Black EVA Travel Hard Case for Amazon Kindle 3

This was THE case I was dying to get for my new Kindle 3 (Wifi only and Wifi & 3G). It is compact, covers the device completely. An elastic Velcro harness makes sure the device stays put when opened. There is an inner sleeve on the opposing side of the cover as well. The Kindle fits snugly into the memory foam inner and even with my silicone sleeve cover, fits perfectly. The case is also splash proof, hard EVA covering which offers extra complete, all around protection compared to the slew of other covers out there.

In other covers, the ports and certain areas are exposed which would allow random debris to enter and accumulate whilst in transit in your backpack or other luggage. 

This item comes at a very remarkable price for the protection it offers at under £ 6. Be warned though, the low cost and high value makes this a rare item and I've had to wait around for it to become available when I bought mine. So if, hopefully when, it comes out make sure you grab yours.

Amazon Kindle 3 silicone soft case and screen protector

FoneM8's Silicone case and screen protector for the Kindle 3 is a bargain buy. It provides protection from bumps, debris, finger presents and miscellaneous damaging agents for a fraction of the price of other covers available. 

A few things to note though, the cover I purchased had reversed page turn buttons on the left side - forward and backward ever reversed causing me to think my kindle was malfunctioning for a little while. And the only other thing is near the 5 directional key, the right direction key press is harder with the cover as it blocks the finger from fully pressing down on it.

Overall this cover is a great solution to protecting your Kindle 3. It fits both the Wifi only and 3G models, and at such an incredible price not to be passed up.

And the winner is: Amazon's Kindle Wifi

So without blogging further details about other e-readers (first), I decided to go ahead with the Kindle Wifi.

For a variety of reasons I chose the Kindle over the others, primarily because of value. Even though being in Ireland means I had to put up with ridiculous shipping and import charges (estimated) from the US Amazon site,

                [ note: It's not possible to purchase from Amazon.co.uk if you're in Ireland or other countries; 

                       it is a good deal for UK residents though. ]

it still only cost me around € 147 in total. Comparing that to other top brands with 6 inch screens, it's a bargain. ****The only comparable pricing (€ 100-150) I could get was with the Sony PRS - 600 touch and pocket models available at Hughes & Hughes in the Stephen's Green Shopping Center in Dublin. But that's last year's model with glare issues.****

On a side note, I did have use for my laws of purchasing in deciding. The first one was completely fulfilled since it's been a good few years since I came across the [my] first ever e-reader. I'm assuming it was the Sony PRS 300 from youtube videos. It looked like a novel idea but the price was inhibitive and the refresh rate for pages was painful. The second rule was hard to follow at first, but, eventually, international shipping and duties made it a hell of a lot easier. I had wanted (still do) the Kindle DX, which is more suitable for textbooks and content with diagrams, reference material etc. but factoring in the extra costs drove it to the upper limits of € 300 mark. Not to mention that with upcoming technological advances such colour e-readers, simliar to e-ink technology, virtue of companies like mirasol (Anticipated to enter the fray and with larger screens with more features inevitably becoming cheaper within the next year or so) the Wifi only model seems a very prudent purchase.

The Kindle's built-in Wifi was a strong selling point. Even though the primary use isn't web-browsing, it does enable searching for books and getting more information possible on the go and without being tethered to a computer.The only difference between the Wifi and 3G models is the 3G and that isn't very compelling to pay a higher price. A larger screen on the other hand would've warranted it. Now I just have to wait to get my hands on it to review and read like a mad scientist, or some other person who likes reading, madly.

Where to find free e-books

Image via Wikipedia

Looking into the E-reader scene, one of my driving factors in garnering which device would be the best buy was the availability of free E-books from sources other than the proprietary ones. This list is a selection of ones I found and is reassuring that whichever device you choose, most sites seem to offer formats that work with all the major devices out there. Plus the availability of free E-books adds in favor of buying an E-book period.

free-sony-ebooks.com

Clicking on titles takes you to www.smashwords.com but still appears to be connected to the site. Formats available are:

• Kindle (.mobi)
• EPub
• LRF (Sony)
• Palm Doc (PDB)
• PDF
• RTF (Rich Text Format)
• Plain Text (viewable online and download)
• Online Reading (HTML or Javascript)

www.feedbooks.com

At first glance it seems that the only available format is Epub, but the supported devices page provides a few different avenues. It includes a link to a dedicated Kindle page.
Formats available:

• Epub
• Kindle (.mobi)

www.gutenberg.org

Formats Available:

• HTML
• Epub
• Kindle
• PDF
• Plucker
• QiOO Mobile

www.bookyards.com 

Formats available:

PDF

www.archive.org 

Haven't explored this yet so unable to comment on formats or other information. Contains a list of sites that could potentially yield E-books freely. Included among them is gutenberg.org so might be promising.

manybooks.net 

This site seems to have decent quality and range of downloads.

• Formats available:
• ePub (.epub)
• eReader (.pdb)
• Kindle (.azw)
• Mobipocket (.mobi and .prc)
• PDF - regular, custom and large (.pdf)
• Plain text (.txt)
• RTF (.rtf)
• Sony Reader (.lrf)

openlibrary.org

I haven't been able to look into this one yet. First impressions seems to be more of a indexical site than a free resource.

Related articles

• Converting between Kindle, epub, etc. (sebastianmarshall.com)
• Google Editions: a history of ebooks (telegraph.co.uk)
• Best Sources for eBooks | Chamber Four (chamberfour.com)
• Understanding eBook Formats (brighthub.com)