h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I admit I wouldn't read on my phone for hours, but as I only really read ebooks on short bus or train journeys, it's more convenient for me than taking a separate device with me as well

so does anyone have one of the new £89 kindles, cause i have a question if they do.

Do they have the 'read to me' feature?

cause if I'm asking the parents for one for christmas, it *needs* to have that.

mini

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I'd doubt it.

My wife's Kindle is not 'touch-screen' - you navigate using the keyboard and the forward/back buttons. To access menus such as the 'read to me' feature (which as far as I know is still in beta, but works quite admirably on her Kindle) you'd need the keyboard.

Having said that, I can't see Amazon taking out too many features, so you may still have it, via a down-down-left-left menu arrangement.

I suspect though, that they've saved costs by removing the speakers (and the strange microphone that no-one ever knew what was for) from the mother-board.

If you mean 'text-to-speech', I've tried it and I don't know why anybody would use it. It's like being read to by Stephen Hawking (or Stephanie Hawking if you choose the female voice). It just converts words to 'sounds' - you're not really being read to.

If you want to be read to, get some audio books.

The audio book of "I, Partridge" is **not** suitable to listen to whilst on the train. it will result in complaints about laughter from your fellow travellers.

Fact.

FB

just heard from InTouch radio magazine for blind people that no the new Kindles don't have the text to speech, oh well back to paying Audible over the odds for audiobooks

mini

Re the original post, there's now another consideration on the UK market which looks like it could be a contender at £90 with 100 pre loaded classic books. Or its bigger brother at £110.

Not sure of the spec yet but it seems a good deal


http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/KoboeBookReader.aspx

Deke

Didn't think I would like an e-reader of any sort as I love the physical presence of books - but I really enjoy my kindle. It comes into its own for travelling.

In an early post, someone mentioned trying out really cheap e-books to begin with. I did that too - and rapidly found out why they were so cheap; they were utter tripe