dixons if you want to try before you buy. lol

Mal

4 Jun 2011

Quote by Mal
Kindle - just over a hundred quid. Loads of free books, loads of cheap books, loads of good books. Text size adjustable and you can 'synch' your kindle with laptops and phones at no extra cost and it will open the book at the page you stopped reading at last time. Being 'synched' means it will open on any of your machines (laptop, desktop, phone) at that page.
Long battery life and better to read (easier on the eyes) than reading from a pc screen.
sold online from amazon, but can buy from John Lewis's and Dixons if you want to try before you buy.
Mal

i have a kindle and its brilliant, the text size is altered to suit me and its far easier to read than a PC screen smile

iv got lots of free books on it plus some iv bought, they were various prices but none were expensive :)
i had it bought for me in january and iv used it every day for several hours a day and iv only had to charge it three times :)

7 Jun 2011

I've got a 3G Kindle and love it - especially the automatic bookmarking and ability to zoom text.
I did a lot of research into the other ebook readers, and while the Kindle ties you into Amazon for most stuff, there are plenty of ways to convert books from other formats - the only downside being that you need to be a little bit tech savvy to do this.
I'm officially dyslexic - I don't necessarily accept that diagnosis as my spelling is fine, but having a Kindle has made the world of difference to my attention span and concentration.