$50 Fire Tablet With High-capacity SDXC Slot Doesn't See E-books On the SD Card 145
Robotech_Master writes: For all that the $50 Fire tablet has a 128 GB capable SDXC card slot that outclasses every other tablet in its price range, and it evolved out of Amazon's flagship e-book reader, it strangely lacks the ability to index e-books on that card. This seems like a strange oversight, given that every other media app on the tablet uses that card for downloading and storage, and its 5 GB usable internal memory isn't a lot for people who have a large library of picture-heavy e-books—especially if they want to install other apps, too.
Sure to get fixed soon (Score:1)
...since they fired the Fire team.
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That was a the Fire Phone team.
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what's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
all of your ebooks will be stored in amazon's cloud. why would they be on the SD card?
Re:what's the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure this is Amazon's response, that you don't need all the extra storage because it's all in the cloud, to be retrieved whenever.
I know some people feel like they have to have their entire library on the physical device, but really? If there are 5GB of system memory, and say half of it you want to reserve for ebooks, you've still got massive amounts of space. 90% or so of unillustrated ePub books are going to be less than 5MB in size.
I know, someone will come along and say "But I keep 5,000 picture books on my reader for my kids, and I want them all on the device at once". Well, that's not really a typical use case.
Re:what's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about, "I have hundreds of books that I didn't purchase through Amazon, and therefore aren't in the Amazon cloud."
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Then I suppose a bargain basement tablet in a semi-walled garden ecosystem isn't what you've been using, or what you'd ever consider using.
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Even though they offered just such a feature to get you to do so. Then fucked you royally after they got your money.
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You can load books not purchased through Amazon into your Kindle and they are also stored in the Amazon cloud.
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And you never wondered at the low, low pricetag?
Yes, actually owning a device costs a little more, or the device pwns you.
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Well if you didn't purchase it through Amazon it mustn't be a proper book after all, citizen.
Re:what's the problem? (Score:5, Funny)
How about, "I have hundreds of books that I didn't purchase through Amazon, and therefore aren't in the Amazon cloud."
An Amazon drone strike is on its way to your location as we speak.
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Can you recommend anything comparable to the Paperwhite?
Kobo Glo + calibre (Score:3, Interesting)
I converted all my ebooks to epub using Calibre and really like the Kobo Glo for reading.
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Does the paperwhite have some problem with calibre? I did a cursory glance at the calibre forums, and it seemed that .mobi books would show up in "my docs" or you could format shift the books to azw3 and have them show up on the main screen. Is there some more recent development?
I ask because I'm trying to pawn off my kindle 3 to some family member or another to upgrade to the paperwhite or voyage. They just look so pretty, and my older model hasn't complained about a books source ever.
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Well, that's not really a typical use case.
But reading on a bus or plane or other places without Internet access is a very common use case.
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I'm guessing Amazon thinks most people can survive with only 1000 books to choose from until they get to an internet connection next.
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The whole point of an e-book reader is that I don't need more than the single reader in order to read all of the books that I have. If I now have a barrier to reading my books then the device is not as worthwhile to me.
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Our destinations frequently have no Internet access. I shouldn't have to seek it out in order to read books that I've already paid for.
The whole point of an e-book reader is that I don't need more than the single reader in order to read all of the books that I have. If I now have a barrier to reading my books then the device is not as worthwhile to me.
How long are you going to be gone for that you can't do a little pre-planning and load up a few dozen or even a hundred books to last you until you have a stable internet connection again?
This trend of needing to have full access to your entire digital collection of media (not just books) via 'the cloud' or locally or whatever at all times is baffling to me.
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That not so much a trend as an habit some people might have.
If you used your desktop PC 12 years ago to play music, you likely had all your digital music (say 20 to 40GB) in a folder on your PC, you thus had access to your entire collection every time (that you were at home and using the PC).
A completely unremarkable PC was needed.
Storing an entire book is as trivial as storing a song, thus people used to storing 5000-10000 songs on a low end or outdated PC may expect to store all of their e-books on an e-b
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If I now have a barrier to reading my books then the device is not as worthwhile to me.
No you don't.
You have an inconvenience but not a barrier. You're not stopped from opening any book from your SD card, you only lack some functionality such as indexing the books stored there.
TFA says you can manually navigate to the book location and tap it and it would load in the Kindle app just fine.
Re: what's the problem? (Score:4, Informative)
You can open it, yes. But unlike for any book that is indexed, such as the books on an e-ink Kindle, it loses your place in a manually opened book from the SD card as soon as you close it. This eliminates one of the biggest advantages of an e-reader over paper--the ability to pick it up right where you left off without needing a bookmark.
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I agree, even if it's not a complete show-stopper, it seems unnecessary and ought to be fixed.
So maybe it's a feature? (Score:2)
You can open it, yes. But unlike for any book that is indexed, such as the books on an e-ink Kindle, it loses your place in a manually opened book from the SD card as soon as you close it.
So you CAN read the book. But it FORGETS WHERE YOU WERE LOOKING when you close it, because it doesn't run an "index feature".
That sounds like the "index feature" consists of the tablet remembering:
- What books you read.
- Where you were reading them.
even after you delete the books themselves - or remove the
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Seriously?
Re: what's the problem? (Score:2)
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Our destinations frequently have no Internet access. I shouldn't have to seek it out in order to read books that I've already paid for.
Just curious, what did you do before e-readers?
Re: what's the problem? (Score:3)
Re:what's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actual numbers indicate that typical usage (not cherry-picked, theoretical 'typical' usage) puts average storage use at ~7GB on the iPhone, meaning that roughly half of people use roughly half or less of the available space on a 16GB model, but people still claim that having the entry-level iPhone start with 16GB is a huge error.
Could it be that people are forced to modify their habits because of the limited storage space?
I like to store my blu ray rips on my phone. If I had a phone that didn't have external storage, I wouldn't be able to, and the storage usage on that phone would be really low.
Change blu ray rips to videos of any sort, music, apps, photos, whatever. People won't keep in on their device if they feel restricted by the storage space.
I'm not going to keep SOME of my shit on my phone and ALL of it somewhere else. I'm going to keep ALL of it on my phone or NONE of it on my phone (and all of it somewhere else).
The fact that lots of people use 50% instead of 100% doesn't mean they don't need more space, it may mean that they don't have enough space to do what they want so they don't do it.
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Re: what's the problem? (Score:2)
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Things are always limited, salesmen who say it's "unlimited" are lying though their teeth. Whether they know it or not.
Maybe you just need a particular amount to do what you want and maybe you can find it. But you will tend to develop a need for more and you might as well realize that now so you are not surprised later.
Unless you can pay for new devices every time you hit the limits, you need to make a plan for "staging" your stuff. Put that off for now, if you want, but at least consider it so it does not
My Kobo is unplugged from the internet (Score:3)
I bought a Kobo H2O. All of the books I have come from "other sources". The wifi is turned off so the device can't track what I read. It is as close to a paper book as I can get in electronic form. I would never buy a Kindle with always on 3G. I don't want to be tracked. All I want is the nice screen and water resistant device.
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Are you high? Not all kindles have 3G and their Wifi can be turned off. You can upload books through USB.
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I have a older nook (I think it's the first touch screen one). Do you like your Kobo? I think something with a built in light would be very nice, but I am not keen on buying into the whole Amazon ecosystem. Where did you buy your Kobo? I would think that since Rakuten owns Kobo, you could get them at rakuten.com, but it pretty much seems like the kobobooks.com site is the only place they have them.
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So when will Google and Apple be selling Fire products in their respective stores?
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All amazon has to do is add casting to it's amazon video app to allow cromecast to work with their content.
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I agree. But that will uncut their own product which isn't too smart a move.
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> So when will Google and Apple be selling Fire products in their respective stores?
Neither of those have ever made any pretense about being a general store. Amazon is a bit like an online Walmart and should be treated much the same. The fact that you may be a fan of Amazon is no excuse to let them off easy.
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I think, though, that Walmart treats their employees better than Amazon does.
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So because Amazon was originally a "general store" they must always be that first and foremost at the expense of developing their own brand's products?
Amazon made a business decision. They entered one market and made the ultimate decision not to continue to support direct competing products in that limited area. They aren't blocking all Google or Apple products and accessories. And both of those products are available at an abundant number of other online and brick & mortar retail outlets so it's not li
All your books... (Score:2, Funny)
>all of your ebooks will be stored in amazon's cloud. why would they be on the SD card?
So... like,
Somebody set up us the Fire
Main screen turn on.
All your eBooks are now belong to Amazon
You have no chance to survive make your time.
Move to SD cards
For great justice.
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all of your ebooks will be stored in amazon's cloud. why would they be on the SD card?
Because when I'm in the Out Back and want to read, there isn't a cell tower around? Because my carrier has a shitty data plan, I'm poor, and want to access the items I presumably purchased?
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all of your ebooks will be stored in amazon's cloud. why would they be on the SD card?
You don't travel overseas much, do you?
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I want my books the most when I'm away from an Internet connection. When I'm somewhere that I have a good Internet connection I have plenty to read or watch or listen to.
that, and there is no such thing as a cloud. It is just Amazon usurping that name and trying to confuse what it really is.
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all of your ebooks will be stored in amazon's cloud. why would they be on the SD card?
Problem is that it's likely that the tablet is being used for things other than reading. In which case, the 5GB of internal memory is nowhere near enough - and I'm talking just for the apps. Never mind that most apps are incapable of recognizing the SD card and saving their data there instead of on the internal memory. My Ellipsis just had 8GB, and got close to full very easily, and to make things worse, Android Lollipop refused to allow me to write to the SD card (WTF do you even recognize it?) I'd be
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NONE of my books (not that I have more than a couple of e-books, including the Kindle manual. Hundreds of thousands of PDFs of books, papers, etc ; but ... actually, that Kindle manual may be the only eBook I've ever owned that was designed as such rather than as a press-ready PDF.
But still, here I am, at work. an hour's flight from the nearest cellphone service. And our satellite link has deteriorated to the point that the wired network (of business comp
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i said, all of your ebooks will be stored on amazon's cloud. don't you listen?
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Obvious reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because then it would be trivial for you to also read books that you *didn't* get from Amazon. And we can't have that, now can we?
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Amazon already helpfully stores in the cloud any and all books and documents I send to my kindle via email. They show up in my archive along with all my Amazon-purchased books and I can retrieve them wirelessly on any kindle device or app. This could be a privacy concern for some. I'm not sure if kindle will sync reading position in these third party books. I kind of doubt it.
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Because then it would be trivial for you to also read books that you *didn't* get from Amazon. And we can't have that, now can we?
No we can't. Not for $50 at least.
If you want a $200 tablet for the price of $50, obviously something has to give. Amazon is not in the charity business.
The same goes if Amazon suddenly rents you the tablet for 1 penny a month.
Amazon has to recoup its hardware cost somehow.
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A TV analogy : what, you expected to get a cheap TV and change channels? If you want to change channels, you should expect that you have to get a high end TV, not a barrel scrapping one.
Where that analogy fails : if there's a $200 Amazon tablet, you can bet the same software limitation is still in.
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Because then it would be trivial for you to also read books that you *didn't* get from Amazon. And we can't have that, now can we?
No, not for a $50 device that they are probably taking a loss on. It sounds like you think you are either entitled to take advantage of them, or else are smarter than them. You want a general use device? Pay for it. You have 100GB of books? Unless you are a public library, the odds are that they are pirated. I'm not defending the current corporate owned cultural system that we have gotten ourselves into, but yeah. They locked out the card. Go buy an iPad.
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Crazy that a company would want to offer a best-in-class bargain reader that would encourage sales of its other services. Oh the HUMANITY.
Next, you're going to tell me that shaver companies give away the handle but FORCE YOU to use their blades?
"a large library of picture-heavy e-books" (Score:2)
Pretty sure what you want is a CBR/CBZ reader. Also, paper.
Flawed app (Score:2)
It isn't the tablet exactly, it is a flawed app in the tablet. Still, really a completely bullshit job on Amazon's part.
This isn't the first time I've seen this though. When I got a new Android tablet I couldn't find any ebook app that I really liked. I previously had one that came with an older tablet that worked great, read epub files and did a good job of sorting and indexing things and letting you sort what you had as you wanted. Couldn't move that to the new tablet and couldn't find a copy of it on-li
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I recommend fbreader.
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Comic collector gripes about first world problems (Score:5, Funny)
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Complaining about first-world problems is a first-world problem.
What? (Score:2)
Can't make sense of the headline. I know something about a $50 fire tablet and a 128gb memory card. Can we get a Janit^H^H^H Editor on the headline?
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Read the first sentence out loud to yourself.
It's probably just a bug (Score:2)
This seems more like a bug than a deliberate design feature, but with Amazon it's hard to know for sure.
Can you load Firefox? (Score:2)
Alternatives? (Score:2)
Are there alternative ebook reader apps you can load on the device that will index ebooks from the SD card? Do you have to root the device first to load other apps on it?
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Yes, there are plenty of alternatives.
Yes, you can sideload apps.
Yes, there are Moon+ Reader and FBReader and a dozen of other e-book apps available in Amazon Appstore (when viewed from my cheapo generic Android phone that I use as a mini-tablet and backup e-book reader (more portable than my e-ink device)). I haven't found Coolreader - my preferred e-book reading app.
I can't understand what the problem is here.
Simply install alternative reader and use that instead of the default Kindle reader for your side
This author clearly is a Google marketroid (Score:2)
In paragraph after paragraph he complains that the phone isn't integrated with Google's cloud. So what?
>but I have to log in manually every time to each Google service.
No you don't. Use a password manager. Duh. Keepass runs on Android.
>he doesn't see any epub readers in the appstore that he finds familiar
>used Calibre to put epub books on the sd card
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Calibre runs on Android!
http://calibre-ebook.com/new-i... [calibre-ebook.com]
Lots has changed in calibre-land in the last year and a half.A beefe
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Lots has changed in calibre-land in the last year and a half.A beefed up e-book viewer. Support for Android phones and tablets. A new modern look for the calibre user interface. A portable version of calibre that you can carry around on a USB stick.
Fuck this guy.
It's a fucking 50 dollar computer. Remember OLPC and the effort to spread computers far and wide for the goal of 100 bux each? So it has some compromises because it's a 50 dollar computer. So did OLPC.
Seeing drivel like this come from someone with a relatively low UID is painful. I will try to spell it out for you in small words so you can understand:
A beefed up e-book viewer.
Windows ebook viewer. NOT Android ebook viewer.
Support for Android phones and tablets.
This is HOW THE OP PUT EBOOKS ON HIS _ANDROID TABLET SDCARD_
It's a fucking 50 dollar computer. Remember OLPC and the effort to spread computers far and wide for the goal of 100 bux each? So it has some compromises because it's a 50 dollar computer. So did OLPC
meaningless drivel that has nothing at all to do with the current topic thread.
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[Calibre is a] Windows ebook viewer.
No, Calibre is a cross platform viewer.
Welcome to fizsh, the friendly interactive zshell
Type man fizsh for instructions on how to use fizsh
bmo@ubuntu ~> apt-cache search calibre
calibre - e-book converter and library management
calibre-bin - e-book converter and library management
bmo@ubuntu ~> uname -a
Linux ubuntu 3.13.0-65-lowlatency #105-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT Mon Sep 21 20:49:52 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
bmo@ubuntu ~>
Fuck you.
--
BMO
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That still has shit-all to do with having the "calibre ebook reader" on Android like you originally claimed.
Ya fucking idiot.
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https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
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Read carefully. The support for Android means that it can connect to an Android device, not that it can be used on Android to view ebooks. (And to use even that functionality, you need a paid Calibre Companion app. This app cannot view ebooks either and needs to pass the ebooks to your own separate ebook viewer app.)
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It's not that the device won't recognize imported .epub files at all, just that the default kindle app doesn't handle them well.
If I used my file system navigator of choice, ES File Manager, to navigate to the folder on the SD card and tapped on one of the e-book files, it would load just fine via the Kindle app. But it wouldnâ(TM)t be added to my library, and the Kindle app wouldnâ(TM)t remember my place in it for the next time I opened it again.
So it does actually see them, in spite of what the
Picture heavy ebooks? (Score:2)
... its 5 GB usable internal memory isn't a lot for people who have a large library of picture-heavy e-books
The reason why I gave up on kindle reader is the fact they do a piss poor job on the charts, tables, maps and pictures. Resolution too poor to read the axis lables or the tick mark lables, legends too small, etc. Further navigating back and forth between a paragraph I am reading and referring back to the graph or map is real pain in the neck (some have a much lower opinion than that).
If you are insane enough to accumulate 5GB worth of books in the ebook format, you have no right to complain about the ins
Nonsense (Score:2)
For all that the $50 Fire tablet has a 128 GB capable SDXC card slot that outclasses every other tablet in its price range, and it evolved out of Amazon's flagship e-book reader, it strangely lacks the ability to index e-books on that card.
No, its internal reader lacks that ability. You don't want to use their reader to read books from third party sources, anyway. You want to sideload a better reader app, which you can actually do without even using ADB, because they let you install ES File Explorer from the official store. That's true even on the Fire TV Stick, let alone the Fire TV, as well as on the Fire tablets.
It's a bit frustrating if the internal reader doesn't index media on the memory card, but it's hardly a show-stopper since you ca
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Thanks. That is described in TFA but god knows who reads it.
The frustration really is an annoyance because people will want to see it as a semi-dedicated device (small tablet that reads books) and for that they typically want to use the software that comes with it. Going online to install some software is some kind of a barrier.
With smartphones most people use the default browser, the default music player, the default SMS software. If they install apps at all it's likely so as to actually do something else.
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With smartphones most people use the default browser, the default music player, the default SMS software. If they install apps at all it's likely so as to actually do something else.
The thing about that is that the included ebook reader doesn't handle many formats, so the avid sort of user who even bothers to install a SD card is probably going to want more formats than the included reader supports anyway, and the savvy user can slap a couple APKs on it before even slotting it into their tablet, then install ES File Explorer and install them from there. It's just not a big deal for anyone who would actually need more storage. Like I said, an annoyance, but a minor one. I'd want to be i
What's the screen size? (Score:2)
First tablet review I'm skimming through without even knowing what the size of the thing is.
Only on the very bottom of the page you get a hint about the size, in "related articles" : it's a 6". Even following the link, it's a mystery as what's the display resolution.
Typical lock-in move (Score:1)
I doubt we will be seeing Amazon fix this problem any time soon. They are forcing their customers to obtain e-books only from Amazon and locking out other sources. I have obtained nearly all of my ebooks from non-Amazon sources and plan to do so in the future. This is the reason that I considered buying an Amazon Fire only briefly. It's a great tablet in every other way than this, but I will never buy one.
Re:ebooks or kindle books? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about when you don't have internet access?
Re:ebooks or kindle books? (Score:5, Funny)
You can easily have 10-100 books on your fire
This is one of the few things ebooks will never capture. Deleting ebooks will never match the pleasure of burning heretic literature.
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The fact that something is cheap is no reason to put up with obviously bogus technical limitations.
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Yes, because Amazon shouldn't be allowed to pursue making a profit in anyway that you might disagree with.
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Remember the Game Boy? It did cost a bit more but it was cheap.
Ebooks - the devices - are the closest things to the original Game Boy, i.e. black and white, made for prolonged offline use and a very long battery life for cheap. That's like an extension of 80s tech.
Turns out I don't really need or want a science-fiction device, which comes with the wrong sort of science-fiction too (Brave New World, panopticon dystopia etc.)
I would want to see a modern "game boy" with D-pad and buttons on the bottom, high r
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Pixels and brightness cost battery life, you just won't get a week's battery out of a 768x1024 OLED screen. The new AMOLED screen on the samsung g s6 uses more than 1/3W at 1nt.
But with a slight limit in refresh rate, like the non-action games that the GameBoy was great for, e-ink might be the more realistic option.
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Alright.
By proposing monochrome, sub-pixels are no more so there is only a third as many physical "pixels".
But even then the screen's power use is the biggest factor, in this though experiment.
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Neither are paid for Harry Potter books that have no DRM.
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So far, the previous Fires haven't been too easily rootable, or so I understand.
Note that if you want a $50 plain-vanilla Android tablet, there are plenty of choices in that price range on Amazon [teleread.com].The Fire's going to have better specs, but it's going to be locked to Amazon's ecosystem. You have to be aware of that going in.