Quote:
Originally Posted by DuoCore
Hi MobileRead,
Well, you guys are the world's best resource for finding out everything there is to know about e-book readers. I'm sure that you've all heard my questions before but I can't find them >< so after a bit of searching I decided to just go ahead and make a post.
I'm looking for the device that would work best for me. You guys are choosing my Christmas present so please! 
What I need in a device:
I am a Help Desk technician. I'm in the process of studying various certification materials and other items that I'd really prefer to have in e-book form so that I can carry an e-book reader around with me instead of about 60 lbs of study books (if you've ever held 2+ certification books at a time, you know what I mean.)
Most of these are plain text, have no pictures, and all came with pdf format versions of the books.
What my real question is - what ebook reader handles converted ebooks the best? I know that most devices support PDF natively now, but from what I have been able to understand is that once they are on the device they are slow, pages require sideways scrolling and the such. I'd be converting e-books via Calibre and I'm not sure what that does but from my understanding it does make the process a 'little' better?
And if pdfs are converted to whatever the native format of the ebook reader is, does it keep all of the native features such as searching, text to speech and the such, or do I lose all of that?
I have no intentions on buying any e-books from any of the stores specifically and the device will mainly be used to store pdfs and documents that I already currently own.
To sum up;
TL;DR -
Which ebook reader handles converted via Calibre pdfs the best while keeping all their features and under $200.
Thanks!!  |
Hi and welcome,
If you need to read PDFs, forget about converting :-) ... because the type of format results are not going to be as expected, for not using the word "horrible".
In my opinion, you have 2 choices: Kindle DX or Nook Color.
Nook Color is way much faster than Kindle DX but uses LCD and the battery is not so good. It should give you about 5 to 10 hrs of continue usage depending of brightness and wifi (on or off). Kindle DX gives you between 7 and 10 days with just 1 charge. But Kindle DX is a bit slower when turning pages, besides is not color (not a big problem on technical books though)
I do have both right now with me and I do prefer the Kindle DXG. Without expanding or rotating, you can read the page as displayed, thanks to the 9 inches screen. Even with its heavier weight, for me is easier to handle, I think because the weight distribution.
v1k1ng1001 is also right. A table is another PDF alternative as well: Galaxy, iPad? it depends of your budget.
Take a look, feel both in a store close to you, that's my best advice!