<p>I'm looking for textbooks for next semester and I figured it's worth looking into international edition textbooks since they're so much cheaper.
I've read elsewhere online that they typically have the same content as US edition books. My main concern is that many of them say things like "SI edition", so if I'm getting one for an engineering class I want to make sure that it actually is the same as the US edition because even something small like changing units can be pretty important.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience, especially with engineering?</p>
<p>First off, international editions are perfectly legal to use, no matter what the books say. They are the same as the US edition except they may be printed in black and white on low quality paper (commonly referred to as the Indian edition) or are missing a certain appendix that you don’t need anyway. Usually though, they are the exact same, just in softcover format. </p>
<p>SI edition should only mean that the units used are in the SI (metric) system. I don’t know if engineering texts ever use the customary system or not, but the international edition will be in metric.</p>
<p>I bought an “Indian Edition” of a book once. It has really low quality paper, like newspaper. I wasn’t sure if it was the same thing as the SI edition though. But for engineering texts, they don’t change the units. I heard that some numbering issues maybe different for the problems at the end of each chapter though.</p>
<p>Not all international editions are the Indian editions. Most are printed in color on the same quality paper as the US edition. The sellers will usually note that the book is in color if it is. When I have bought the color-printed international editions, they usually come very quickly (3-5 days) from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, or the Philippines.</p>