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."
No such thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No such thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No such thing? (Score:5, Informative)
I'd really suggest something with at least a 320x240 screen like a low end PocketPC or a mid range Palm like the Tungsten E. Should be under $200. On my PocketPC I've used the uBook and Vade Mecum (port of Plucker) readers. Storage is never a problem with the price of SD cards these days.
Re:No such thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
The OP needs to realize that high resolution screens are a huge drain on the batter, as is a continuous backlight. The Zire may be a better option for reading books, since I suspect you'll get more hours out of it (though I haven't seen any real numbers on the Zire yet.)
Re:No such thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't dim my screen often(since I read outside a lot) and I do more than a couple of hours on it in a day (beyond reading there's the tasklists, notes, docstogo, the occassional game of bejeweled and listening to mp3s for the 45 mins walk home in the afternoons) and I find my battery level at the end of the day is about half...maybe a quarter if I've played more games than usual...
Y
Re:No such thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
iBook (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:iBook (Score:5, Interesting)
it doesn't take much... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't prefer it to a book but do like it better than my desktop's 17" LCD for lengthly reading. Having it in hand makes the experience more book-like. (Every try taking a 17" monitor to bed? Don't answer that.)
Re:it doesn't take much... (Score:2, Funny)
I choose not to anwer this question.
Re:it doesn't take much... (Score:2, Funny)
Tablet PCs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tablet PCs (Score:5, Informative)
There's no fan. It's silent other than the occasional clicking of the hard drive. Battery life has never been a problem for me either. I just put my tablet in it's dock this morning. The battery is at 100% and the battery life remaining is 3.5 hours. My battery may be losing some of it's capacity. I remember that number being 3:45 at some point.
I've done some e-book reading on my tablet, especially when Microsoft gave away several books per week last summer. For the most part, it was fine. No worry about bookmarks, you can take notes directly on the text, easy searching capabilities, etc.
The negatives:
Sitting in bed at night is great, but if you want to read outdoors it might kind of tough. You also have to look directly at the screen to avoid glare (not an issue in a dark room). Motion's latest model has a 'view from any angle' screen that is supposed to be very nice.
I have no problem carrying my tablet to meetings at work. It's not that heavy at all. But I do find that it can suddenly seem to get heavier when you're trying to balance it on you chest to read while laying down. It's not that bad, but obviously a paperback book (or even a hardcover) can be easier to hold for long periods of time.
That's about it though as far as negatives involved with reading e-texts on a TabletPC. I've never been able to read a long book on a PDA. The tablet's screen size, quality display and Microsoft Reader make it a very pleasant experience IMO.
Re:iBook (Score:2)
the problem is, is there isnt enough screen space to accomidate a normal ebook. also scrolling gets really annoying if you have to scroll every minute or so like did.
find a small laptop
Re:iBook (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:iBook (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, it's pretty damned hard to flip those paper sheets. I get all exhausted after about ten pages of a regular book. Thank god for technology!
Re:iBook (Score:5, Informative)
The biggest disadvantage is the loss of formatting. It's not a big deal for fiction, but technical manuals (especially with diagrams) are a no-go.
Re:iBook (Score:3, Informative)
My vote also goes for the Sony Clie SJ-20 (or SJ-30 if you want color.)
These also have the advantage of very good battery life on rechargable, user-replacable batteries. I get about a week of use on a single charge with mine.
Can't say if it works with MacOS but I've been using mine with Linux since the first day. I don't think I've ever synced it to a Windows box.
Re:iBook (Score:4, Informative)
That's why most ebook readers on portable devices these days have autoscroll. I particularly like CSpotRun on my Visor for ebooks - it's also *gasp!* open-source, and reads the widespread DOC format.
Re:iBook (Score:3, Informative)
Re:iBook (Score:3, Interesting)
High resolution text, a bit larger than a hardcover, page at a time display instead of annoying scrolling, 3-4 hours battery life...perfect
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).
look down a few posts (Score:4, Informative)
Re:look down a few posts (Score:2)
The Z is amazing for this, in fact utilizing the software available on the popular downloadsite [killefiz.de] including flite (festival [ed.ac.uk] lite) the Z can provide an excellent Reading/TTS environment complete with shell scriptable goodness.
Re:look down a few posts (Score:5, Funny)
I think at $699 that pretty much rules out the Zaurus.
Re:look down a few posts (Score:5, Informative)
The 860's (and 750 and 760, for that matter) screen is native 640x480, and is truely remarkable to look at. If he doesn't want to drop $850 on the SL-C860, the 760 is almost identical and a few hundred cheaper. Even the 750's screen is a wonder. The SL-6000 [slashdot.org] mentioned earlier today looks promising, but I'd pay the extra for the clamshell 860 over it any day.
The new Toshibas with the 640x480 screens look promising, however, since I have not used one, I cannot make a fair judgement. Also, since the Zaurus runs Linux, free software abounds. The PDF reader is quite nice, but don't go porting all of your protected ebooks over, we all know what happens when you mess with ebook protection! [slashdot.org]
It was mentioned just a few articles back :) (Score:4, Informative)
Plus you'll have a lot more control over font sizes, orientation, etc with Linux. Even simply using a web browser would make for excellent reading at that resolution, and you could whip up some scripts to format whatever texts you like for HTML in no time at all.
(Posted via proxy -- I wish Slashdot would unban my home IP subnet. When will Slashdot be done beta testing their IP subnet-based karma system? Not all of us work at VA and have our own subnet.)
Toshiba e800/e805 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Tungsten T3! (Score:5, Interesting)
+ Palm Reader is all good, and plenty of other choices.
+ Large library available (http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/)
+ Small device, great resolution (320 x 480, potrait or landscape).
+ Lots of other software
- Anti-aliasing is mediocre at best. Resoltion does make up for it somewhat...
- T3 battery life is very mediocre. Perhaps a Clie instead, if this is a concern.
- Not cheap.
Cheers - James
Re:Tungsten T3! (Score:3, Informative)
color
much brighter
better resolution
better battery life
built in wifi
the list goes on.
Re:Tungsten T3! (Score:4, Interesting)
Its small, cheap, robust has good battery life and is easy to carry (since I do not really have to worry too much about losing it or breaking it
You can get one off eBay for as little $20 and odd, and its really handy.
Ofcourse - this is solely for the purposes of airport/flight reading, and I hardly use it for anything else. But its really simple and handy, and is a constant companion when I travel.
Re:Tungsten T3! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tungsten E and M100 (Score:3, Informative)
First, the M100, which can be had on ebay for incredibly cheap. This is crappy little PDA that does just about everything you need. no this isn't a contradiciton.
It's slow, clunky, and has a low res screen. That screen is only good for showing text, and maybe a calendar.
This is where the catch comes in. That's all you need. The res is perfectly comfortable for reading books (I've read over 15 books on the M100) and the indiglo backlight is unoffensive to the ey
Try 2 of the 3 (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Good resolution
2) internal battery
3) low price
Just mentioned on /. today... (Score:4, Informative)
I read Red Badge of Courage and a couple others on my SL-5500 during downtime at work, and it was fine for me--and my vision is pretty far from 20/20 (though it is fine with glasses). The 5500s can be gotten pretty cheap these days, though I imagine the new 6000 series with the 640x480 screen would be wonderful....*drools*.
Just my 0.02$
Philips/Sony 'Electronic Paper' (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Philips/Sony 'Electronic Paper' (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not a PDA? (Score:5, Informative)
You may not think color is important, but the change I made from b&w to color (Palm IIIxe to TT) improved legibility incredibly. The increased resolution was also a great factor.
Older Sony Clie models + Weasel Reader (Score:5, Informative)
I would strongly suggest finding an older used Sony Clie. I'm using a Clie S300 model. It's B&W with a 160x160 screen. Admittedly, this is low res by current PDA standards, but the text is still very readable.
The best aspect of this model is that the contrast on the screen is superb and excellent for reading. I previously used a Palm Vx for the same tasks, but comparing the screens is like comparing night and day. Even with the backlight on, the Clie's battery (internal LiIon) lasts for several hours.
As for reading software... I'm a little biased. I'm the author of Weasel Reader. It runs on Palm OS and is under the GPL. I wrote it specifically for reading Project Gutenberg texts, but you can read any text file. See http://gutenpalm.sf.net for more info.
Weasel Reader review (Score:5, Informative)
While there are many formats for eBooks and a few dedicated pieces of hardware on the market I've found that after trying out everything I could find I've settled on just a few choice technologies that I have gotten the most actual reading out of. In fact just one aspect of one piece of software in particular pretty much wraps it up for me: Autoscroll Mode: Screen Wrap as found in Weasel Reader. Every other text reader autoscroll I have come across forces the eyes to contantly move, often very unsmooth, much unlike a book with its clear sharp letters that stay firmly in place. I believe this common misfeature leads to far greater eye strain and a lower overall acceptance of eBooks because of it. The only possibly superior scroll mode I would like to see added would be a flash mode where words or phrases are flashed sequentially onto the same spot allowing you to read without moving your eyes at all, then you just have to remember to blink on the periods!
Weasel Reader will run on most any PalmOS device which gives you not only a wide range of PDA hardware to choose from but also desktop emulators should you really fall in love with the Weasel! Having a good selection allows you to choose a device that fits well in your hand, has an easy to read high contrast screen, and enough capacity to store a selection of books. I'm currently using a Handspring Visor Prism and keep a few dozen books on hand to read at night after the wife goes to bed with the lights out or in the queue at the grocers or any other place those nasty slowdowns in our fast paced moderns lives creep up.
All that said Weasel Reader can be a bit overwhelming to configure so I offer the following as suggestions to get the most out of this great piece of software:
* Options, Preferences:
** Check Skip Project Gutenberg license
** Show zTXT size in index
** Always remember position.
** Use Scroll/Bookmark Buttons
* Options, Display Preferences:
** Line Spacing -2
* Options, Scroll Preferences:
** Autoscroll Mode Screen Wrap
Once the above are set open up a book and you will see a status bar that has a return to menu arrow, percentage of the book complete, the time, battery indicator, and access to the bookmarks menu. Frankly, I don't care about any of that and as long as "Always remember position" is checked as listed above that is the only bookmark I need. Thankfully a simple tap anywhere on the left hand letter side of the silkscreen hides this menu leaving our screen chock full of text and only a slim progress bar at the bottom to give us an idea how far we are along in our read.
Now for the fun bit: Press the Address Book button and a dotted line begins decending the screen, a virtual page flip in progess pacing your reading. Too fast you say? Tap the down arrow a few times. Want it faster? Just tap up until you are zipping along. I find myself automatically adjusting the speed as I read and punching the Address Book button when I take a break to rest my eyes. Once out of the auto scroll mode the up and down buttons move up and down a page at a time but I find myself tapping the top or bottom half of the screen with my fingernail quite naturally.
Overall Weasel Reader is an excellent piece of software I've gotten many hours of enjoyment from. Enjoy!
My little Zaurus (Score:2)
It only costs $289 from Amazon (if you live in the US), and you can easily download a decent plucker reader for it.
Oh, and it has a 400MHz xScale processor, and runs Linux. And Java.
I love my Tungsten T|3 (Score:5, Informative)
I actually use Palm Reader because the selection of books available in that format is large, even though it's proprietary. (It's about day's work with debuffer [sourceforge.net] to crack the encryption BTW, though it's more than my life's worth to actually say whether or not I've done it.)
Palm Reader has a great built in reference mode. I have the entire unabridged Webster on it - fantastic!
I've configured the side button (usually to activate the voice recorder) to launch the reader so if I'm waiting in line at Safeway it's about 1 second to go from boredom to reading a good book.
On the down side - you can read for a few hours, but don't expect to read all night without a recharge.
handspring visor edge (Score:2, Informative)
lots of reader software available(not sure about microsoft reader for a palm)
it's got a usb cradle for syncing/charging
fairly long battery life(no week long hikes in the mountains tho)
the screen is easy on the eyes, at least for me, and this tends for by subjective.
cheap on e-bay.
if you back off the cheap requirement get a newer palm based device, they are worth it. and some of then even play mp3s while you read
Clie NX (Score:2)
I use an iPaq 3900 series (Score:2)
Anyway, it's not great as a text reader platform. The screen is high enough res to render text in a crisp -- but not jagged -- and nicely readable format. It's Pocket PC (2002), and runs both MS Reader and Pocket Acrobat Reader well enough. There are various utilities
Re:I use an iPaq 3900 series (Score:2, Insightful)
For Ebooks (Score:3, Insightful)
any device to read e-text books on? (Score:2)
Screw them (Score:3, Informative)
Just because it's in electronic format doesn't mean it has to stay. Print them out in the library while your at it.
Sony CLie SJ22 (Score:5, Informative)
Jog dial is very handy for reading e-books.
I use makedocw and cspotrun to create and read files.
Re:Sony CLie SJ22 (Score:2, Interesting)
Tungsten T (Score:2)
I used to use Weasel however I have recently ditched it for Plucker because I can read a number of html texts with images.
Although I can't read books on a computer screen (I think my eyes will start bleading after the first two hours) I seem to be able to read them without any discomfort on a PDA screen, probably because it is LCD or something.
I imagine that a T
Me too! (Score:2)
moment. Should have specified a minimum screen
size. Something the size of a Star Trek datapad
would be good.
Looking around on Google, there are eBook
readers that aren't PDAs, they generally have
slower screen-refresh rates.
screen screen screen (Score:2, Interesting)
Sony CLIE w/ iSilo (Score:3, Informative)
check out this article as well http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000391.php for other nice clie's for ebook reading.
In comparison the TJ-37 has a somewhat irregular screen.
Zire 21 (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm very happy with my Axim X5 (Score:2)
Old Clies (Score:2)
As far as the hardware is concerned, it's a very sharp little package, really great screen (excellent backlight, works great in direct sunlight, and is colour), and has enough built-in memory for my purposes (16MB). Its
Love my Sony Clié - 320x320, color, memory st (Score:5, Informative)
I've had a Sony Clié SJ-30 for a year and a half, and I love it! It is an excellent size for my hand and pocket, it has a nice, bright 320x320 color display, a jogwheel for scrolling through pages, and a memory stick slot for plenty of storage.
I use Weasel Reader [sourceforge.net] for reading Gutenberg Etexts, Mobipocket Reader [mobipocket.com] for reading etexts from Baen [baen.com] books, as well as Plucker for web clippings. I also carry along Ultralingua [ultralingua.net] dictionaries so I can look up words when reading French language Gutenberg etexts (ahoy, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea!)
My Sony makes a fantastic e-book reader.. I probably use it for that function as much as for anything else. At 320x320, the screen is easy to read, the high-res fonts are very comfortable, and the backlight is great. It fits easily into my pocket, and I carry it wherever I go. It's USB based, and I sync documents to it from my Red Hat 9 Linux system without problems.
Honestly, any modern Palm OS based device should have USB and a good 320x320 screen, and any of them that you look at should make a good EReader. The Sony's may still be particularly good with their jogwheel, however.
Sony Clie (Score:2)
Toshiba Libretto (Score:2)
Makes a great network stumbler and portable jukebox too. Mine has a 30GB drive on it, running Linux. You can even u
I actually use my phone (Score:2)
Kyocera 6035:
Resolution is lower than you specify, battery life is good, back light is dreadful.
Still, I've read many a book using it. And since I always have my phone with me, I always have something to read.
"Always carry a book with you, because you never know when you might be arrested." -- Emma Goldman
Zaurus SL5600 (Score:2, Informative)
Once you get the WiFi card for it, you can just ftp your files over to it or whatever you want to do.
What form factor? (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll have to put up with the lack of a USB port, but RS232 works well for small transfers, and flipping CF cards is fast when you want to move a lot of data.
Both the z50 and the Clio/Tripad have big screens with excellent contrast. They share great battery life, about 8 hours on the stock battery if you're not running a power-hungry PCMCIA card. (wireless) Optional double-capacity battery packs are available for the z50 that really do achieve 16 hours. Both can run the hpcmips port of NetBSD quite capably, but for reading text you might as well keep the stock WinCE.
Personally, I'd use the Clio because of the flippable screen. Holding it by the hinge side is very comfortable, and the touchscreen allows easy page-turning even while in tablet mode. The z50 is stuck in a clamshell shape and uses a pointing nipple.
Did I mention that both can be had on eBay for under $200?
interesting combination.... (Score:2)
Impenetrable wall, unstoppable object.
Get the "PaperBack" - it's sweet (Score:2)
And if you're ever stuck in the woods without any TP? Well hey! You're set! Try THAT with your Palm (pilot).
What not to use (Score:2)
Palm Tungsten T, T2, T3 (Score:5, Informative)
The Palm Tungsten T2 is pretty much the same PDA, but has a "transflective" screen that is better than the screen on the T, both indoors and outdoors.
Both are 320x320, and you can get very nice text on it for your ebook. I use it with Linux, no problem hotsyncing with the USB (I use J-Pilot).
You can also use SD or MMC cards for storing your ebooks; you can get a lot of reading material on one of those, and you can just use any USB card reader/writer to write the ebooks onto it.
If you check eBay, you can get a T2 for $250 or so. You can get a T for less than that.
The T3 has the advantage of a screen that is 480x320 when you have it fully open. It has a 400 MHz processor, so it's fast... but the battery life sucks.
You can get a device from Palm called the "Power To Go", which is just a lithium ion battery sled. You dock the Palm in the sled and the Palm draws power from it. You can fully recharge a drained Palm at least twice on a fully charged sled, or run the Palm from the sled to get very long run times. With one of these you could fly to Japan and read continuously, without running out of power.
If you can stand a pixelated reading font, an old Handspring Visor makes a decent reader. It runs just forever on two AAA cells. That's what I have used for reading novels on a plane to Japan. But you specified a high-resolution screen for smooth fonts, so the older 160x160 greyscale devices are out.
If you had to pick just one to buy, I'd say the T2. If you want the cheapest one, get a used T from eBay.
Be sure to get a quality leather case to protect it. I use the EB flip case, the one that uses magnets to hold it closed.
By the way, I read more novels as ebooks on my Palm than I read as paper, these days. And I have even started reading Slashdot on my Tungsten (using a PalmModem).
steveha
Good Ebook Software for PPC? (Score:2)
iPaq 4150 Pseudo Review (Score:4, Informative)
The first thing I did was grab some Gutenburg books and have a read, then I bought Neuromancer from Amazon.com (after a lengthy technical battle - if your Temporary Internet Files in IE is full, you'll download your ebook only to have it not actually get installed. Repeat 4 times in confusion, then get told by Amazon that you've already downloaded it so you can't download it again. Punch monitor in frustration screaming about why this is so goddamn hard. Fortunately the Amazon guys believed my story and re-issued the book, cleared my Temporary Internet Files, downloaded again, and then it worked. But I digress).
The quality of the screen on the 4150 is great. I've only used Microsoft Reader to try and read books so far, and it works - that's about all you can say for a text reader, I guess.
I have a few minor complaints about Reader. First and foremost, there's quite a bit of whitespace around the edges of the page. This means that there isn't as much text on the page, increasing the number of pages per book - meaning you'll be turning pages pretty regularly. There's no option to shrink text (despite 10 years of staring at screens my eyes still surprisingly work ok) so you'll be doing quite a lot of page flipping to get through any decent amount of books.
There's no auto page-flipping function. I'm lazy, I'd like to just hold the thing and have it turn pages for me. One of the main reasons I got it was so I could just lie in bed reading at night and try to relax so I can get to sleep; if it was flipping pages for me that'd be handy!
A non-Reader complaint that I feel is a little relevant is that Pocket Word can't open large
I haven't tried Adobe Acrobat yet (in fact I don't even know if there's a version for this device) so can't comment on that.
My only other comment is that I've been a bit disappointed with the range of available ebooks - I was hoping it would make my book-buying easier to get a lot of titles that my local bookstores don't stock (.. and have a 3-4 week order time from the US), but sadly quite a number of publishers don't make ebook versions available yet.
Re:Try the 1910 for basic stuff & e-books (Score:3, Informative)
I was tempted by a 22xx (both cf and sd slots built in) but went for the extra features of the 5550. The 19xx is really sweet too, it fit nicely into a shirt pocket which the others wouldn't.
Not only can you get Acrobat reader for the Pocket PC, you can also get palmreader, which I prefer
Apple Newton or Toshiba E series (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Apple Newton or Toshiba E series (Score:3, Interesting)
obligatory reference (Score:2)
Dilbert: "Dave, tell me how marketing thinks the product should be"
Dave: "It must have a 45" screen and fit a 007 suitcase. It needs to function as a phone and an air conditioner too"
Dilbert: "Hmm"
Dave: "It must cure fatal diseases and brush our teeth while we sleep!
Dilbert slaps Dave.
Dilbert: "I can write a program that will show some fish in the computer screen"
Dave:
Tungsten E (Score:3, Informative)
About a month ago, I replaced it with a Palm Tungsten E, and it is just amazing for ebooks. The colour 320x320 screen gives very crisp easy to read text in any lighting conditions. The Tungsten also has 32 meg to store books, the 8 meg on the Visor was too limiting.
The only drawback is that the Tungsten has a built in battery that's only good for 1-2 days, so if it runs out of power of I forget to charge it, I can't use it until I get back to the computer to recharge it. The visor takes AAA's and I have a few sets of NiMH one that last about 2 weeks. By carrying a spare set, I never ran out of power, and I always had 1 set in the charger.
I read about 2 novels/week on these PDAs. Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Zaurus all the way (Score:3, Interesting)
Sharp SL-5500 Zaurus. Sure, its only a 320x240 screen, but its cheaper than almost every other PDA out there.
I always thought I couldn't stand to read ebooks, and never gave them much thought, until I lost my job and needed another way to feed my book addiction. Surprisingly, I found that reading on my Zaurus was an absolute joy.
I've been reading my way through the Baen Free Library CDs on it. I use Plucker to pluck the frameless version of the books I want to read. Before that I, wrote a perl scrip to rtf2txt it, then split the file on criteria I specified. I read these files on the magnificent OpieReader, which is as full featured as you could possibly want.
I've found that I use three light settings. In the dark, or minimal light, I used the lowest light setting. The Zaurus has a continuous life of about five or six hours this way. In the mornings, in bed, reading my plucked streams before facing the world, I have to crank the light to max. Of course, I'm next to an outlet the entire time there. You'll get about an hour untethered time this way. Finally in pretty much any other lighting condition, I can just turn the light completely off. You'll want to embolden the text if you do this, mind you. You'll be able to read for days on end this way.
One might expect that 320x240 might strain the eyes during long reading, but I have found that it doesn't bother me at all. If its problematic for you, you can always crank the font size up with the touch of a button.
Baen ebooks (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some free ones to get you started:
http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm [baen.com]
And you can buy more here:
http://www.webscription.net/ [webscription.net]
No DRM. Just ebooks. They are trusting you not to be a pirate, and charging a fair price, and for that I reward them by buying stuff and recommending them.
Let me say that again. No DRM! No serial numbers, no registration, no limit on the number of cards you can copy it to. No DRM.
Even the ones they want you to pay for have a few chapters online for free. This is to give you a taste of the book, hook you in and make you want to finish reading it. If the book is a collection of stories, often one or more complete stories will be available for free reading.
steveha
Wizard's Bane by Rick Cook (Score:3, Informative)
It's a fun, Computer Geek Oriented Fantasy Novel, which is the start of a fun series.
Tall order (Score:2)
If you're looking for bargain bin, I would say Tungsten E would cut it. SD card expansion for fitting more books, MP3s, and even Oggs. Doubles as a great PDA on its own, and $149-199 to boot.
The tungsten T3 is even better, but right now it's a bit pricey. Its main advantage over the E is that it uses a virtual graffiti area, so you can use the entire screen
Clie NR70, iSilo (Score:2)
Okay, the contrast on that screen left something to be desired. The color screen on the Clie eats batteries, but black text on a white background is kinder to my eyes.
There's a freeware hack called "ThinFont" that makes the rather weak fon
Clie (Score:2)
I've read a few dozen ebooks (novels mainly) on my Sony CLIE NX70 palm pilot
While the screen isn't as good as some mentioned in sibling threads it certainly is good enough - and would get no complaints from me.
But to me the thing that REALLY makes the difference is the thumbwheel. It makes it very convenient to hold the Clie and scroll through the books page by page. And you dont have to switch your grips to scroll back to reread anything, you just use the thumbwheel.
franklin ebookman (Score:2, Informative)
search ebay [ebay.com], you can pick up one new with warrenty for under 50 USD last I checked.
Don't get a secondhand one, becuase if its got a fault (looses memory after you change batteries, requiring re-sync) you'll want to send it back under warrenty (franklin provide a *new* unit to replace f
e-ink? (Score:2)
Basically, this doesn
Re:e-ink? (Score:2, Interesting)
I vaguely remember a Popular Science (I think) article from the early 80's/late 70's describing thie rudiments of the E-ink technology.
Man, it's a long haul from the lab bench to the store shelf, isn't it?
Anyone else remember this stuff?
$15 Handspring Visor and the Weasel Reader (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't want backlight, you don't want linux (Score:2)
And sure, more screen resolution is great, but it's not a killer, more to the point it's not worth making the thing bigger and heavier to get it. You want to be able to lightly hold it in your hand without burden. And yo
Auto Scroll (Score:3, Interesting)
If you get a Zaurus, check out OpieReader at http://www.timwentford.uklinux.net/
iPAQ or Zaurus... Avoid PalmOS (Score:2)
I have been using PDAs for precisely this function for about 2 years now. I avoid eBooks like the plague because of DRM and other stupid old technology features (like pages). (For a good example of the limitations of eBooks read Chapter 10 [jus.uio.no] of Free Culture [free-culture.cc] by Lawrence Lessig). I also use PDAs to read news I gather from the Net. From my experience:
The webbrowsing and text viewing applications are fairly fast once they have been loaded into memory. NetFront (the webbrowser) supports CSS and
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
I've been doing this for years... (Score:5, Informative)
Skip the Zaurus, you won't be able to get readers for the locked formats. I presume the many other flaws I found with my Zaurus have been smoothed over since then, but it just doesn't matter if you can't get a decent reader.
You're pretty much left with PocketPC and Palm devices. I'm not a fan of the PPC devices because they have poor battery life and a difficult to use interface and cost more than anything else, but since you can get all of the maintream readers for them they may be worth a look. I can't say I like their screens that much but they're a lot better than a low-end Palm.
My personal choice, the one I've read dozens of books on, is a Clie PEG-NR70 (the flip-screen dragonball one). I don't believe this, or even its follow-on PEG-NX70 with the ARM chip, is still available but its big, sharp screen is the best I've seen on a palmtop. Sony has really done a knock-down job on screen quality.
If I were to buy one right now, and I'm thinking about it because my NR70 has been beat to death, I'd probably get PEG-TH55. It seems to have the same screen, or at least a similar one, but I like the form factor better than the NR70.
Palm's Tungsten T3 is very interesting, and I really like the way it collapses, but fails for me because there's no lid to keep you from smashing the screen -- you have to get one of those awful bulky armor cases.
As always YMMV, but as I said I've been exceptionally pleased with the Sony device. At $400 it's not cheap, but at least it's not a dedicated ebook :-).
About ebook readers: I haven't used Microsoft's reader at all so I have no comment about it. Adobe's palmtop ebook reader is total junk, the least usable most irritating ebook reader I've ever seen. It paginates strangely despite forcing you to spend a long time "formatting for your device" and has the worst DRM of any of them. Mobipocket is my favorite reader in terms of interface, but its DRM is mildly restrictive, allowing only 4 devices for any locked ebook. The PalmReader offers the best DRM flexibility (it's key is your credit card number; you probably don't want to give that away) and a clean, usable interface. When I am reading locked books I opt for Palm format whenever possible for DRM flexibility, but with unlocked books I prefer Mobipocket.
So far I've had excellent luck finding ebooks in Palm and Mobipocket formats. www.fictionwise.com has the greatest format flexibility of the ebook providers I've tried.
Enjoy,
Good Old Paper (Score:3)
It's appealing to have an entire library in your pocket but because you have it does it mean you're going to read all of it? Of course not. Much the same way having a 40gb iPod is great for bragging rights but that much music is entirely impractical for any human being to consume on their own. I think carrying around libraries encourages unfocused behaviour and deprives us of any sort of intimacy with cultural works like literature and music.
I believe that a lot of our electronic devices miss a lot of the basic things that books, paper, libraries, pens and record collections have provided for a long time. And best of all they're a heck of a lot cheaper.
Handera 330! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Handera 330! (Score:3, Informative)
The battery form factor is fantastic. Use cheap NiMh's, and if they die while on the road, get a set of alkalines, use them for a month, and just throw them away and go back to the rechargables.
It also has some a very nice "backup to compact flash" feature built into
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
Sharp Zaurus (Score:3, Informative)
Then, install these apps:
The device itself runs on Linux with Trolltech's QT/Embedded, and ships that way from the factory. Although there are not yet any Linux tools to sync with the newest ROM versions (MacOS X tools may exist), there are these workarounds available:
- You can install a VNC server on the PDA to help you with data entry, and use rsync to back it up. (This is my preferred method.)
- You can re-flash the unit with any of the numerous custom ROMs out there. Check out OpenZaurus [openzaurus.org], which is a Free Software fork of the QTopia environment that comes with it. TrollTech's free QTopia Desktop is available for Linux and can sync with that, as can several other tools like KitchenSync. Or, you can check out PDAXROM [pdaxrom.org] (formerly Cacko) for a true X11-based environment.
The device does use a USB port, and can do USB Ethernet to communicate with your desktop. I prefer to use a 802.11b CF card, though. Depending on your model, it comes with either the high-power or standard battery built in. Unlike many other PDAs, the battery is user-replacable if you remove the back cover (which is held in place by a lock switch). This is a nice feature; you can have spare batteries on hand if you will be away from AC for a long time.The one requirement of yours that it will fail is price. Depending on the unit, expect to pay at least $600 (some of the higher-end ones go for that much on ebay). But this unit is much more capable than $600 units from Palm, Sony, or HP/whatever. It really does behave similarly to a laptop, given that it runs a *real* OS. A quick scan of the Zaurus Software Index [killefiz.de] will reveal all sorts of programs, and you can easily compile others (yes, you can run gcc on the Zaurus itself, too). If you look at it in that light, it's good deal.
Re:None (Score:2)
Re:Ug. (Score:2, Interesting)
I am the owner of an old and battered Palm IIIx and I read lots of documents on it via Plucker. I somehow "got it" reading "e-texts" on this model's small screen and I sure can relax while reading it. I have to take compromises with just 8Mb, but I guess someday buying another Palm will become priority on my shopping list.
I've read lots of documentation, HOWTOs and manpages with it.
I've read lots of books. Cryptonomicon was a splitting festival.
I've got a nice Perl script +
Re:aging sony clie (Score:2)
I would definitely recommend checking out any of the Sony Clie's for this purpose.
Re:aging sony clie (Score:3, Informative)