PRS-600 Going to buy this, but need confirmation of something first.

[JohnUK]

How does the PRS-600 handle pdf books downloaded from the web?

This will probably be my primary source of books, so i'm hoping that it will run awesomely on it.

My concern is thinks that pages won't be resized automatically for example, or other display problems with scanned pdf books from the web that don't exist with say store bought ebooks (if that makes sense)

(i'm also planning on scanning a few of my own books to pdf format - so it's essential that they'll display perfectly)

Anyone able to re-assure me before I buy?

[Pablo]

If you intend to use a 6" ebook reader for A4-sized pdf's, you will be bitterly dissapointed.

[JohnUK]

What would happen if I tried?

[JohnUK]

Just reviewed my pdf collection, about half is A4 sized textbooks, and the other half are normal sized books.

I'm guessing the Sony PRS 600 will be useless for the textbooks, and great at the normal sized pdf books?

Or will it be almost unreadable for those too?

[Pablo]

It will be almost unreadable and with a lot of space lost because of the margins. I beleive the 600 has a zoom function, but I don't think it is practical. I have a 505, so maybe somebody with a 600 can give you better advise.

[WillAdams]

If you're patient and it's a 1-column.pdf and figures are at the top and bottom of the page, reading reading in landscape format is workable.

[omk3]

Zoom is not practical, because it resets to no zoom when you turn the page. And it's no way to read, constantly panning the page.

Of course you can always use reflow. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes it messes up the formatting of the page. It depends on the pdf.

Pdf is not a good format for any ebook reader. Some handle them better than others, and you can certainly benefit from a bigger screen if you absolutely need to read A4 pdfs in their original size. If you are going to make your own ebooks, there are other formats which work much better for ebook reading, like epub.

[neilmarr]

Good to have your company, John. For complex PDFs, I reckon you'd do well to consider an iPad or a netbook. Readers are fine for novels and some non-fiction, but they don't handle graphics, columns, tables, graphs TOCs and indexes well. At least -- not yet. Best wishes. Neil

[JCSullivan]

I recently bought the 600 specifically for the same reason - reading pdf. It has worked well for me MOST of the time.

Test a copy of Soccer World in pdf and was disappointed but most with the screen grey scale as opposed to the readability of the pdf itself.

If at all possible - take a SD card to the store and find out for your self.

Hope this helps.

[Dreamnine]

I find it works well for most of the pdf books I have - ones with photos etc. It's not so good for huge encyclopedias but still readable.

[JohnUK]

Many thanks!

I have again looked through my .pdf ebook collection and most of my novels are actual novel sized pdf's rather than A4. Probably about the size of the Sony eReader actually.

So it will work great with that? If so i'm about to head over to johnlewis.com and order the red one......

[anndecrist]

I am a Geometry teacher and just bought the 600. I tried taking one of our electronic textbooks and putting it on the reader. Does it work? Yes but only at Small size. If you put it at Medium or Large, the reflow messes up all the diagrams and bullet points. Can you read it at Small? Yes, but not comfortably - to look up something it would be fine, but to actually read it - too small for my eyes.

[Mike_73]

I've posted this many times allready, but for me the 600 so far is the best pdf reader (if you consider price, portability, availability in stores...).
For pdfs with heavy formatting (text + pictures and/or graphs) I use the zoom where you can define the zoom level with the slider and then pan around. Some see it as a drawback that the zoom level resets with every page turn. Well, sometimes it is. Sometimes it's useful. Take a magazine with multiple columns and pictures and such. Not all pages have the pictures on the top or bottom of the page. Sometimes the text columns are on the right, sometimes on the left. So the layout alternates from page to page. In this case, resetting the zoom level is great as you first get an overview over the page and then zoom in on whatever you want to read. Sure, it would have been awesome if one could set how zoom behaves per book.
For regular text only books, the S, M, L reflow-zoom works well enough. There's the occasional linebreak in the wrong place, but mostly it works pretty good.

Maybe this helps.

It always depends on what you want to do with the device. If available, I would go for the 600 in letter size (well, this isn't available yet).

[JohnUK]

Thanks guys!

I think i'm going to buy the red one. That really looks the best doesn't it?

[Mike_73]

Every one what he likes. I went for the silver one for its neutral optics.