e-ink ebook reader for technical pdfs

[sean42]

Hi

I am looking for a e-ink based reader for reading pdfs (research papers and text books). I think my best bet is for a size of 9.7". I need good support for Linux, ideally I would like to ssh in on the device or have terminal access. I would also need the ability to book mark pages.

It seems Onyx M92 and M92s fits these requirements pretty well. Is M92s available anywhere on US ?

Another one that seems to fit my needs partially is Boyeye G10, anyone has experience with it, especially inter-operating with Linux.

Onyx has great open source support, does the G10 have something similar ? Its linux so legally they are supposed to but I could not find anything on it. I am also confused with the spellings Boyeye and Boeye are they the same ?

The G10 is cheaper, so if its good I would rather save some money.

[Billi]

Hi Sean, welcome to MobileRead!

If you have general questions to reading technical pdfs on an eink reader, please scroll down until the "Similar threads" section or use our search function. This topic has been discussed here many times, and yes, a 9.7" device or bigger is the only sensible option.

As far as I know you can't buy Onyx devices in the USA. eReader store
http://ereader-store.de/en/
who sits in Germany and has an active member here in this forum (Booxtor) ships to the US.
For further questions about the different Onyx devices it's best to research our Onyx subforum.

[sean42]

Hi Billi

thanks for your reply.

Onyx does have an official retailer in US, however they dont seem to be stocking on M92s, which is the one I am interested in.

Thoughts and information on Boyeye G10 would be welcome too.

I am specifically interested in how well it inter-operates with a Linux laptop. It is supposed to be running Linux, so legally they should be open source, if anyone can point me to their source tree that would be great.

Thanks again

sean

[sean42]

Hi Billi

thanks for your reply.

Onyx does have an official retailer in US, however they dont seem to be stocking on M92s, which is the one I am interested in.

Thoughts and information on Boyeye G10 would be welcome too.

I am specifically interested in how well it inter-operates with a Linux laptop. It is supposed to be running Linux, so legally they should be open source, if anyone can point me to their source tree that would be great.

Thanks again

sean

[HarryT]

Sean,

The fact that the core operating system is open source doesn't mean that you can rebuild the kernel. There will be components, such as display drivers, (plus of course the reading apps themselves) that are not open source. There's no requirement that the system be "rebuildable" from its source.

[jscarbo]

To each his own, but I've given up on using e-ink readers for pdf's. I either convert and tweak them or I read them on my 9" Nook HD+, which remains the least expensive, large-screen HD android tablet, particularly if you buy a used or refurb. For ecample, here are the current offers for the HD+ 32GB in the Amazon marketplace: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=all

Of the current offers, Ocean Reef Electronics would be my choice. Their price is great ($99 + $12.49 shipping) and they're a reputable seller that I've done business with several times. For the price difference, I definitely recommend the 32GB over the 16GB.

[HarryT]

I think most of us would agree that a large-screen tablet is the ideal PDF reader. eInk devices are designed primarily for long battery life and, in comparison to tablets, have a slow CPU and very limited memory. This makes them a poor choice for rendering PDF files, which often requires a great deal of processing power and memory.

I read a great many academic PDFs and, for me personally, the ideal combination is an iPad with the "Goodreader" app, but there are many excellent Android tablets out there too.

[leaston]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think most of us would agree that a large-screen tablet is the ideal PDF reader. eInk devices are designed primarily for long battery life and, in comparison to tablets, have a slow CPU and very limited memory. This makes them a poor choice for rendering PDF files, which often requires a great deal of processing power and memory.

I read a great many academic PDFs and, for me personally, the ideal combination is an iPad with the "Goodreader" app, but there are many excellent Android tablets out there too.

This is a similar position to my own. I need access to a number of academic and technical pdf files and the only e-ink device I can find that would be close to my requirements is the M96. That said, in the context of cost, I'm still not convinced the performance is adequate or features mature enough compared to a similar sized Android tablet.

Until the methods for manipulating pdf files on e-ink readers matures a little more, I'm going to stick with my 10" Android tablet. The battery life may not be comparable, but the performance and features more than make up for that as things stand.

[emalvick]

WHen I was in graduate school I was reading a lot of papers in big chunks. Eink wasn't around (nor were tablets), but I absolutely hated the headaches I would get trying to read them off my LCD monitor. I can't imagine I would have liked reading 100's of papers on an IPad or similar tablet because I still would have gotten the headache. I ultimately printed out a lot of documents and spent my time reading a hard copy.

I would have wanted what the OP wants. It's convenient. PDF's aren't that memory intensive on a device. They would really only have to load a bit at a time anyway.

Regardless, the research world is only a small subset of people, so the benefit to developing such devices is going to be much more limited in general (although as a musician I would love such devices for sheet music).

Perhaps the future will bring more progress and acceptance of the technology.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by emalvick

I would have wanted what the OP wants. It's convenient. PDF's aren't that memory intensive on a device. They would really only have to load a bit at a time anyway.

Sez you...

It's not how much memory the PDF takes. It's how much the processor has to work on parsing the PDF code soup that is the real killer.

Koreader with kindle touch or paperwhite is excellent for reading any PDF textbook

[leaston]

Originally Posted by DrPrince

Koreader with kindle touch or paperwhite is excellent for reading any PDF textbook

Not for me. The screen is too small and performance not up to it.

I'll give you a typcial example of what I need. I have a therapy textbook I use (hardback) which contains around 600 pages. It's a book I regularly flick through while using the index and I often read one or two paragraphs or sections in a page and move on to a different part of the book, cross referencing. Each section I read can be hundreds of pages apart.

I have the same book in pdf format. It's approx 60Mb and takes a while to load on both my Kindle and Kobo Glo. On both these 6" screens, the text is too small for practical use and the reflow extremely poor with no option for changing that. But, the real problem is speed. Having to wait even a few seconds while navigating pages is extremely frustrating when you've got a lot to look through. The tools just aren't up to the job (yet).

As things stand, eink readers aren't geared up to dealing with pdf's properly or well. The screens are wonderful to read novels with, but are generally far too small for textbooks and the hardware cannot cope with pdf navigation at anything like reasonable speeds. Reflow isn't even guaranteed if the pdf hasn't been created with all due diligence and doesn't work well on all readers even when it has.

Yet, reading the same pdf on a 10" Android tablet is great. It's very fast and easy to navigate and the formatting is usually spot on. Even when it's not, you have a choice of many readers on Android to try and pinch to zoom is instant.

Originally Posted by leaston

Not for me. The screen is too small and performance not up to it.

I'll give you a typcial example of what I need. I have a therapy textbook I use (hardback) which contains around 600 pages. It's a book I regularly flick through while using the index and I often read one or two paragraphs or sections in a page and move on to a different part of the book, cross referencing. Each section I read can be hundreds of pages apart.

I have the same book in pdf format. It's approx 60Mb and takes a while to load on both my Kindle and Kobo Glo. On both these 6" screens, the text is too small for practical use and the reflow extremely poor with no option for changing that. But, the real problem is speed. Having to wait even a few seconds while navigating pages is extremely frustrating when you've got a lot to look through. The tools just aren't up to the job (yet).

As things stand, eink readers aren't geared up to dealing with pdf's properly or well. The screens are wonderful to read novels with, but are generally far too small for textbooks and the hardware cannot cope with pdf navigation at anything like reasonable speeds. Reflow isn't even guaranteed if the pdf hasn't been created with all due diligence and doesn't work well on all readers even when it has.

Yet, reading the same pdf on a 10" Android tablet is great. It's very fast and easy to navigate and the formatting is usually spot on. Even when it's not, you have a choice of many readers on Android to try and pinch to zoom is instant.

Koreader with landscape mode and reflow with some changes in options and start without framework is excellent and speedy and smart for any PDF. I read medical textbook with over 3000 pages!

And reagarding jumping between chapters, you can use the Table of contents or use massive page scrooling of pages or take number of page from pdf in android device and enter it in go to page in koreader

[dwig]

Originally Posted by emalvick

WHen I was in graduate school I was reading a lot of papers in big chunks. Eink wasn't around (nor were tablets), but I absolutely hated the headaches I would get trying to read them off my LCD monitor. I can't imagine I would have liked reading 100's of papers on an IPad or similar tablet because I still would have gotten the headache. ...

I've read many, many hundreds of ebooks over the last 16-18 years on a very wide range of LCD devices with no eyestrain issues. Displays have improved massively in recent years and eyestrain is not really an issue if you see your optometrist regularly and where correction lenses as necessary.

... PDF's aren't that memory intensive on a device. They would really only have to load a bit at a time anyway. ....

Incorrect. You have to load the complete PDF and read through every byte before you can begin to render anything. PDF is not a linear format where the first page is always the first data and the last page is at the end of the file. You can easily have part of any page at the beginning of the data stream and have one element on that page be near the very end of the data.

[sean42]

I am new to this forum so I might get inline quoting wrong.

Originally Posted by leaston

Not for me. The screen is too small and performance not up to it.

Just to put your post in perspective, what kind of screen sizes are you talking about. I have 9.7inch screens in mind. That should be large enough for standard books, and academic publications (typically A4 or Letter sized).

Originally Posted by leaston

I'll give you a typcial example of what I need. I have a therapy textbook I use (hardback) which contains around 600 pages. It's a book I regularly flick through while using the index and I often read one or two paragraphs or sections in a page and move on to a different part of the book, cross referencing. Each section I read can be hundreds of pages apart.

I definitely would want to cover this use case. What difficulties have you faced with jumping to a page using a slider or page number.

Originally Posted by leaston

As things stand, eink readers aren't geared up to dealing with pdf's properly or well. The screens are wonderful to read novels with, but are generally far too small for textbooks and the hardware cannot cope with pdf navigation at anything like reasonable speeds. Reflow isn't even guaranteed if the pdf hasn't been created with all due diligence and doesn't work well on all readers even when it has.

Have you tried the 9.7" Onyx Boox. Users dont seem to be terribly upset with its pdf capabilities. However stability seems to be a problem.

Originally Posted by leaston

Yet, reading the same pdf on a 10" Android tablet is great.

I get bleary eyed soon enough when reading from LCD's so this is sort of non-negotiable. From a technical perspective a Linux system should be more efficient than an Android system. Android would need more memory. OTOH Android with its larger community would have more apps. In a way Onyx's latest Android based 9.7" Ereader, might be the best of both worlds.

What mystifies me is that if you have 256 MB of RAM and a processor with a clock speed north of 800Mhz, how is that not enough to parse, uncompress and render pdf. I get it that the display hardware is slow, but that should only add a sub second delay in rendering the page that I want rendered.

In any case thanks for your reply.