Help! Which eReader? Really simple requirements :)

[3dge]

first off, to all the responses again. I didn't mean to start an argument about DRM heavy companies (although I stand by my belief that they are greedy and a pain in the a**. The only people they penalize are the paying customers, pirates always find a way around it.)

Originally Posted by garion

i'd like to chime in and ask the OP a question (this thread is the closest I've seen to answering my questions on getting an e-reader/tablet for pdfs). Does the OP mean PDFs of books/novels (dl legally or not)? Or say PDFs of technical manuals, etc. that tend to be created in 8.5" x 11" formats.

Not to highjack this thread (I can start another). I'm looking for a reader for mainly PDFs of novels/books/etc. I read them on my computer but I'd prefer something with less glare and portable. Thus I'm looking at a Nook Touch. But the reflow issue and PDF on e-reader issues have me concerned.

I don't really need mine for graphs and pictures at all. I think we're in exactly the same position, I don't read enough books to justify dropping £10 a pop for books from a website. I can pick the odd few from around the internet when I need them in PDF. I also disagree with the pricing, imho they should be much cheaper than they are (which I hear is very close, and in some cases even more so, than the physical copies of the book. How is this supported )

The reflow issue and screen size is exactly the same thing I'm worried about too. It's a big investment to make in something that might screw up on the one reason you bought it. I don't have a laptop so reading PDFs (which is all of the reading I do) on a desktop computer is uncomfortable and tiring. An eReader seems like the perfect thing - in essence a PDF holder which is very portable and easy on the eyes. I still can't seem to find one that is worth the money, as you are often paying for a bunch of other features when I'm only interested in one.

[garion]

Originally Posted by 3dge

first off, to all the responses again. I didn't mean to start an argument about DRM heavy companies (although I stand by my belief that they are greedy and a pain in the a**. The only people they penalize are the paying customers, pirates always find a way around it.)



I don't really need mine for graphs and pictures at all. I think we're in exactly the same position, I don't read enough books to justify dropping £10 a pop for books from a website. I can pick the odd few from around the internet when I need them in PDF. I also disagree with the pricing, imho they should be much cheaper than they are (which I hear is very close, and in some cases even more so, than the physical copies of the book. How is this supported )

The reflow issue and screen size is exactly the same thing I'm worried about too. It's a big investment to make in something that might screw up on the one reason you bought it. I don't have a laptop so reading PDFs (which is all of the reading I do) on a desktop computer is uncomfortable and tiring. An eReader seems like the perfect thing - in essence a PDF holder which is very portable and easy on the eyes. I still can't seem to find one that is worth the money, as you are often paying for a bunch of other features when I'm only interested in one.

Ahhhh. Then, yes, we are in the same boat. Thanks for asking the questions and for those who answered them!

From what I have read from various posts, it seems like with Calibre we should be able to get by on a KindleTouch, K3 or NookTouch. I am really close to buying a NookTouch but I just came back from the store and aside from the PDF concerns, I find the NookTouch to NOT have enough contrast between that horrible gray background and the black type. It's just plain muddy.

Whilst I was surprised that the K3 was pretty decent. It was sharper than the NookTouch. And the DX was pretty sharp as well but expensive ($379 US)! So, while I like the flexibility of the NookTouch (not being looked in, the sd card, and rootability), I might have to get the K3 because legibility is one of the prime criteria, among portability and reading pdfs.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by garion

i'd like to chime in and ask the OP a question (this thread is the closest I've seen to answering my questions on getting an e-reader/tablet for pdfs). Does the OP mean PDFs of books/novels (dl legally or not)? Or say PDFs of technical manuals, etc. that tend to be created in 8.5" x 11" formats.

Not to highjack this thread (I can start another). I'm looking for a reader for mainly PDFs of novels/books/etc. I read them on my computer but I'd prefer something with less glare and portable. Thus I'm looking at a Nook Touch. But the reflow issue and PDF on e-reader issues have me concerned.

Why would you buy PDFs of novels? I'm puzzled. PDF is not an ebook format. Why don't you buy books in proper book formats? Mobi or ePub?

[3dge]

Originally Posted by garion

Ahhhh. Then, yes, we are in the same boat. Thanks for asking the questions and for those who answered them!

From what I have read from various posts, it seems like with Calibre we should be able to get by on a KindleTouch, K3 or NookTouch. I am really close to buying a NookTouch but I just came back from the store and aside from the PDF concerns, I find the NookTouch to NOT have enough contrast between that horrible gray background and the black type. It's just plain muddy.

Whilst I was surprised that the K3 was pretty decent. It was sharper than the NookTouch. And the DX was pretty sharp as well but expensive ($379 US)! So, while I like the flexibility of the NookTouch (not being looked in, the sd card, and rootability), I might have to get the K3 because legibility is one of the prime criteria, among portability and reading pdfs.

Let me know how it goes! I'd be very interested to hear if it's working properly for PDFs.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

I think as time passes, you'll get very frustrated reading PDF's on a 6-inch. The Kobo Touch (which is what I have) has some of the best PDF support of any 6-inch reader, and I still hate reading PDF's on it. The screen is just too small. Fortunately I don't read PDF's much, so that's not a big deal to me.

Calibre can only do so much with PDF's. The file format itself is just difficult to work with.

If the issue is inflated agency pricing on ebooks, lemme tell you, I'm with you. But there are plenty of authors who sell their books for more reasonable prices. There's deals on books for a buck, 2 bucks, even free. You can rent from libraries. You have a ton of choice. This is the internet after all. And the little guys are able to compete better than they are in the physical book world.

[Andrew H.]

[QUOTE=SmokeAndMirrors;1834905]Oh sure, it'll work on anything... as long as it's Kindle. And only Kindle. You can buy it from somewhere else if you want, but it will only work on Kindle.]

No. It will work on any Kindle, on an iPad, on an iPod Touch, on a Windows phone, on any modern Android tablet, on a a rooted nook color, on a Window computer, on a mac, on a linux box, and on a chromebook. There may be others that I don't know about.

Wiki says:


The way it's used - which is slightly more forgiving than its literal meaning, very clearly includes Amazon/Kindle. The fact that you can buy Kindle books from some other places doesn't change that it won't work on anything but Kindle, and that they try to make moving away from Kindle painful and expensive as a deterrent.

If they could, they would make it impossible for you to ever move away from Kindle without losing every book in your collection. They've already done that, for users who aren't savvy enough to know what Calibre and Alf are.

There are plenty of ways to do a walled garden. Some lock everything out; some lock everything in. Some do a mix of the two.

It matters to me. And it matters to a lot of other people. If you don't care, fine. But please don't try to tell me this isn't an issue, or that people who see it as an issue are just making things up. It is very clearly an issue, and has caused problems for plenty of people. It's almost intellectually insulting to claim otherwise.

The only people who complain about the Kindle being restrictive are non-Kindle owners. I can't recall any MR posts by Kindle owners who feel restricted by the Kindle. These posts are always by people who have other readers yet feel the need to complain about Kindles. If Kindle's "restrictions" were an actual reason for someone not to buy a Kindle, you'd think that there would be more complaints by Kindle owners.

I understand that you have political reasons for not liking the Kindle, and have somehow convinced yourself that buying DRM'd content for your corporate reader is somehow more pure than buying DRM'd content for another corporate reader. This is your prerogative. What is intellectually insulting is repeatedly making demonstrably false statements of fact about the Kindle.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

@ Andrew H

It has nothing to do with politics. It's an aspect of the product which is a completely valid issue to a lot of potential users.

Furthermore, I am quite aware that DRM is a separate problem all together from Kindle. The only person who made that conflation is you.

And actually, I don't buy any DRM'ed content at all, from anywhere. Way to make assumptions. You know, to some of us, our ethics actually mean something.

I was talking about the product line of Kindle, which is contextually obvious. Stop trying to clutter the discussion with intentional obtuseness.

The reason current Kindle-owners don't complain is because they are the kinds of users who are ok with walled gardens (and actually, some of them do complain - they just don't do anything about it). They're also the users who get bitten by them eventually. But right-now simplicity is more important to them than anything else, and that's their choice.

But I will say this: the refugees of walled gardens constitute what seems to be a disproportionately large amount of the open-source community. Eventually, a lot of these garden people do get bitten hard enough to finally pick up and move.

You haven't said anything to demonstrate anything that I've said as being false. If you like your Kindle so much, why do you care what I think? Do you just have an emotional opposition to people not liking Kindle?

[catsittingstill]

Wait, now I'm confused.

It doesn't matter that Kindle books can be read on other devices because you were talking about the Kindle hardware when you said "walled garden"?

Okay, you don't buy any DRMed content--which is great; I too would like to see DRM bite the bitter black finger of death, though I'm not as pure as you are. But can't anyone do that (use only non-DRMed content) just as well with a Kindle as with any other e-book reader?

Kindle reads non-DRMed mobipocket (and .txt and so on), which seems to be as widely available as non-DRMed ePub. Not to mention that the OP was asking about pdfs, (I'm assuming unDRMed--maybe I'm mistaken on that) which the Kindle is happy to handle without DRM. (Size is an issue there; the Kindle DX is the only big-screen e-Ink reader I know about (though I would be interested to hear of others), and handles pdfs on a drag-and-drop basis as the OP was asking; the major issue is probably that the e-Ink screen on the DX is not Pearl (I think) and the price.)

So what's the problem with the Kindle *hardware* again?

I'm fine with people buying other hardware. Many fine e-book readers are out there--let competition keep the maker of mine very much on its toes. But I have to admit I'm having trouble following your reasoning.

[catsittingstill]

Oh cool--I just found something else.

Not only are there apps for the Nook (and for android tablets) that let you read Kindle books, there is a (computer) program called KindleGen available for free from Amazon that lets you convert (presumably unDRMed) ePub to Kindle format. Now it would totally be even better if the Kindle could just read unDRMed (or even DRMed--oh, wait, maybe not for some folks) ePub natively but still, this is more than I knew about before.

(Probably old news to everyone else, but I have a tendency to drift away from Mobileread while working on some project and then come back and just find this stuff in clumps.)

So maybe Amazon is more of a "walled garden" than other e-book hardware systems, but if you're willing to lift the vines, it turns out there are gates in those walls.

Now if Amazon would just trim back the vines and put signs above the gates...

[paola]

@3dge: I am a Pocketbook 903 owner, and pdf read very well (you can now also annotate them free hand, though the firware is still buggy). If you are concerned about price, a new model, the 912, which is like the 903 bar the 3g connection (it does have wifi). As suggested before, if I were you I would ask questions in the PB forum to get a full picture (the good and the bad). I read a lot of technical books, and they are perfectly fine for me, though PB also have a pretty decent reflow (and a text to speech function in several languages that works well).

On the shortcomings, you should bear in mind that all of the Pocketbooks do have an older generation e-ink screen, not Pearl: I am fine with it, but you should check two different devices to see how you feel about it (again, bearing in mind that the same Pearl screen has slightly different background colours from one brand to another).

Another 9.7'' reader is the M9X series by Onyx, which apparently also has good reflow, but with it seems a very buggy firmware - again, I would ask questions in the Onyx forum. From what I've read the reader feelw more flimsy than teh Pocketbook, but the Onyx has a Pearl screen. In fact, there is a video that compares the Onyx and the Pocketbook: it is probably obsolete in terms of what it shows on performance, but if you want to compare screen differences, you should definitely have a look at that (just search for it in the Onyx and/or Pocketbook forums).

EDIT: the Pocketbooks (at least in Europe) come with a 2 year warranty - which as for virtually all readers does not cover screen breakage - and screen breakage is more of a risk the larger the screen. The only company that would replace the screen for free, as far as I am aware, is Amazon.

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

Oh cool--I just found something else.

Not only are there apps for the Nook (and for android tablets) that let you read Kindle books, there is a (computer) program called KindleGen available for free from Amazon that lets you convert (presumably unDRMed) ePub to Kindle format. Now it would totally be even better if the Kindle could just read unDRMed (or even DRMed--oh, wait, maybe not for some folks) ePub natively but still, this is more than I knew about before.

(Probably old news to everyone else, but I have a tendency to drift away from Mobileread while working on some project and then come back and just find this stuff in clumps.)

So maybe Amazon is more of a "walled garden" than other e-book hardware systems, but if you're willing to lift the vines, it turns out there are gates in those walls.

Now if Amazon would just trim back the vines and put signs above the gates...

I think the problem is the other way round: how to read AZW files on devices other than kindle - this is what stops me recommending the Kindle to people who are even less tech savy than I am .

Suppose one day any kindle user changes their mind and decides that a Sony is really the reader they need: what happens to their AZW books then? As far as I am aware, that person wouldn't be able to transfer those books to any different branded reader (I mean, not legally, and not without a bit of, ahem, dusting).

The problem with Amazon is that they are the monopolists on AZW content. Of course, it makes perfect commercial sense to them to tie the user up with them, and good luck to them. And it is good for Kindle lovers who do not plan on ever ditching Kindle (or are prepared to do some housekeeping if they do switch brand), as Amazon seems to be offering consistently lower prices than the competition and an extensive selection of titles. But I think it is important to clarify to newbies what the "catches" are with any purchase.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by paola

I think the problem is the other way round: how to read AZW files on devices other than kindle - this is what stops me recommending the Kindle to people who are even less tech savy than I am .

Suppose one day any kindle user changes their mind and decides that a Sony is really the reader they need: what happens to their AZW books then? As far as I am aware, that person wouldn't be able to transfer those books to any different branded reader (I mean, not legally, and not without a bit of, ahem, dusting).

That depends where that person lives. I notice that you live in the UK, where DRM removal is perfectly legal.

[paola]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That depends where that person lives. I notice that you live in the UK, where DRM removal is perfectly legal.

Harry, if you are right you really made my day, as I was totally positive DRM stripping is illegal in the UK!

But even so, based on this (from amazon's terms and conditions, my emphasis):

Upon your download of Digital Content and payment of any applicable fees (including applicable taxes), the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Kindle or a Reading Application or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Kindles or Other Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use.

should I not conclude that I should not transfer my (hypothetical) library from Kindle to a Sony, say (given that only non e-ink devices are specified for the reading application)?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by paola

Harry, if you are right you really made my day, as I was totally positive DRM stripping is illegal in the UK!

No, it's not.

But even so, based on this (from amazon's terms and conditions, my emphasis):

should I not conclude that I should not transfer my (hypothetical) library from Kindle to a Sony, say (given that only non e-ink devices are specified for the reading application)?

Absolutely - you'll be violating your Kindle terms of service, and Amazon could terminate your account as a result. But I shouldn't lose any sleep over it; Amazon want to sell you books, and I don't think they really care what device you read them on.

[paola]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it's not.



Absolutely - you'll be violating your Kindle terms of service, and Amazon could terminate your account as a result. But I shouldn't lose any sleep over it; Amazon want to sell you books, and I don't think they really care what device you read them on.

Harry, thanks so much: now I'll no longer feel conspiratorial when dusting my books

As for Kindle's terms of reference, though, I still prefer to pay 50p more to save the principle and buy a book from Kobo or Foyle's or anybody who sells ePub.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why would you buy PDFs of novels? I'm puzzled. PDF is not an ebook format. Why don't you buy books in proper book formats? Mobi or ePub?

Because some stores only or mostly release them in PDF. (Wowio, the DriveThruRPG sites, Lulu until recently, lots of small nonfic publishers.) And a lot of authors & publishers release free PDF versions of the paperback-sized book.

The Suvudu free library is PDF-only, for the non-DRMd versions. The free ebooks from Mills & Boone were PDF. It's easy to stock up on promo/freebie books in PDF format, and unfortunately, most of them are worse than for-sale PDFs--the metadata's atrocious (9780373150915_SAMPL.indd for a title; "Cronsberry, Peter" as the author of a book by Abby Gaines--presumably, he has the computer with InDesign that did the layout) and they're sometimes paperback-sized text on a letter-sized page; often the crop marks are still included.

I can understand someone wanting an easy way to read PDFs, because converting them is a hassle (big hassle sometimes; they're often locked against changes, and conversion can throw in hard returns after every line). But I can't think of any simple way to read them on a portable device, other than something with a 9" or 10" screen.