E Readers, can you use them in China?

by **Amsterdemily** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 11:03 am

I would like to buy an E Reader but I would like to know if you can upload books in China. Did anyone ever buy one in China? (Kindle from Amazon or the Sony one?)

by **rocco72** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 11:10 am

Send a PM to Henry_Chinaski....

He knows all about it...

by **groover** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 11:50 am

I have a Sony Pocket Reader. No problem acquiring books from Sony's store in China, the Google library, or one of the many independent online stores. A friend has an Amazon kindle. She has no problem with the Kindle store. The only limitation is with the 3G Kindle. The 3G service doesn't work here so don't count on using the wireless storefront.

by **Amsterdemily** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:16 pm

Thanks for the feedback. I will PM Henry.

@ Groover: did you buy it in China? If yes, where?

by **Henry_Chinaski** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:38 pm

3G and accessing the store: never had a problem, in fact using the experimental browser and browsing the store is completely free (yes, I know quite surprising). Kindle I was using was purchased in the US and shipped by a friend. I was positively surprised by the Kindle as a whole. The web browser is good enough to check and answer emails and works without a hitch.

Downloading books: you can download books from China without a problem but the delivery costs an extra 2 bucks.

Sad thing though is that the screen died but Amazon is shipping a brand new one. They were pretty easy about it.

Can't recommend the Kindle enough.

by **rocco72** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:45 pm

You forgot to add that I broke it.....

by **groover** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:35 pm

My Sony was a gift. Bought in the US and shipped to China. You may want to check the electronic markets for Chinese brands. I heard some of them are pretty good (and cheap) as long as the user interface is acceptable for you. I would check out Calibre for your ebook manger. It will also automatically download RSS feeds to update your reader with the latest news. Good luck!

by **Amsterdemily** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 4:12 pm

Thanks for all the info!

by **seatrump** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:03 pm

Kindle works fine here over 3G. As someone else mentioned $2 extra for international delivery. However download to your PC and sync for the same price.

Love love love the Kindle but a big pissing match amongst ereaders is just getting started and with Amazon's proprietary Kindle format I am not convinced they will win out so personally I would sit on the sidelines until this Christmas and see who wins.

by **kingshiadric** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 4:05 pm

So the 3G service for the Kindle is free? How does that even work? China Mobile provides it?

I'm kind of confused about the whole thing, what are the costs, basically you buy the device, then it's free to shop the online book stores, then you have to buy the books and pay for international "delivery." Any other hidden costs/fees?

by **guinness** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 4:55 pm

I've also got a kindle via a friend from the US, and I've been purchasing books and transfering via PC so that I can pay the $US amount. I'm signed up with a US address but an Australian credit card, but when I bought a book via the whispernet it changed my location to 'Australia' and charged me the extra money. So if you want the US selection of books and prices, you'll just need to download the books via PC (but it takes 2 seconds).
I think the Kindle comes with a built in sim card (or so I've read), it can't be removed and that is why if you download a book to the Kindle directly outside of the US it charges $1.99 to cover the roaming and download charges.

by **shanghainushi** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:29 pm

kingshiadric wrote:So the 3G service for the Kindle is free? How does that even work? China Mobile provides it?

I'm kind of confused about the whole thing, what are the costs, basically you buy the device, then it's free to shop the online book stores, then you have to buy the books and pay for international "delivery." Any other hidden costs/fees?

I'm confused too. Is the 3g for the Kindle free in China or do I need a China mobile contract?

by **MikeA** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 1:24 pm

It's worth mentioning that the new Kindle comes standard with WiFi instead of 3G, which is a great option for downloading from Shanghai

by **shanghainushi** » Wed Dec 22, 2010 12:11 am

i also read an article online that you can bypass *you know* with the 3g function on the kindle. Can anyone that has a kindle attest to that?

by **socaljohn** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:58 pm

I received the new Kindle as a gift, just wifi version. As previously mentioned, with Calibre (free) software, managing your books, magazines, blogs is a snap. Calibre will take multiple formats and send them to Kindle in the correct .mobi format so that you can read them on the kindle or on the PC. The difference between a Kindle and an Ipad with Kindle is the battery life and digital ink. The Kindle is lighter than a paperback, and has a battery life up to 30 days now. It is not fancy, it just works. There are no backlights or cool color graphics, but if you want to read a lot of books with a very small footprint. I would recommend the Kindle.

by **jzzzzzzz** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:24 pm

shanghainushi wrote:i also read an article online that you can bypass *you know* with the 3g function on the kindle. Can anyone that has a kindle attest to that?

I also heard this but the browser and screen are really not made for displaying most websites. I have the wifi only version and love it.

by **Bluebag** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:50 am

The U.S. version of the wifi+3G Kindle 3s got blocked/messed up a while ago (not sure if that's gone back to normal since), but my "international" unit's still working fine.

I wouldn't recommend it for extensive web browsing, but in a pinch, it gets you by. Especially good if you just want to research something you're reading or send a quick webmail. Definitely beats the crap out of using your mobile phone on that score (at least my phone, anyway).

I'd also strenuously recommend installing Calibre on your PC if you've got a Kindle. It works out and out miracles in terms of converting, archiving and managing docs. I believe it works with most other major readers (Sony, Nook, Kobo, etc.) as well.

by **chingiskhan** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:28 am

The 3G isn't free. Amazon pay for it, so it's free to you the customer. I believe they just have a roaming agreement with most countries. It's quite understandable why they do it because then you are more likely to buy books and the bandwidth is tiny because it's all just text / ascii.

And as someone else mentioned subtly, you can view blocked sites on the Kindle even in China. I think that's because you're technically roaming from overseas, just like some people can get Facebook on their Blackberries.

by **yesvpn** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 9:19 pm

I can not visit facebook in china ?>

by **ma le** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 5:54 pm

Hi,

Could you share your experience about chinese brand ereader ?
I'm hesitating between Kindle 3 keyboard and bambook. http://csball.com/bambook.html

I read bambook was a nice one, but as I can't read chinese and no information seem to be available on google, i have no further information to make up my mind about the main differences between Bambook and Kindle.

I want to have above all :
- a good reading quality (!)
- wifi and web browser
- audio (mp3)
- keyboard (reduced in the case of the bambook)
- long life battery
- ergonomy

Any hints welcome.

by **caisghost** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:09 pm

The black and white Kindles have very little eyestrain. (The color ones do tend to hurt your eyes after a couple of hours, just like a computer.) I don't know if you can read Chinese on them.

I'm not familiar with the Bambook.

by **Commodore** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:23 am

I use an iPad and Stanza, reads each and every format. True, the Kindle screen looks really nice, and almost as if you are reading from paper.

by **Jotony** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:00 am

Thank goodness as I've written an eBook novel about Shanghai in 1936 - details on http://www.tony-henderson.com - and it can download to Kindle, iPad etc but I had read there were problems in downloading in China. Out of interest which Amazon site do people use in Shanghai? I live in Spain and used to have download from the USA (not possible to download from the UK - one of Amazon's little mysteries), until just recently Amazon.es (Spain) appeared. When I get to the third book in this trilogy I will need to visit your city. Friends I met in Hong Kong in 1973 when I was working there with Swire's were working in Shanghai in 1937 when the Japanese invaded, which is the subject of my novel. Just wished I knew I was going to write about Shanghai then!

by **Sputnik-11** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:12 am

I have read about 20 kindle bestseller books - all through my ipad and iphone. So you don't need an actual kindle device. Both Kindle and Nook offer apps for iDevices. Of course, Apple has its own ebooks store as well.

by **Brokentime** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:16 am

Anyone any ideas about where in Shanghai I can go to buy one?

by **chingiskhan** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:59 am

Brokentime wrote:Anyone any ideas about where in Shanghai I can go to buy one?

I've seen Amazon Kindles on Taobao and the electronics malls in XJH and t¡bet Road. iPads can be found at the Apple Store.

by **Brokentime** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:06 am

chingiskhan wrote:I've seen Amazon Kindles on Taobao and the electronics malls in XJH and t¡bet Road. iPads can be found at the Apple Store.

Seen 'em on taobao, but I've combed the malls in XJH and couldn't find them anywhere

by **Sputnik-11** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:11 am

http://www.amazon.com/kindlestore

"Now shipping internationally." Including to China.

by **chingiskhan** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:16 am

Brokentime wrote:
chingiskhan wrote:I've seen Amazon Kindles on Taobao and the electronics malls in XJH and t¡bet Road. iPads can be found at the Apple Store.

Seen 'em on taobao, but I've combed the malls in XJH and couldn't find them anywhere

Yes, it's only a few sellers at the malls and you sometimes have to ask and they'll find one because it's not very popular with Chinese people for obvious reasons.

E Readers, can you use them in China?

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