Hello, and welcome to the forum. Glad to see you here.
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Originally Posted by Brazos_Jack
Most of the e-reading I would do would involve classic literature, most of which is available free in PDF format – some reflowable and some image based and therefore not;
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Well, most if not all classics are also available for free in flowable formats such as Mobipocket, Text, etc. From places like manybooks.net, feedbooks.com and mobileread.com. So, you don't really need PDF support for those titles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brazos_Jack
technical manuals and literature related to the oil industry – mostly image based PDF’s and not reflowable; and books, periodicals, catalogs and manuals in PDF format related to my hobbies – the shooting sports and motor cycles. I also would use an e-reader to read a number of work or personal documents which are now in Microsoft Word DOC format, but which could be converted to RTF or TXT. I really hate TXT though.
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Ok, this is where it gets difficult. Are you really married to using a eInk based device? You don't really say, you basically say "eReader".
Many people on the forum do use "other devices", non-dedicated to ebook reading since they did have the above requierments. Some of these options are things like MIDs/UMPC type formats. Like the Nokia 800/810, the Pepper Pad, HP Jourandas, etc. These generally support much more formats and can run Adobe reader which has very good support for PDFs.
Others go a little bigger and have gotten the 7inch Eee PC. There are also a bunch of these small/low cost laptops out there... the MSI Wind, the Elonex One T, Acer Aspire One, and Dell Mini Inspiron to name a few. The advantage here is that these run full blown OS's, some Linux, some Win XP so they will support any book format, DRM or no, and also the bigger size screens will make reading PDF's a much better experience, however they are light enough so you can actually put them in your lap like a book. Most of them are in the 2-3lb range.
Of course the disadvantage to the above mentioned "readers" are that they are "not" eInk screens, so have backlited LCD screens which are hard to read outside in the sun (I you are into that). Also, the battery life is no where near what a Sony reader or Kindle would be.
Anyway, I know everyone has told you about the eInk stuff and I just wanted to present the alternatives which MAY fit your needs better. Rather than getting a $600 iRex you could get both a $250 Sony reader AND a $300 Eee or other mini laptop.
HTH,
BOb