Nicholas Lee from Middle Earth Country is looking (http://stateless.geek.nz/2005/04/29/ebook-hardware/) for a suitable PDA for reading his favorite Tolkien novels. Among his wish list is good battery life, a SD or CF expansion port, a minimum 320x320 screen, and the ability to use common AA or AAA batteries. All his choices so far are Palm OS-powered devices. Personally I would recommend Nicholas to take a look at VGA Pocket PCs, but then again those usually don't satisfy the need for good battery life, do they?

Which device would you recommend Nicholas to look at considering his main interest is reading e-books?

[via PalmAddicts (http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2005/05/choosing_a_palm.html)]

I'd pick up either an older model PPC, like the Toshiba e400/405 that I own, or a T5 (more expensive, and new models that might fit him better are surely coming out soon).

But the real problem might be getting the text. There is no officially licensed ebook text with the Tolkien novels available, so he'll need to either scan it himself or find a bootleg copy, which is not exactly recommended. If he does that, he would probably at least want to buy a hardcopy book edition if he wants to keep things remotely legit.

But the real problem might be getting the text. There is no officially licensed ebook text with the Tolkien novels available...
I was kinda joking with the Tolkien stuff since he is from NZ ;)

A VGA Pocket PC actually wouldn't be a bad suggestion if his main activity will be ebook reading. But if he's going to be watching movies and surfing wirelessly, then the battery life will be a huge concern. He could also try a non-VGA PPC as well to save a little on the battery life.

I'd recommend a Zodiac as an ebook reading device with it's excellent 480X320 landscape or portrait oriented display, dual SD slot expansion (one of which is SDIO) and huge internal 1540mAh Lithium Polymer battery for hours of ebook reading. I would recommend avoiding a device that takes AA or AAA batteries as they'll typically be much thicker and require using rechargable NiMH batteries or disposable alkaline batteries which would become cost prohibitive.

As a matter of fact, MAKE (http://www.makezine.com) magazine editor-in-chief and Zodiac owner Mark Frauenfelder writes about reading eBooks on a Palm device on page 134 of Volume 01 (http://www.makezine.com/01/diy_ebooks/) (great magazine), and he mentions the Zodiac as well as showing it in the article's main photo.

http://photos6.flickr.com/11261987_d2487ddda7_m.jpg (http://flickr.com/photos/briang/11261987/in/set-115729/)
Click to enlarge

I was going to start a separate topic about the article, but it's pretty relevant to this thread too ;).

Brian