Teaching3bears Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 (edited) I am thinking of getting one or two e-readers. One would be for me to read books for myself and to read books to my two sons who I homeschool. The other will be for DS13 to encourage him to read and so he can easily look up words he does not know as he is reading. They all have that feature, right? I will try to get most of the books from the library because that fits our budget better. I have very bad eyesight. DS's eyesight is fine. I understand that some readers can play audiobooks. Can this be out loud in the kitchen so everyone can hear or does it have to be with ear buds? If so, is there a speaker I can attach it too? Do they play a lot of video games? How good are parental controls if I want to limit video games? Do I need 32GB or just 8GB? I just started researching. These sound promising: Kindle Paperwhite (10th generation) Kindle Clara HD Kindle Oasis What do you like? What do you think will work for our family? Edited June 7, 2020 by Teaching3bears to add Quote
Pen Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 I don’t know a lot about dedicated ereaders, but I suggest you see if you qualify for National Library Service and/or Learning Ally for audio. NLS devices allow group listen or personal with earbuds. And can work with smartphones now afaik. If you have a computer that can do Audible you can prob control it and have it play via a speaker for a son—so no ability there to separately do gaming. My son had a kindle fire some years ago. I think he did all sorts of things on it. He got it with gift money and I didn’t try to control it. ( I never even caught on to using it.) For myself, I now prefer kindle app for smartphone if ebook is only option. But I Much much prefer audio books to ebooks. 1 Quote
SounderChick Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 I love the Paperwhite. 8gb has been fine for us. We have thousands of books but most of them live happily on the cloud. I don't need more than a dozen books actually downloaded at a time. I would think you only need 32 if you are often away from wifi. I don't use mine for audiobooks so I don't know how it is for that. 1 Quote
Pen Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 PS if you can load both Hoopla and Libby (overdrive) for your library do that. I use Hoopla more often. But it is good to have both. 1 Quote
Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 My son loves his paperwhite- but it is an older version. He takes it everywhere. He likes that it has a light. We briefly had a kindle fire kids edition, but I hated it with a passion so we returned them. The issue I have with the kindle (and amazon in general) is content you buy now is tied to your account and doesn’t move with them when they get older. Also, if you set them up with a teen account you can give them purchasing privileges on your account, but they can’t watch or listen to any of your prime content. 1 Quote
vonfirmath Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Teaching3bears said: I am thinking of getting one or two e-readers. One would be for me to read books for myself and to read books to my two sons who I homeschool. The other will be for DS13 to encourage him to read and so he can easily look up words he does not know as he is reading. They all have that feature, right? I will try to get most of the books from the library because that fits our budget better. I have very bad eyesight. DS's eyesight is fine. I understand that some readers can play audiobooks. Can this be out loud in the kitchen so everyone can hear or does it have to be with ear buds? If so, is there a speaker I can attach it too? Do they play a lot of video games? How good are parental controls if I want to limit video games? Do I need 32GB or just 8GB? I just started researching. These sound promising: Kindle Paperwhite (10th generation) Kindle Clara HD Kindle Oasis What do you like? What do you think will work for our family? The Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation) does play books by reading it (I'm not sure if it plays audiobooks. Haven't played with that). But you need a bluetooth speaker to do so. INo video games so far as I know. i've never heard of the Kindle Clara. Get the 32 gig. Edited June 7, 2020 by vonfirmath 1 Quote
vonfirmath Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 55 minutes ago, Mom2mthj said: My son loves his paperwhite- but it is an older version. He takes it everywhere. He likes that it has a light. We briefly had a kindle fire kids edition, but I hated it with a passion so we returned them. The issue I have with the kindle (and amazon in general) is content you buy now is tied to your account and doesn’t move with them when they get older. Also, if you set them up with a teen account you can give them purchasing privileges on your account, but they can’t watch or listen to any of your prime content. My son turned 12 this year. For Christmas he got his own Amazon account (that mom has the email and password to) and a large gift card so he can start buying content that will go with him to adulthood. I figure he's starting to read books, some of which he will want access to as he grows up. So now is the time to let him buy his own books to keep them. 1 Quote
PeterPan Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 Make sure you're distinguishing audiobooks vs. text to speech. It sounds like you should get an Echo Dot (something you can plunk anywhere to stream via wifi) for yourself and a paperwhite for your ds. You want audiobooks and he wants to read. But maybe hit Best Buy and try the paperwhite to make sure he likes it first. Some people really don't like ebooks. If he wants to read things with color like comics (yes!!!), he'd want a kindle fire. Yes, then you have the issue of apps and parental controls, but the parental controls on the fires are the best, no issue there. 1 Quote
Ottakee Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 The Kindle fire will do Kindle books and works as a tablet but has parental controls. It can be harder to read on for long periods as it doesn't have the easy on the eyes back lighting. These do audio book with a blue tooth speaker (much easier on the ears with better sound) or headphones or the regular speaker )which is fairly poor quality. The dedicated e-readers don't play video games, search the internet, etc. Some of the newer ones will read the book and maybe do audio books. I would consider if you want a tablet that you can also use as an e-reader or a dedicated e-reader. I have a kindle fire that I use almost exclusively for Pandora, playing audio books and listening to FB live church services....all with a blue tooth speaker for better sound quality. I also have a several years old Kindle Paperwhite that I LOVE as an e-reader. It doesn't do anything other than Kindle books but I love the light for night time reading, the sheer number of books I have on it, etc. 2 Quote
vonfirmath Posted June 7, 2020 Posted June 7, 2020 (edited) Well, the webpage says that the current Kindle (all three -- Kindle, current generation Paperwhite, and Oasis) will play Audible audiobooks through Bluetooth. Here's instructions: https://www.filelem.com/listen-to-audible-on-kindle/#:~:text=How to Play Audible on,Amazon Kindle . More items (And now I wonder if what I have is 7th or not) Clara is likely NOT "Kindle" but Kobo -- so a competitor. I don't know much about it. Edited June 7, 2020 by vonfirmath 1 Quote
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