What can I do with old tablets and Kindles?

Applications for old tablets

The Kindle has had and has very worthy competitors in this market, and although it has not always come first in some features (backlighting, water resistance) and is a clearly more closed product than some rivals (Calibre is your friend), it is clear that Amazon has become an absolute reference in this segment.

It has done so with a family that in fact expanded with Kindle Fire tablets, although here we have focused on e-ink screen readers. The ecosystem created by Amazon with its book sales service or with the Kindle Unlimited subscription model has done nothing more than facilitate something fantastic: reading with (almost) no distractions.

The device that started the Kindle era was in such strong demand that it was impossible to get it for almost five months. It had a 250 MB memory, a speaker for listening to audio files, and an SD reader.

Its starting price was $399, and it was only marketed in the U.S. There it also debuted Whispernet, the free connectivity service that allowed users to search for and buy books (via Sprint’s 3G network) or newspaper subscriptions, for example.

Recycle tablet

An electronic book,[1] digital book or cyberbook, known in English as e-book or eBook, is the electronic or digital publication of a book. It is important to differentiate the electronic or digital book from one of the most popular devices for reading it: the electronic book reader, or e-reader.

Although sometimes defined as “an electronic version of a printed book,”[2] some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reading devices, but also on any computer device that has a controllable display screen, including desktop computers, laptops, e-readers and smartphones.

In this context appears the electronic ink, which has a “paper effect” (due to the absence of its own illumination and high contrast obtained) and its low power consumption (as this technology does not need power supply except for screen changes).

Using an old tablet

PRC is a generic format. calibre supports PRC files with TextRead and MOBIBook headers. PDB is also a generic format. calibre supports PDB eReader, Plucker (input only), PML and zTxt files. DJVU support is only for converting DJVU files that contain embedded text. These are usually generated by OCR software. MOBI books can be of two types Mobi6 and KF8. calibre supports both types. MOBI files usually have .azw or .azw3 extensions. DOCX files from Microsoft Word 2007 onwards are supported.

There is also the metadata index. A metadata index is an index that is not part of the text of the book and is usually accessed through a special button in the reader. For example, in the calibre eBook viewer you can use the Index button to view this index. The appearance of this index is not specified by the book’s creator, but depends on the reader program.

When converting to MOBI, calibre detects the metadata index in the input document and generates an index at the end of the file in the MOBI. You can disable this option in the MOBI output settings. You can also tell calibre to put it at the beginning or at the end of the book in the MOBI output settings. Remember that this index is semantically a metadata index, in any format other than MOBI it cannot be part of the text. The fact that it is part of the text in MOBI is accidental due to the limitations of MOBI. If you want an index at a particular place in the text of the document, create one by hand. We recommend that you leave the default options as they are, i.e. with the metadata index at the end of the book. Also note that if you disable the generation of the index at the end of the file, MOBI may not work properly on a Kindle, as the Kindle uses the metadata index for various functions, including fast page turning.

Old Tablet

With the constant arrival of new products on the market it is tempting to want to replace current devices with newer ones, but this does not mean that the old ones are useless.

For example, there are many things you can do with an old tablet; just because a newer model has come out doesn’t mean that the old one has to be left in a drawer forever, it can do much more than just collect dust.

You can turn your old tablet or iPad into a beautiful digital frame to decorate your living room with your favorite photos. To do this, in addition to a support, you will need an app that constantly displays photos on the screen.

You can use your old tablet as a second monitor, what better way to improve your productivity? To do this, install the Air Display app, compatible with iOS and Android; it is not free but it is a good investment.

There are many apps to turn your old tablet or iPad into an e-book. You can start directly with the Kindle app, available for iOS and Android. You can also use it to read newspapers and magazines.