Reader without touch

[shanghai]

Dear all,

what is a good reader with as many of these specs as possible:

- No touchscreen. Old fashioned buttons are better than finger-smudged, oversensitive screens
- Big memory, or SD to hold PDF files
- Bookshop-agnostic
- Good at reading PDF (meaning: not too slow page-turning and possibly PDF reflow)
- E-ink + backlight for night reading


Thank you for answers/suggestions/comments.
D.

[Yapyap]

I don't think an eInk reader with a frontlight and no touchscreen exists.

Onyx and Pocketbook (possibly some others), I think, offer models with frontlighting and page turn buttons though, so at least there's that. I don't know how good any 6-6.8'' eInk reader is for PDFs though (that is going to depend heavily on individual preference - e.g. what is acceptable speed for one may be intolerably slow for another).

For what it's worth, my personal experience with touchscreens is that fingerprint smudges are a considerably lesser problem on eInk screens than they are on LCD screens. I wouldn't go as far as to say they're invisible (I know some say they can't see fingerprints on an eInk screen at all) but they're definitely considerably less visible than I was afraid of.

[eschwartz]

No e-ink tablet is very good at displaying PDF. Some are not as bad, and you can use tools like k2pdfopt to try to overcome the inherent flaws in PDF, but if you are going to be reading mostly PDF, you really should get a tablet.

And like Yapyap said, there really aren't any frontlit ereaders without touchscreen. You might want to try out different touchscreen-enabled ereaders to see how sensitive they are (and how noticeable fingerprints really are) but if you decide that you really don't want one, well, you will have to go with old tech that doesn't have frontlight. You can, however, find lighted covers for (probably) all of them.

All ereaders are bookshop-agnostic, as you can sideload anything you want (and use calibre to format-shift), with the exception of the most recent Nook Glowlight, which restricts the memory to store-synced books except for a tiny fraction of the built-in memory -- and doesn't have an SD card.

[HarryT]

The Onyx Book T68 may perhaps be the best choice for you. Although it has a touch screen, in also has page turn buttons, and is a general-purpose Android tablet, so you can install your favourite PDF-reading app on it. It has an SD card slot.

[radius]

Originally Posted by shanghai

Dear all,

what is a good reader with as many of these specs as possible:

- No touchscreen. Old fashioned buttons are better than finger-smudged, oversensitive screens
- Big memory, or SD to hold PDF files
- Bookshop-agnostic
- Good at reading PDF (meaning: not too slow page-turning and possibly PDF reflow)
- E-ink + backlight for night reading


Thank you for answers/suggestions/comments.
D.

It might be a little hard for you to find, depending on where you live, but the Sony PRS-T3 is close:

- has buttons; you still need to use touchscreen for menu navigation but having page turn, back, menu, and home buttons available cuts down on how often you need to touch the screen

- medium-ish memory; comes with around 1.5GB built it and a micro SD slot for memory card

- bookshop agnostic; uses Adobe DRM so you can buy from any epub seller

- PDF reading; around the same as other readers for page turns, but you can read many PDFs in reflow mode

- e-ink screen. No backlight but there is an OEM cover with integrated backlight if you want.

[BookCat]

To the other knowlegeable peeps: wasn't there a 9inch Kindle pre-touchscreens which was good for reading PDF? I think it was called something like a Kindle DX? Are they still available? Edit: just googled this and according to this article, which is a year old, they are still sold:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/05/am...eader-for-299/

Apart from that I think a tablet would be the best option. I've seen a review of the Onyx Book T68 on youtube and thought that if you want all those apps you'd be better with a tablet than an ereader, but I didn't realise it was eink and not lcd.

To the OP: I thought I'd hate a touchscreen, but after purchasing the Kindle PW2, I very quickly got used to it. I just give the screen a quick wipe with a pc screen cleaner occasionally. Don't notice the slight smudges. I've adjusted to the screen's sensitivity level. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for PDF's though. Oh, and it's not a bad idea to avoid epub readers imho, because of the new DRM. (There is another thread about this.)
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=231939
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=241904
Apart from this new epub issue Apprentice Alf and Calibre are your friends in making a reader bookshop agnostic.

[Smartie]

Originally Posted by BookCat

To the other knowlegeable peeps: wasn't there a 9inch Kindle pre-touchscreens which was good for reading PDF? I think it was called something like a Kindle DX? Are they still available? Edit: just googled this and according to this article, which is a year old, they are still sold:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/05/am...eader-for-299/

Apart from that I think a tablet would be the best option. I've seen a review of the Onyx Book T68 on youtube and thought that if you want all those apps you'd be better with a tablet than an ereader, but I didn't realise it was eink and not lcd.

To the OP: I thought I'd hate a touchscreen, but after purchasing the Kindle PW2, I very quickly got used to it. I just give the screen a quick wipe with a pc screen cleaner occasionally. Don't notice the slight smudges. I've adjusted to the screen's sensitivity level. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for PDF's though. Oh, and it's not a bad idea to avoid epub readers imho, because of the new DRM. (There is another thread about this.)
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=231939
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=241904
Apart from this new epub issue Apprentice Alf and Calibre are your friends in making a reader bookshop agnostic.

Op need backlight

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Smartie

Op need backlight

He can't have one. It's impossible to have a backlight on an eInk device, because the screen is opaque. That's why illuminated eInk devices have a frontlight.