The Amazon Kindle pioneered the e-book revolution by making millions of books available on a single portable device. The Amazon Kindle still offers the best ebook reader experience, but you are not limited to them – you can access your Amazon eBook collection on your PC and mobile device using the Kindle apps.
The Kindle desktop app is free to use and available for Windows and macOS devices. To help you decide if a Kindle app is as good as a physical device, we’ll walk you through some of the pros and cons of the Kindle Desktop and answer a simple question – is it as good as a real Kindle?
Benefits of Using the Kindle Desktop
If you want the best e-book reader experience, you will need an e-book reader – there is no doubt about that. If, however, this is out of the question, then the Kindle desktop app is probably the best option. This gives you immediate access to your Kindle eBook collection as soon as you sign in using your Amazon account.
To save space, the Kindle desktop reader will automatically download whatever book you choose to open, instead of downloading hundreds of books in one go. E-books are not very large, so this is usually just an additional delay of a few seconds.
The Kindle’s interface is easy to understand and navigate, with your library most visible and accessible from the left menu, but with a link for quick access to the Kindle Store in the upper right corner. Any books you purchase from your Amazon account will immediately appear here for you to download and read.
It has many of the features you’d expect from an ebook reader, including many seen on Kindle devices, offering the ability to change the font and font size, change the page width for better reading, and switch to an available color for viewing. Mode.
You can also use the built-in text-to-speech mode to create auto-generated audiobooks that you can listen to as you work, as well as directly comment on your books, perfect for students and teachers.
Kindle Desktop vs. Kindle Mobile vs. Kindle Devices
While the Kindle desktop app is not designed to be portable, it does have one clear advantage over the Kindle mobile apps – size. Large screens of desktops and laptops allow you to view much more text at the same time, which can be useful for those who study books and those who want to catch up with reading from their PC.
Amazon wants you to buy its books from its own store, and while nothing is impossible on Kindle devices, it’s not the easiest process unless you’re using the Kindle desktop app.
This leads to another direct advantage of the Kindle desktop app over other Kindle products. With it, you can open .mobi ebook files with the Kindle app without any hassle.
For the rest, there really isn’t much of a difference between the Kindle desktop app, the Kindle mobile apps, or the Kindle devices themselves. For example, many accessibility features are common to all Kindle products, although Kindle devices lack some of the more advanced features such as text-to-speech.
You can also share the same collection, save your saved position and sync it across your devices, and do the same with any book annotations you make across all Kindle products.
Alternatives to Kindle Desktop Reader
If you want to avoid the Amazon ecosystem, there are alternatives for desktop users. The most popular of these is Caliber, a desktop e-book reader available for Windows, Linux, and macOS devices.
Like the Kindle desktop app, it allows you to read e-books, share your collection with others, sync it across multiple devices, and more. It is free and open source software that you can extend (if you have the skills). directly helping to develop it or creating additional plugins for others to use.
While Caliber isn’t quite as perfect as Amazon’s own desktop app, it’s still a great e-book reader alternative that’s more than capable of supporting your Amazon e-book collection (as well as accessing and using other non-Amazon eBooks).
If Caliber isn’t for you, there are paid alternatives like Adobe Digital Editions It supports desktop and mobile users and, like Caliber and Amazon, allows you to share and read your ebook collection across multiple devices.
How to download and use the Kindle Desktop
The Kindle desktop app is available for free to anyone with an Amazon account, even those without Amazon Kindle eBooks. Downloading and setting up on your PC or Mac is a fairly straightforward process.
- First, download and install the Kindle desktop app for your operating system. After opening the Kindle app, you will need to sign in with your Amazon account details – enter your details and click Sign In to get started.
- Your Amazon Kindle eBook collection will automatically start syncing with the Kindle desktop app after you sign in. To access any of the books in your collection, simply double-click on it – the book will download and open as soon as the download is complete.
- By default, the default Kindle desktop application displays only one page. You can change this by opening the eBook and clicking one of the page width options in the top menu bar.
- To view your eBook in full screen without distraction, click the full screen icon in the menu bar.
- To access the accessibility features of the Kindle desktop application, such as changing the font, font size, color scheme, and more, press the Aa button in the menu bar. This will open a menu of options where you can change the various font and style settings if you want.
- If you want to purchase any Kindle e-books through the Kindle desktop app, tap the Kindle Store icon in the upper left corner. You will be taken directly to the Kindle Store, where any books you purchase will be automatically synced to the download app.
Read e-books on desktop and mobile
While the Kindle desktop app is a great option for your Amazon e-book collection, there are other ways you can read your favorite books for free: sites like BookBub work well with third-party Kindle alternatives like Caliber for building an e-book collection. without Amazon. participation.
However, the Amazon Kindle is still one of the best e-book services with millions of books, an excellent set of e-book readers, and feature-rich and easy-to-use apps for desktop and mobile users. If you are a passionate writer, you can even write your own ebook and publish it on the Amazon Kindle store for others.
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