Thinking about an e-reader [Archive]

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28th June 2011, 21:16

Aurora

28th June 2011, 21:23

Im also thinking of getting one, ive been messing around with my brothers Kindle 3 while hes here and i think it's pretty great, incredible battery life and really light and easy to use.
I'd also like answers to OP's questions

Decolonize The Left

29th June 2011, 05:13

Blackburn

29th June 2011, 05:22

I have an ipad (the first one) and I'm extremely happy with it. Kindle app rocks.

Get a Tablet PC. I recommend Apple, but go for one of the cheap Android ones if that's not your style.

The ipad is easy on the eyes. I'm converting myself slowing to an e-book library.

Blackscare

29th June 2011, 06:41

I've been in the market as well, I need the low energy consumption of E-ink and the storage capacity (better than lugging around a personal library on extended trips).

Does anyone know if there's a basic black and white e-ink machine that's known for being particularly durable?

wunderbar

29th June 2011, 07:15

I have a Kobo, there's probably better e-readers out there, but I like it. It's cheaper than a Kindle and it doesn't have all the features a Kindle has, but if you just want to use it to read books, it should be fine. It came pre-loaded with 100 public domain ebooks including Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, Don Quixote, even The Communist Manifesto.

Some good places for free ebooks:

Project Gutenberg - all public domain (look for the Australian Gutenberg website for more "recent" public domain books such as 1984)
One Big Torrent - Left-wing ebooks (plus other stuff like movies and news programs). It's technically anarchist, but they have a bunch of Marxist stuff too.

29th June 2011, 07:41

Fuck e-readers. Reading off a screen for extended periods of time gives me headaches and the e-reader can't match the tactile feel of an actual book.

Whether it's the smell of a brand new book when you crack the spine or the feel of the worn pages of an old hardbound copy you found in a used bookstore for three dollars, books will never go out of style.

I'm sorry, I know this thread was for helpful input on e-readers but really, they are lame. :thumbdown:

- August

I have an ipad (the first one) and I'm extremely happy with it. Kindle app rocks.

Get a Tablet PC. I recommend Apple, but go for one of the cheap Android ones if that's not your style.

The ipad is easy on the eyes. I'm converting myself slowing to an e-book library.

Sorry for not being clear enough, but I wasn't talking about tablet PC's (which are indeed an eye sore), but about e-readers. For August, this is what I'm talking about:

2pY6kEr7ugw
The Kindle 3 was released a year ago. But it's released by Amazon and, for that reason, very US-centric. As a European there might be better options, I don't know.

eyedrop

30th June 2011, 10:10

I got myself a kindle now, or will as soon as UPS can understand that no one is home during 14:00-18:00 all week. It will probably take them another week to get the delivery.

I couldn't be arsed to do any research so I just did an impulse buy of something I knew was safe at least.

Tablo

30th June 2011, 10:40

Never understood the point of pdfs. They are such a resource drain.

Kenco Smooth

30th June 2011, 11:15

I'm slowly but surely starting to get fed up with bulky books knowing that e-readers can offer a much more lightweight alternative, storing whole libraries on one device that reads exactly like paper.

So, a few questions for those in the know:
- What would be a best buy cheap model? What could it do for that money?
- Do color e-readers already exist? I've read about their development some time back, I wonder if any are out yet.
- What is the practical difference between html, pdf and epub formats on e-readers? Especially for the latter two, don't they both format more or less in the same way?
- What is a great, free ebook library? Alternatively I would pay for a good ebook, but don't desire any restrictions, such as DRM.

In summary: How mature is the field of e-readers yet?

-The amazon kindle with wifi (no 3g) comes to about £110. You probably won't get much better value for your money and amazon seem to have a big share of the market so it could well be better supported in the future than say Sony's Nook.

- the kindle will read any book in .mobi format. It also has a bunch of extras such as the ability to hold music/audiobooks. Also the wifi lets you download straight to the kindle from the amazon kindle book store if your in a wifi hot spot.

- None out yet that I know of. There's one by Sony I think that has this claim but few would recommend it as it's just like reading of a tablet apparently.

- Usually ereaders will only deal with one specific file format. The Nook does epub kindle does mobi. This isn't a problem however. Wonderful piece of freeware available called calibre which allows you to convert any text from one format to another and organise your collection. Ebooks can't really do pdfs sadly, as they're often an image rather than text and so it can't be formatted to the reader screen. But if the pdf file is text based you can still convert it with differing levels of success. But pdf is really the only issue. Epub, mobi, html, text, and any text based file all convert into each other nicely.

- the Amazon kindle store is growing at an incredible rate with most new releases getting kindle versions and a growing back catalogue. However the best thing about ebooks and the reason I got one is that since there are no production costs on books in the public domain these are available entirely free. Some on amazon but a brilliant resource is http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page a project to build a collection of all public domain books still read in formats that work for viewing on a computer or an e-reader.

- The field is extremely young. Only really started to kick off with the release of the new kindle. Nonetheless it is growing extremely fast. Not every book is availbale in electronic format but an amazing number already are.

Blackburn

30th June 2011, 11:30

The ipad is not an eye sore, which is part of the reason I bought it. But a black and white one? I'd go kindle. Amazon are the leaders. imho

StoneFrog

30th June 2011, 13:52

I have a kobo, the main thing i find it good for is to take texts from MIA to read easily.
The screen is 10000x better than reading of a computer screen since it doesn't emit light. Just i get a bit annoyed with the slow response time of the kobo, i think its better on other devices.

For the formats, if i remember kindle doesn't support epub only their format. epub is just a zip file with html file stored in it. Really not hard to make an epub from html pages.
pdf i think most devices don't have good support for PDFs, since you have to scroll across to read one line. I know development was being put into it so might have changed since i last looked into it.

30th June 2011, 15:31

Hmm, I just did some measuring and with 6 inch (about 15 cm) the Kindle 3 is really small. The 10 inch Kindle DX is with ~25 cm about the size of a paperback, but alas is still very expensive ($379).

So, wait until christmas or so? The prices are falling at a huge pace.

Kenco Smooth

30th June 2011, 15:39

Hmm, I just did some measuring and 6 inch (about 15 cm) is really small. The 10 inch Kindle DX is with ~25 cm about the size of a paperback, but alas is still very expensive ($379).

So, wait until christmas or so? The prices are falling at a huge pace.

I've never had issues with the 6 inch screen personally. I imagine the DX with a 10 inch screen plus the body might be a little chunky and tricky to read with but I suppose on the flip side there's be less page turning and it might handle pdf's better also.

Might be tricky to get a DX first hand also since it belongs ot the previous generation of kindles. Certainly the amazon UK shop doesn't seem to be selling any but if you don't mind going second hand then the prices would surely drop ridiculously quick?

Sun at Eight

30th June 2011, 15:57

The thing about PDF is that you need a big screen with a high enough resolution for most PDFs to be at all pleasant to read (and then there's the issue of endnotes that are even more of a pain to look at than in real books). So something at least the size of the Kindle DX. Also, page turning will be slower. I bought the original Sony Reader off of Craigslist (I need to get it upgraded by Sony to natively handle epubs soon) and even with a script to convert PDFs to be easier to read (or even splitting them into two pages and turning the device to read them horizontally) they're a pain in the ass.

Some PDFs (ones where the text is in there, searchable) can be converted to epub (or whatever the native format is) with calibre, as was mentioned above. This works best if the PDF is very simple in its formatting.

But for everything else, they're pretty good. I'm tempted to get a used Kobo.

Nothing Human Is Alien

6th July 2011, 07:55

I did a good amount of research before getting one last year (Kindle 3). I think Kindles are the best readers available now.

The main areas where it wins out are battery life (ridiculous.. I go weeks without charging) and notes (you can take notes easily with the available keyboard; and search those notes, share those notes and/or export them to your PC). It also lacks back lighting and glare, making it much easier to read than pads and other readers like the Nook.

While there can be some problems with PDFs (and that's my main complaint), you can get most of the older public domain stuff you would get on PDFs in other formats anyway. Amazon itself has countless such ebooks. And you can always convert.

Among Kindles, the 3 is the best in my opinion. The 3 has a reasonable price and fits in pockets. The DX doesn't. It's lighter and easier to carry around. The screen size is not really an issue since you can make the text as big or small as you'd like.

6th July 2011, 11:36

Kenco Smooth

6th July 2011, 14:12

Another question: I don't have a credit card, so I guess I can't buy books on Amazon. Will I just be able to put ebooks on the Kindle? How is interoperability with other operating systems, like any Linux distro? I know the Kindle runs on Linux, but Amazon might have put in a few tricks to prevent easy file transfer.

Not sure how the amazon software is for linux but calibre (a much better piece of software to organise ebooks and put them onto your kindle) is linux compatible.

Apoi_Viitor

6th July 2011, 14:48

but Amazon might have put in a few tricks to prevent easy file transfer.

Nope, all you have to do is drag and drop a pdf (I think pretty much all ebook file types are supported) file in the Kindle folder and its available to read. Edit: I use Vista 64-bit, but I can't see why it would work any differently on a Linux.

praxis1966

6th July 2011, 18:06

Another question: I don't have a credit card, so I guess I can't buy books on Amazon.

I don't know how comfortable you are with this sort of thing, but do you have a debit card? My credit rating is for shit (got a credit card when I was 18, charged a bunch of music gear on it and never paid it back :lol:) so that's what I use on there. If it means anything to you, I've never had a problem with identity theft...

eyedrop

6th July 2011, 18:26

I'm pretty sure you can buy amazon "gift" cards and use those to buy books.

Everything else you can find in torrents and such can easily be transferred, or converted with calibre if necessary.

AnonymousOne

6th July 2011, 18:48

- What would be a best buy cheap model? What could it do for that money?

Pandigital E-Novella. Hands down. It's about $112 and also functions as a tablet of sorts. It's tied to the B&N Nook Store, but you can easily hack it into running Kindle books etc. by rooting and using a slatedroid rom.

It does have a resistive touch screen, I don't know if that's a deal-breaker for you though.

- Do color e-readers already exist? I've read about their development some time back, I wonder if any are out yet.

Yes, they're out. The first ones that pop to mind are the NookColor, and the Pandigital E-Novel. Sony might have something, and I believe a color kindle reader is in te works.

- What is the practical difference between html, pdf and epub formats on e-readers? Especially for the latter two, don't they both format more or less in the same way?

PDF is a print-oriented, fixed-layout format. This makes it hard to change the layout of PDF documents when -- for example -- changing the page size but keeping the font size the same.

EPUB is a display-oriented, reflowable format. This makes it easy to produce an EPUB document which will display well on many different display sizes and with many different font sizes. So E-Pub handles display size differences much better than PDF.

Converting between the two is very easy so don't worry if the free pdf book you get will work.
http://lifehacker.com/5509965/how-can-i-convert-pdfs-and-other-ebooks-to-the-epub-format

- What is a great, free ebook library? Alternatively I would pay for a good ebook, but don't desire any restrictions, such as DRM.

Basically anything. XD

I know Project Gutenburg has a number of great free e-books in a variety of formats, the Internet Archive also has a number of free texts in a variety of formats. You can always use other means of acquiring free books through P2P etc.

There are a huge variety of them, in addition I know the Kindle store also has a good amount of expired copyright material for free in a variety of genres.

In summary: How mature is the field of e-readers yet?

Fairly mature. The first kindle came out four years ago, and I believe recently e-book sales have beaten out traditional paper books. The field is expanding and there is a good amount of healthy competition between the Nook, Kindle, and othe e-readers being developed so we should see fairly good strides being made in e-reader development.

6th July 2011, 19:19

Yes, they're out. The first ones that pop to mind are the NookColor, and the Pandigital E-Novel. Sony might have something, and I believe a color kindle reader is in te works.

Those look like standard LCD screens though. I don't look for tablets, but for ereaders (that is, e-ink).

Edit:

Ok, I am talking about mirasol technology, which can handle color and is much faster than pearl technology. Have a look here: http://www.mirasoldisplays.com/benefits/consumers

Too bad it looks like it's still in development though :(

AnonymousOne

6th July 2011, 19:30

Those look like standard LCD screens though. I don't look for tablets, but for ereaders (that is, e-ink).

Eh, yeah not so much for e-ink. Closest thing I can think of is the Hanvon E920 but that's only available in China for $500 and it's not that good of an e-reader to begin with.

Currently it's mutually exclusive, either e-ink or color. If you really wanted to get something close to both there's the enTourage Pocket eDGe:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=pocket+edge&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1280&bih=827&wrapid=tlif130997666130111&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=8920357174269256630&sa=X&ei=4agUTqSOKOPWiAL2qInMDQ&ved=0CC8Q8wIwAQ#

One part is tablet, the other part is eink and it's about the size of a book. It is running a slightly old version of Android, but it runs smoothly enough. I believe diagrams or color things are displayed in LCD but text is displayed in the grayscale e-ink.

EDIT: Yeah, forgot about Mirasol, should end up being released Q3 of 2011. It'll probably be fairly spendy though to get your hands on it immediately.

Rooster

6th July 2011, 19:37

AnonymousOne

6th July 2011, 19:44

What's it like to stare at an ebook reader? I saw one from a distance and it looked just like paper, but another looked really bright and hard on the eyes. Do they vary? I don't think I could stare at something like a computer screen, but if it looked like paper then I might consider it.

It depends on the type of e-reader. An e-ink reader is very nice on the eyes, but you need an external light since they aren't back-lit, think a Kindle. Where as with a LCD screen, like the Nook Color, or the Pandigital, or a tablet they have color, are backlit, but are brighter and can hurt your eyes.

I'm personally more of an LCD person so I love my little hacked Pandigital reader, but I understand why some want an e-ink reader.

RedTrackWorker

6th July 2011, 19:44

Fuck e-readers. Reading off a screen for extended periods of time gives me headaches and the e-reader can't match the tactile feel of an actual book.

The whole point of e-ink screens like the Kindle 3 is that they don't give you head-aches/strain like other screens. To your eyes it's just like reading a book. So you can transfer stuff from the computer to it and not have the "reading off a screen for extended periods of time" negative effects.

On the tactile point, can't argue with you but for me that benefits outweigh that. I recommend the Kindle 3 in general.

6th July 2011, 19:46

EDIT: Yeah, forgot about Mirasol, should end up being released Q3 of 2011. It'll probably be fairly spendy though to get your hands on it immediately.
Looks like I might wait for a bit still then instead of rushing to get a Kindle 3 of yesteryear ;)

What's it like to stare at an ebook reader? I saw one from a distance and it looked just like paper, but another looked really bright and hard on the eyes. Do they vary? I don't think I could stare at something like a computer screen, but if it looked like paper then I might consider it.

Yes, the pearl and (judging by the video's) mirasol displays look very much like paper. Older technologies, like Vizplex (used in older Kindles) and SiPiX have much less contrast.

Rooster

6th July 2011, 19:49

Ah, so e-ink readers are the ones that are easy on the eyes? Just need to find a cheap one now....

AnonymousOne

6th July 2011, 19:52

Ah, so e-ink readers are the ones that are easy on the eyes? Just need to find a cheap one now....

Here's a Refurb from Sony for $70. You can probably find cheaper though.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=cheap+e+ink+reader&hl=en&prmd=ivnsfd&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1280&bih=827&wrapid=tlif130997816005641&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=17078344640766853469&sa=X&ei=vK4UTpOOI-TUiALuxunrDQ&ved=0CGUQ8wIwAQ#

MarxSchmarx

11th July 2011, 10:15

In re: the linux stuff, apparently there's an application called calibre that's supposed to enable interfacing with e-Readers - but apparently back in the day (like late 2010) people still used wine, which seemed rather ominous. I've never tried working with an e-reader from linux so I'd be interested in hearing how it works out for you.

In general I've found the ease of using linux to interact with these kinds of pre-formatted hardware from vendors to depend wildly on a particular distro, with some distros being very plug and play and others you can spend hours trying to get the hardware to work as intended and the situation reversed depending on the hardware.