E-Book Borrowing Solutions

[Bat Macdui]

My Mum wants to be able to read e-books borrowed from the library. She has a rather elderly Kindle, a laptop and phone, but after discussion, I think what she might need is a tablet. As in, she doesn't want to read on phone or laptop, and I don't want to wrestle Calibre everytime she tries to borrow an e-book.

I borrow the odd e-book via my Kobo, but it's a bit of glitchy process so I am reluctant to recommend that, as I'll just end up doing shedloads of tech support. And I also think Mum will enjoy having Medium Sized Portable Internet.

Does anyone use a tablet for BorrowBox/Libby? Is it fairly straightforward? And can you run off a really basic tablet or do you need any kind of speed etc? I have looked at Amazon Fires, but a lot of people seem to think these come with annoying/intrusive inbuilt adverts (which will drive Mum batshit) so am veering to a low spec basic tablet (about the £100-£150) mark.

All experiences in similar appreciated. Also, am I right in thinking different libraries have different e-book selections?

[Pippedydeadeye]

Different libraries have different solutions. I would suggest talking to the library staff about what works best.

[Glint]

Our library uses Libby, it was fairly straight forward to use (haven’t looked at it in a while) for both ebooks and audiobooks and worked fine on iPad and an android tablet.

Fire tablets do have adverts, but I think you might be able to pay to remove them

[Rebel Pebble]

I can't help with the library ebook thing but I would say that her tablet is just about the only piece of tech my mum actively uses, is moderately capable with and doesn't need tech support on every five minutes. She has a Samsung, about £200 I think it was.

[bramblerose]

I use BorrowBox on my phone. I read but mainly use it for audio books.

It's a bit tiny though.

A fire is fine but there's a bit of jiggery-pokery to get Google Play on it but once it's on, you can download BorrowBox from the play store.

I have a Fire HD 10 without ads but I can't find one now that does them without.

[Kenickie]

I use borrowbox on my phone. It's very easy to increase font size if that's the concern?

The app is pretty basic so I can't imagine you need anything fancy at all in a tablet. Maybe just get the most basic android one available? All she'd need is WiFi for browsing and downloading and then could read offline wherever she goes.

[Luna]

I use borrow box and it’s been quite straightforward.

[Bat Macdui]

Thank you. I have explained the options and we are going to get her a tablet in July, as she has decided she is sliding into debt* and is waiting until after her holiday and my niece's graduation.

*She's got like £300 on her credit card because I took her to the Big Marks.