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One problem I've had in China is getting stuff to read.
Books in English are available but, even in large bookshops in large cities, the selection is miniscule. In Xi-An I checked the English section of a book store that covered five floors of a shopping mall. There were less than thirty books in total and all of them were the kind of boring classics that get included in school curriculums.* If I wanted to read Oliver Twist or Pride and Prejudice or The Importance of Being Earnest again, I'd have brought them with me. In desperation for something to pass the time on a forthcoming twenty hour train ride I ended up buying The Complete Father Brown stories.**

I can of course get downloads of just about anything.
So, I've decided to go against my principles and give in and buy an e-reader. I have a lot of downloaded books on my computer but it's just too damned inconvenient to sit at my desk to read them. I know this is against everything I've ever said but I've just committed to another year in China and, if I can't get real books, at least an ereader will let me sit somewhere comfortable to read electronic ones. Not to mention giving me something to pass the time while I am on the toilet.***

So this afternoon a Chinese friend is coming with me to explain my requirements to the store owners and then to bargain the price down to something sensible.****
With this in mind I've been looking at e-readers on the internet to get an idea for just what my requirements are. One thing in particular has struck me about the product descriptions on the official sites for Kindle and Nook and whatever. The quoted battery life always seems very odd.

The first one that showed up on my search was the Kindle. It quoted a battery life of a month. The Nook quoted an even more impressive two months. These seemed unlikely to me. Closer examination reveals that these figures are both based on thirty minutes use a day. Surely this is an absurdly disingenuous way to describe it. Doing that the Kindle could claim two months based on fifteen minutes a day or more than a year based on two minutes a day or an infinite battery life based on never using it at all.
Independent comparison sites all seem to quote the much more sensible "hours of continuous use" figure.

What do I need? Well I don't need to know how long it will last at half an hour a day as I read far, far more than that now, just sitting at my computer screen. All I need is to know that on a full charge it will last for a day. Then I can recharge it while I sleep. That's it. I also don't need it to have bells and whistles and other features. I just want to be able to copy a book from my computer to the e-reader , then go sit in the park or in the bar or on the sofa or on the toilet and read.

(* No, Word's helpful red underlining notwithstanding, I don't think it should be curricula - I speak English, not Latin.
** The Complete Father Brown stories vary from rather dull and predictable***** to "I-want-to-throw-it-in-the-fire" religious preachiness. I don't understand why it has such a good reputation.
*** Unless, of course, it's a Chinese squat toilet where it's all I can do to maintain balance and keep my trousers clean without adding the complication of trying to read.
**** In China, in everywhere except supermarkets, prices always start at more than double the price they will actually take. As an Englishman I am genetically incapable of the bargaining required to get the prices that the Chinese locals pay. A Chinese friend is an essential adjunct to any shopping experience.
*****The atheist did it. You can bet the farm on it.)

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I'll almost certainly buy the cheapest on the Chinese market.
My needs are very modest.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
The problem is that I have a ton of stuff already downloaded - none of it in a format that the Kindle supports.

I'll almost certainly buy the cheapest on the Chinese market.
My needs are very modest.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
As I said before the Kindle doesn't support epub files and 90% of my downloads are epubs.Kindle is no use to me. I'll be back in England in two weeks. I can look around then at other devices. For the time being the tablet I bought will do.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

Is that converter I gave you the link to, of no use?

Which? recently tested e-readers and found that the Kindle Keyboard was the best overall, despite the fact that it can only read the Amazon format. They accepted that point but added that, because the Amazon range was so large and its prices generally the cheapest, being restricted to that format was no great hardship.

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At the moment I have bought what I can get -i.e. a tablet. I will look at the converter should I need it. As for the Kindle prices, they can't be cheaper than those (not necessarily legal) dowloads that I mentioned, because they're free.