Google reader coming out (Iriver Story)

[darseno]

I'm not sure about Google's ebooks. The few I've tried in epub format have tons of OCR artifacts, and I suspect that a large percentage of the million free ebooks Google brags about are unproofread OCR crap.

With Google books, the image-based pdf a better choice. Of course a 6" screen is nearly useless for pdfs (though I have had some success with certain books using the pdflrf utility, so long as the original scanned pages aren't very big). So, I won't be even thinking about the Iriver until it's offered with a larger screen. The Pocketbook 902 looks good for pdf.

[Dulin's Books]

Google also sells all the current books in epub which are the same as come from every other publisher

[Emu]

Hi guys, I got the reader yesterday from thalia.de (Germany) for 150€. I had the Irex 8" a year ago. Here a few thoughts.

+ Screen has good contrast and is fast.
- A few stupid bugs in the not so cool software as far as I can see now (doesn't remember settings for last read book like fontsize etc.)
+ Good reading experience.
- To small for mangas/comics with small text, the 8" was better for that.
+ Pearl is a jump in quality and the resolution is nice.
+ Good built quality, nice to hold.
+ light. perfect weight (less would be strange).
- long startup time (30sec+ maybe)
+ long batterie life (no need to turn it of until the next day if you care about the 30sec)

Don't care to much about the strange colored buttons. They are made of transparent plastic and the brownish look comes from the brown plastik behind the buttons (front is white, back is brown, but a friendly beige-brown). I was afraid of buttons and looking for the new nook. Don't care about buttons anymore, they only look stupid on pictures but not in your hand.

Conclusion: I need an 8" with a little better than Pearl display (still not white enough for bad light) with 1280x1024 or something like that and Wifi (German HD version comes without Wifi until Sept or Oct). 6" is to small for some pdf and comics, pictures etc. If you just want to read books it IS a nice device. I'm reading in panorama mode today since two hours and if the light is good (aka day) it's a 90% perfect reading experience.

About touch - The IRex had stylus touch and I never liked that. It was too slow and drained the battery. I think I would prefer the keyboard on a wifi-device which a NEVER thought before I had the keyboard in my hand. I hated the keyboard-readers (kindle etc.) before that.