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Old 08-10-2009, 11:37 AM   #1
zer0her0
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Few questions on K2 vs DX...

I purchase most all my technical ebooks from O'Reilly ebooks. How do the O'Reilly books look in the mobi format that they distribute in? Has anyone loaded their PDFs on a DX? How do they compare: Mobi vs PDF? K2 vs DX?

Second, I read/reference alot of google's API docs, are they viewable/usable in the kindle's browser? Is it free or do I need to pay per MB? Is there a difference between the K2 and DX browsers?

Finally, are technical books readable on the K2, screen size wise? Or is the DX really the way most people go for technical documentation?

I have tried looking for answer to these questions and haven't really found definitive answers, and I know it's ultimately my call, but instead of buying both and testing both out I figured I could ask general opinions here
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Old 08-10-2009, 11:21 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zer0her0 View Post
I purchase most all my technical ebooks from O'Reilly ebooks. How do the O'Reilly books look in the mobi format that they distribute in? Has anyone loaded their PDFs on a DX? How do they compare: Mobi vs PDF? K2 vs DX?
You can read a mobipocket on your PC using the mobipocket reader software from mobipocket.com. Better yet, download calibre and use it to view a file. You can resize the Calibre window to simulate the size of the two readers.

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Second, I read/reference alot of google's API docs, are they viewable/usable in the kindle's browser? Is it free or do I need to pay per MB? Is there a difference between the K2 and DX browsers?
I use the web browser all the time. Today, I used it to pull up a map on google maps. However, if you buy the Kindle for its web browser you will be sorely disappointed. It is slow, uses a small screen (my Kindle2 screen), and doesn't support all web technologies. As a bonus feature it is a pleasant surprise, but as an everyday web browser you would be disappointed. Today, it is free to use. However, the promise from Amazon is limited to only a few features, such as free wikipedia. Therefore, don't assume that it will always be free. OR, Amazon might choose to restrict access at some future time.
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Old 08-11-2009, 10:02 AM   #3
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You can read a mobipocket on your PC using the mobipocket reader software from mobipocket.com. Better yet, download calibre and use it to view a file. You can resize the Calibre window to simulate the size of the two readers.
Ah I have Calibre, I didn't even think of that! Great idea, I'll have to try that at home tomorrow.

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I use the web browser all the time. Today, I used it to pull up a map on google maps. However, if you buy the Kindle for its web browser you will be sorely disappointed. It is slow, uses a small screen (my Kindle2 screen), and doesn't support all web technologies. As a bonus feature it is a pleasant surprise, but as an everyday web browser you would be disappointed. Today, it is free to use. However, the promise from Amazon is limited to only a few features, such as free wikipedia. Therefore, don't assume that it will always be free. OR, Amazon might choose to restrict access at some future time.
As I said the only thing I really could see myself using the browser for is for Google's API documentation, and maybe a few other online API docs I would like to be able to reference in those rare instances I don't have internet but need to still coding. Right now in those instances I've used my iPhone which is a touch too small, so I'm wondering how well the 6" displays the google code docs.
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Old 08-11-2009, 10:31 AM   #4
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Resize your web browser window to 90x120mm (the size of the K2's screen) and see how it looks.
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Old 08-11-2009, 03:26 PM   #5
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True, but I'm also concerned with how it renders the HTML/JS/etc, as each browser seems to render these standards different, but i'll try that as well tomorrow. thanks for the suggestions guys.
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Old 08-12-2009, 01:41 PM   #6
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I read tech books all the time in pdf. I have no K2 but Sony 505. On DX, pdf is very cool on DX compares to Sony 505.
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Old 08-12-2009, 05:05 PM   #7
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If you are planning to buy DX to read mostly PDFs - don't, you'll be disappointed.
As eBook reader, DX is fine.
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Old 08-12-2009, 11:48 PM   #8
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If you're planning to read A4 size PDFs without taking notes or searching then you won't be disappointed. I have lots of technical books on DX, it's great reading experience. I also have Sony 505 and 700, have had iLiad v2 and, in my opinion, DX is a good device for PDFs. It's not iLiad (had zoom, notes, etc.) but it's not bad at all.
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Old 08-12-2009, 11:54 PM   #9
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If you're planning to read A4 size PDFs without taking notes or searching then you won't be disappointed. I have lots of technical books on DX, it's great reading experience
I do exactly this and I find DX unusable most of the time - fonts are too light, I get a headache after 10-15 minutes of such reading.
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Old 08-13-2009, 07:39 PM   #10
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I'd wait and see what else comes out in large screen over the next month or two. The DX can be used to read a PDF in a pinch, but overall it is inadequate.

I personally would not get it if PDFs are important. In fact, I'll get rid of both my Kindles the moment the new large screens become available from other vendors, provided PDF implementation is decent (and there is no reason to think it would not be.)
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Old 08-14-2009, 11:18 AM   #11
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I do exactly this and I find DX unusable most of the time - fonts are too light, I get a headache after 10-15 minutes of such reading.
I'm trying to guess why Davidion and EBS have such different experiences here. This is just a guess, and I'd love to hear back from them, but ...

Some pdf's contains pictures of text, but no actual text. These images are scans of individual book/article pages. You will find that many academic journal articles are in this format.

Other pdf's do contain text. With these pdf's you get several aditional features. for example, you can search for specific text in the pdf or you may be able to change the font size to make it easier to read.

Now, on to my guess. I wonder if there is a difference in how these two are rendered on the screen. I could 'make-up' an argument for one or the other being better. Depending on what the DX does and the source material it could be the text format or the image format that is better. However, I do suspect that these differences are at the heart of the two different opinions.
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Old 08-14-2009, 01:47 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by emellaich View Post
I'm trying to guess why Davidion and EBS have such different experiences here. This is just a guess, and I'd love to hear back from them, but ...

Some pdf's contains pictures of text, but no actual text. These images are scans of individual book/article pages. You will find that many academic journal articles are in this format.

Other pdf's do contain text. With these pdf's you get several aditional features. for example, you can search for specific text in the pdf or you may be able to change the font size to make it easier to read.

Now, on to my guess. I wonder if there is a difference in how these two are rendered on the screen. I could 'make-up' an argument for one or the other being better. Depending on what the DX does and the source material it could be the text format or the image format that is better. However, I do suspect that these differences are at the heart of the two different opinions.
No, PDFs I use are NOT scanned images, they are normal PDF files with text. Kindle font rendering is known to be not very good (look at all those font hacks), they basically licensed Adobe PDF engine used for normal computers and just integrated it into Kindle software without making any adjustments for the different display technology.
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Old 08-14-2009, 06:00 PM   #13
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All of the text PDF files I've loaded are fine but the PDFs made up of scanned images are hit or miss. For those I almost always have to turn the DX sideways in order to read the document. I also find that technical material almost always needs to read with the DX sideways.

The text PDFs are searchable from within the PDF but of course the scanned image ones are not. No markup or annotation makes the PDF function limited but I don't need that very often.
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Old 08-15-2009, 12:15 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ebs View Post
No, PDFs I use are NOT scanned images, they are normal PDF files with text. Kindle font rendering is known to be not very good (look at all those font hacks), they basically licensed Adobe PDF engine used for normal computers and just integrated it into Kindle software without making any adjustments for the different display technology.
Actually, that could be possible. I purposefully didn't take a position on which was better. As you mentioned, on my Kindle2 I found an issue with the original fonts, and I'm convinced it is because of the anti-aliasing versus the original Kindle. A scanned pdf might be sharper than an actual font if the scan is black and white and not grayscale.

As I said earlier I could argue it either way. I was just suggesting there was a difference, not what the difference was.
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