G'day folks,
I know it's suggested that I go to the Introductions forum for my first post, but at this stage I wish to ruthlessly and carelessly abuse your generosity of advice and suggestion by asking for your help in choosing a device, or devices, for reading ebooks. Alas, Amazon has rekindled my interest (and don't blame me for the blatant pun - it's Amazon's fault, and exactly what their damned PR team expected to happen
).
First up, I live in Australia, so the Kindle is not an option, though I suspect that if Amazon
did actually come to Australia ~COUGH~not-bloody-likely~COUGH it may actually be the right device for me.
See, what I am mostly seeking to use this device for is reading (first), and referencing (second), old literature (ie. all the free stuff
). Under the reference heading, I'd also like to use dictionary capabilities (including English-foreign language dictionaries), but also encyclopedia capabilities if possible. It would seem to me that the absence of "text search" may limit some possiblities here. The reading aspect would not appear to be so limited.
As a compromise, I am thinking this...
Buy a dedicated reader (Sony? Bookeen?) and use it for reading.
Also buy a PDA (Palm T/X perhaps?) and use it and its apparent(?) wealth of utilities for any reference I want to do (it would be better at "text search" of said books, yes?). It is not a problem to have both with me (reading the ebook device, with EInk easy on the eyes, in bed which is where I do most my reading, and having the PDA on my bedside, or taking them both with me when travelling, or just the PDA if I'm only wanting to reference stuff - I *could* get a "smartphone" PDA, yes, I know, but I would like to avoid that).
Does this sound like a reasonable scenario, and, if so, are there any specific devices that you would recommend (and do the devices I mention sound right- or wrong-headed
)?
I hope I've put the above together right. I've reread it, and it sounds okay, but I've also spent the last two days looking at options, and finding the limitations, and I'm rather perplexed myself at the moment. It may show.
Anyway, my exceedingly grateful thanks are offered in advance.
Cheers,
Marc