Newbie

[earlysame55]

Gday!!

In here to get sugesstion for a great Ereader.
Key Requirements:

1. PDF
2. CHM
3. Relatively large screen 7" i think may be good. What do you folks think ?
4. PRICE

Goodies:

1. MP3
2. all other book formats
3. Anti-glare

Please, really hitting all the walls around and pulling my hair out trying to find the best bet.

Cheers

[toddos]

Good luck with that. PDF is a terrible ebook format and few (read: none?) of the existing readers handle it at all well.

[glowhappy]

Hi earlysame55 and welcome to MR! you may find this thread useful
Which one should I buy?

[banjobama]

Kindle DX

[jgaiser]

Nothing for sale that hits anywhere near your list.

Kindle DX (Graphite DX in my case) does a *pretty* good job with PDFs, plays MP3 (unless your listening to audio books, I don't see a use), screen is larger than your requirements.

No CHM, glare isn't a *major* problem, price is probably too high, and of course mobi only.

Nobody else comes any closer.

[calvin-c]

What's your use? Lots here will bonk this because it doesn't fit their usage, but I find a netbook makes a fine reader. Of course I carry one for other reasons and if your only use is as an ereader then it's probably not only too expensive (particularly with the extra batteries to get a full day's use from it-full day meaning a little over 8 hours in my case) but also not convenient enough. But it is flexible-not only handles PDF, CHM, and Mobi, but all other formats I can think of also.

For portability I read mobi on my Palm, but the screen is pretty small.

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by toddos

Good luck with that. PDF is a terrible ebook format and few (read: none?) of the existing readers handle it at all well.

PDF is actually the best ebook format, but only if the PDF was made specifically for your device, and ideally, made by you yourself.

PDFs only have a bad reputation because people try to read PDFs not made for ereaders, but instead made for printing on letter or A4 sized paper on their e-reader screens, and then it doesn’t work so well. This is not a fault of the format. It’s just trying to do something that no one ever intended you to be able to do. (But hey, more power to you.) That said, if you can’t afford one of the larger ebook screens like the DX, following the tips here my help make this a little more feasible.

I’m not sure what you mean by “handling PDFs well”, but every ebook reader I know of is capable of presenting PDFs perfectly well.

On the other hand, many popular ebook readers don't handle ePub properly, even when the ePub was properly made.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by frabjous

PDF is actually the best ebook format, but only if the PDF was made specifically for your device, and ideally, made by you yourself.

The problem with PDF is that it's not inherently flowable (it can be made flowable, but most PDF authors don't do the right thing). It's a fixed, "pixel-perfect" format targeted at a very specific form factor. This is great when you're getting ready to print a paper book and you want to see exactly how it will look before printing. This is terrible when you're using it in a context where you need the document to be adjustable.

Also, I guess it depends on the amount of work you want to (or can, in the case of DRMed PDFs) put into modifying the PDF to fit your device. Without any modification, I've never seen a reader that can handle PDF well (as in, properly sized, reflowed text rather than panning and zooming). Maybe the Kindle DX works because it's nearly the targetted size of most PDFs, but good luck if you need to resize the font larger.

If you're going to go to the effort of modifying the PDF as you linked, why not modify it into a better ebook format?

[neilmarr]

Good to have your company, Early. Good luck in your choice and best wishes. Neil

[Logseman]

You can wait for Pocketbook 901. It is guaranteed to read CHM and PDF because every other PB does so, it has a 9,7 inch screen and its price tag is scheduled to be a bit over $300.

If you can't wait, get a notebook.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by frabjous

PDF is actually the best ebook format, but only if the PDF was made specifically for your device, and ideally, made by you yourself.

I'm afraid your arguments, whatever they are, are wasted as far as I'm concerned. I routinely quit reading as soon as I hit a statement that "format [x] is the best". There is no *best* format (or device) for all users, so that statement serves as a warning that the rest of the posting is equally specious.

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by toddos

The problem with PDF is that it's not inherently flowable (it can be made flowable, but most PDF authors don't do the right thing). It's a fixed, "pixel-perfect" format targeted at a very specific form factor. This is great when you're getting ready to print a paper book and you want to see exactly how it will look before printing. This is terrible when you're using it in a context where you need the document to be adjustable.

I don’t advocate distributing PDFs. I advocate distributing source documents which would then be converted by the user to a PDF matching his/her preferences. PDF is not just great for printed material. That’s just untrue. PDFs specifically created for your device using settings determined by the person who will be doing the reading resultings in something much more attractive than anything possible with any other format. Try out jellby's epub2pdf script and tweak the results, and you’ll see what I mean.

If you create the PDF yourself using the exact formatting you want, the document doesn’t need to be reflowable. You’ve already "reflowed it". By the way, don’t blame authors if PDFs aren’t “tagged” for reflowing. (I assume you mean tagged PDF by “flowable”.) Most authors don’t create their own ebooks; their publishers do, and tagged PDF is a new standard and not much software supports it yet. But it doesn’t need to.

Also, I guess it depends on the amount of work you want to (or can, in the case of DRMed PDFs) put into modifying the PDF to fit your device. Without any modification, I've never seen a reader that can handle PDF well (as in, properly sized, reflowed text rather than panning and zooming). Maybe the Kindle DX works because it's nearly the targetted size of most PDFs, but good luck if you need to resize the font larger.

Those kinds of modifications are not ideal, I admit. But they're only necessary if the source files are not available. If you have access to the source documents, creating a document that fits your device is easy.

If you're going to go to the effort of modifying the PDF as you linked, why not modify it into a better ebook format?

There is no better ebook format for converting-to. Only PDF offers intelligent white-space usage, typographic ligatures, pair kerning, end-of-line hyphenation, complete font choice, complete font-size choice, widow and orphan control, footnotes, visual-based extended punctuation level microtypography, and so on. Why would I prefer anything else?

Originally Posted by calvin-c

I'm afraid your arguments, whatever they are, are wasted as far as I'm concerned. I routinely quit reading as soon as I hit a statement that "format [x] is the best". There is no *best* format (or device) for all users, so that statement serves as a warning that the rest of the posting is equally specious.

Read one sentence you don’t agree with, and then stop listening entirely, and assume untrue things of the person who wrote that sentence? Yes, that's very reasonable and open minded of you.

I didn't say PDF was best, period. I said it was best under certain specified conditions.

I didn’t write anything about devices. Don’t assume I have attitudes about devices that I didn’t express.

I think you missed most of my point about PDFs if you didn’t read the rest of what I wrote. I admit that it isn’t the best format for distribution, only for reading, and then only when you create the PDF yourself.

As for the superiority of PDFs for reading when you create the PDF yourself, I’ll happily provide argumentation if you’d like, but I’ve never heard of any real reason against it. The reasons to prefer other formats are all reasons to prefer distributing other versions, not for reading other versions, unless you know of some arguments I don’t, and I can’t really fathom what they would be. I can’t think of any feature any other ebook format offers which PDF cannot replicate if you create the PDF yourself, and I can think of about a dozen things PDF offers that none of the others do.

The only reason I can think of reading anything other than PDF is if a file has DRM on it and can’t be converted.

[zetareticuli]

I agree with Logseman on the large format Pocketbook 901 when it comes out. Pocketbook has a reputation for the most feature-rich PDF viewer. I am sure that also found its way into the 901. No Wifi on the 901 or cellular connection. It does have a slot for an SD card. There might be other Pocketbook models in that line that will add WiFi and cellular connectivity for a higher fee. In the US, the price is expected to be $325 - $350. If you don't mind LCD, the iPad is the best reader for PDFs I have tried. If you can't wait and must get a device now and don't want LCD, the Kindle DXG is your best shot. There are many posts here about PDF support on the Kindle DXG. In a nutshell, it is decent but not great.

Next year there will probably be a few more e-readers with a large display suitable for PDFs.

All the PDFs I read don't display well on a 6" display therefore I don't recommend a 6" reader for PDFs (especially if you are going to be reading technical PDFs).

Your choices right now are the iPad or the Kindle DXG. The iPad supports everything you want but has an LCD display if that is a problem for you. The Kindle DXG does not support CHM but it is eInk and probably the best eInk option right now for PDFs.