Best PDA To Read e-Texts On? 390
GabrielStrange writes "I've been thinking for a while now that I'd like to own some sort of portable device on which I could read e-Texts. This device should be able to read both simple text files (i.e. Project Gutenberg e-Texts) and more complex formats, like Plucker, Acrobat or Microsoft Reader. It should have a fairly high-res display with a backlight that would be easy on the eyes... but doesn't particularly need to be a color display. I'd like it to work with at least one (if not both) of the machines on my desktop, which run Linux 2.6 and MacOS X Panther... And to use a USB port. And I'd like it to have a built in, rechargeable battery, because I already have enough devices to worry about batteries for.
And, of course, I don't want to pay very much for it. Anyone got any recommendations for such a device? It's proving to be almost impossible to even obtain an actual list of devices that have these features."
iBook (Score:4, Insightful)
Try 2 of the 3 (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Good resolution
2) internal battery
3) low price
For Ebooks (Score:3, Insightful)
Zire 21 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I use an iPaq 3900 series (Score:2, Insightful)
$15 Handspring Visor and the Weasel Reader (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tungsten T3! (Score:3, Insightful)
Any Zaurus with a CG Silicon Screen (Score:3, Insightful)
Any Zaurus from the following: SL-C700, SL-C750, SL-C760, SL-C860, SL-6000
Beside that marvellous-looking new Sony thing with ePaper screen, there's really no contest.
Opie-reader [uklinux.net] reads AportisDoc, Weasel (ztxt), Plucker, gzipped text, ppms text. It will also give html a go, but the built-in NetFront browser works well, and Opera is available for it.
The 640x480 screen on the Zaurus means the auto-scroll is super-smooth, and makes other PDAs look like they have lego screens. The screen is incredible quality. It really is like nothing else. Super-clear and bright; it has to be seen to be believed.
The clam-shell design has got a thumb wheel that can be assigned to scroll-speed (or whatever) when in portrait mode.The PDF readers read full PDFs, none of this Palm cut-down stuff.
It runs Linux on-board, has got USB, has a removable rechargable battery (rechargable in-place via the AC adaptor).
As to "pay very much", well if you buy an import, you'll pay a fair whack. If you get one direct from (in?) Japan you can get it much cheaper. I got my C750 for 60000 yen about two weeks after it was released in Japan. It's a lot cheaper over there now.
My Zaurus has seriously changed the way (and the amount) that I read. So much so, that dead tree books are starting to really annoy me because they take up so much physical space.
It's definitely one of the best things I have ever bought
Re:240x320... (Score:3, Insightful)
It is, but thats the point. With some third party tools you can get the e80x series of PDAs to run in 480x640 at all times rather then with just the few apps Toshiba supports at that res.
Look at the size of that thing (Score:3, Insightful)
The advantage of a PDA is its small and convenient size - smaller than a paperback. You're reading mostly linearly anyway, so you don't need a large screen (paperbacks are much smaller than iBooks). All you need is crisp text, a backlight, decent battery life and an easy way to turn pages (I prefer a thumbwheel myself).
Re:No such thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, here's my advice: (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, don't get hung up on resolution: that doesn't matter that much for pure reading. 160x160 is enough and 32x320 is just overkill (although it is nice of course, it just isn't neccessarry for reading!).
Thirdly, get a colour device. It's kinda obvious, but I'll say it anyway: with a colour device you can read in true black and white, which is best for reading long texts. All those monochrome devices out there are not black and white: they're grey and black, or green and grey or whatever: they will strain your eyes more than a true colour device.
Fourth, find out where you read. Any device is good indoors, but if you do a fair bit of reading in sunlight, you will have to get a newer machine, because they have screens which can actually be read outside in sunlight.
Fifth and finally, don't get hung up on memory that much. Sure, it's nice to have 128mb to spare, but remember that a large paperback takes up about 200-400 kb. That's less than half a meg. Old devices (like my IIIc) have 8 mb. Which means that with all the other apps I have on there (and it is a fair number), I still have about 8 books in there too.
However, if you read a lot of pdf's (but why would you read that crappy format? It's better to copy/paste the text into
So, to recap: get a colour palmOS device, and the price will depend on if you read many, many large files and want to be able to read outdoors in bright sunlight.
Or wait for e-ink devices to hit the market