Need advise for a cheap device

[Prash]

Hi everyone.....

I am a student right now, and i have decided to go for a cheap ereader or PDA as a temporary solution for my requirements. My budget is around $55. If a device is worth it, i can extend it around $85. I will be using it only for an year, so going for the cheapest device i can get.

I browsed through sections of the forum and also googled a lot. But i am still not sure what should i buy.

My main requirements:
1. Good/moderate screen size
2. Good readability
3. Ability to read PDF files(As most of the books i have are in pdf format, maybe this is too much to ask for in such a cheap device)

I have also made a list here, but i am not sure that whether they will meet my needs:

1. Ipaq 1945 $100 + shipping
2. Tungsten T3 - found this one for $75+ shipping
3. iPAQ 3650 $39+shipping
4. Sony PEG-T615C - $46+shipping
5. HP 360LX JORNADA HANDHELD - $80 shipped to India
6. iPAQ Pocket PC Rx3715 - available in India ebay, not sure about price, still bidding open
6. And some more. I have even given thoughts to Fujitsu penCentra 130

What will be good for me. Other suggestions are also welcome.

I really need your suggestion friends.
Thanks in advance, regards.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Prash

Hi everyone.....

I am a student right now, and i have decided to go for a cheap ereader or PDA as a temporary solution for my requirements. My budget is around $55. If a device is worth it, i can extend it around $85. I will be using it only for an year, so going for the cheapest device i can get.

I browsed through sections of the forum and also googled a lot. But i am still not sure what should i buy.

My main requirements:
1. Good/moderate screen size
2. Good readability
3. Ability to read PDF files(As most of the books i have are in pdf format, maybe this is too much to ask for in such a cheap device)

I have also made a list here, but i am not sure that whether they will meet my needs:

1. Ipaq 1945 $100 + shipping
2. Tungsten T3 - found this one for $75+ shipping
3. iPAQ 3650 $39+shipping
4. Sony PEG-T615C - $46+shipping
5. HP 360LX JORNADA HANDHELD - $80 shipped to India
6. iPAQ Pocket PC Rx3715 - available in India ebay, not sure about price, still bidding open
6. And some more. I have even given thoughts to Fujitsu penCentra 130

What will be good for me. Other suggestions are also welcome.

I really need your suggestion friends.
Thanks in advance, regards.

I've got a working one of these out in the garage .... you can have it if you don't mind paying for shipping.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Prash

Hi everyone.....

I am a student right now, and i have decided to go for a cheap ereader or PDA as a temporary solution for my requirements. My budget is around $55. If a device is worth it, i can extend it around $85. I will be using it only for an year, so going for the cheapest device i can get.

I browsed through sections of the forum and also googled a lot. But i am still not sure what should i buy.

My main requirements:
1. Good/moderate screen size
2. Good readability
3. Ability to read PDF files(As most of the books i have are in pdf format, maybe this is too much to ask for in such a cheap device)

I have also made a list here, but i am not sure that whether they will meet my needs:

1. Ipaq 1945 $100 + shipping
2. Tungsten T3 - found this one for $75+ shipping
3. iPAQ 3650 $39+shipping
4. Sony PEG-T615C - $46+shipping
5. HP 360LX JORNADA HANDHELD - $80 shipped to India
6. iPAQ Pocket PC Rx3715 - available in India ebay, not sure about price, still bidding open
6. And some more. I have even given thoughts to Fujitsu penCentra 130

What will be good for me. Other suggestions are also welcome.

I really need your suggestion friends.
Thanks in advance, regards.

The best reading experience in PDF on a small screen is with a PocketPC device like one of the iPAQs mentioned above. It needs to be able to run Adobe Reader for Pocket PC version 2.0. This won't read everything PDF well but does support reflow of PDF documents so it can be useful.

Palm devices require a translation on a PC for the files before they can read them with the Adobe supplied reader. The is a PalmPDF program that will offer a similar outcome to the Adobe PocketPC reader.

Small screens are not the most pleasant but these PDAs are workable. There are plenty of programs available for reading eBooks in other formats for both Palm and PocketPC devices. Check the wiki for more details.

Dale

Dale

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Prash

I am a student right now, and i have decided to go for a cheap ereader or PDA as a temporary solution for my requirements. My budget is around $55. If a device is worth it, i can extend it around $85. I will be using it only for an year, so going for the cheapest device i can get.
buy.

My main requirements:
1. Good/moderate screen size
2. Good readability
3. Ability to read PDF files(As most of the books i have are in pdf format, maybe this is too much to ask for in such a cheap device)

Your budget is your big limitation.

I read ebooks on a Palm OS PDA. My device is a Tapwave Zodiac 2, whose manufacturer went out of business in 2005. It has a 320 x 480 color screen, 128MB of RAM, two SD card slots, bluetooth, and a few other features.

I prefer it over a dedicated ebook viewer because I need color and want to do other things besides read ebooks on it.

I have about 3,500 ebooks spread over two 2GB SD cards. Most are HTML format, converted for use with the Plucker offline HTML viewer for Palm OS, a free open source product. I also have a fair number of files in Mobipocket, eReader, Word, RTF, text, and PDF formats, with four different viewers to handle them all. (The viewers are all freeware.)

The big issue is PDFs. There is a superb open source PDF viewer for Palm devices called PalmPDF, so you can read them. The problem is that most PDFs were created assuming a larger screen, and won't reflow to fit the smaller device screen. You may need to side scroll to view them, which can be aggravating. The same problem will affect any handheld device.

Of the ones you listed, I'd go for the T3, but that's due to long time use of and familiarity with Palm OS. The main limit on the T3 is that it won't handle SD cards larger than 1GB.
______
Dennis

[DaleDe]

Another choice is http://www.amperordirect.com/pc/c-gp...ng-gpspda.html

This unit could be turned into a GPS with the addition of a CF GPS receiver. It can also accept up to 1 Gig SD cards and unlimited CF cards. It is pretty cheap Pocket PC 2003 device.

[Prash]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

I've got a working one of these out in the garage .... you can have it if you don't mind paying for shipping.

I would be grateful to you Ricky. Btw what was backup of the device when you were using it, i will be using it to read ebooks only. And i have seen that it supports CF cards, so expanding its memory to more than 2gb wont be a problem, right.

Thanks again.
Regards

[manchuia]

If you get it up to roughly $100 .. or you are good at haggling. You can get a Nokia 770 internet tablet with 4" screen for that price.

You get a pretty decent multi-use device with a constantly developed OS and good PDF / ebook support.

www.internettablettalk.com has a buy/sell section where you could possibly find one.