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radius · 01-07-2014, 02:22 PM

Apologies in advance for the long post. I am trying to decide if I should give up my trusty Sony PRS-505 for something modern.

About me:

An e-book reader since the first Palm Pilot in 1997.

I almost exclusively read linear text with the occasional illustration such as novels and non-fiction bestsellers, ie: no textbooks, scientific papers or anything like that. I have settled on epub format (although I do have some legacy mobi and lit books).

I care most about the in-book reading experience, with the speed and convenience of navigation coming close behind.

By in-book reading experience, I mean things like:

clear and high contrast screen. I understand most modern reader use the same Pearl screen, but while I haven't been able to do back-to-back comparisons, the Sony T3 looks much clearer to me than the Kobo Aura for example. I think this is partly due to the extra layers on the Kobo for the light guide and capacitive touch, but seems also partly due to the firmware of the Kobo
good font rendering, justification, hyphenation, graphics and grey scale conversion (for eink devices), good handling of widows, orphans and rivers etc. I am guessing I will have no luck on this front as most companies will just use Adobe's software or something Webkit based? Good looking built-in fonts would be a plus. I think I like Sony's the most for clarity, but again, haven't been able to do back-to-back comparisons.
display customisability. It would be nice to be able to use user-loaded fonts and to adjust margins, justification, line spacing, paragraph spacing and indentation on the fly. I have been doing this by hand editing epubs and using custom stylesheets and fonts for my Sony (this way I don't have the issue of all my books looking the same either).
lightweight hardware. The lighter it is, the easier it is to hold one-handed or for long periods
.

Speed and convenience of navigation:

easy one handed page turns. I read a lot while standing on the bus or in other situations where I am holding the ereader in only one hand. I don't want to have to do a swipe or anything like that to change the page
clean UI. Will the UI stay out of my way and just be optimised on letting me find my book, open it, and start reading? I don't particularly want to waste screen space on ads, recommendations, achievements etc.

Can I jump to the chapter I want quickly? How about hunting for a particular page if I left off reading on another device?
good sorting options would be nice. Things like alphabetical and by authour of course, but also by page count, file size, time loaded, last read.
fast. When I flip through my list of books, will this be as fast as the e-ink can update itself? Will the device make me wait while it re-scans it's storage space to find new books etc. I hate getting bogged down while my Sony tries to render a large or complicated book cover or other illustration.

Nice to have:

Support for other formats like RTF or PDF for when I am feeling lazy about converting. I don't particularly like Calibre's generated HTML so I do conversions by hand.
Lots of sideloading options. Dropbox integration would be my ideal, but SD card and USB mass storage are OK too.
Overdrive built in would be convenient for library books.
Lighted display maybe? I try not to read in environments where it is too dark to read a printed book so I'm not sure how helpful this is apart from the occasional twilight/cloudy day.
Wikipedia support maybe? I don't find included dictionaries to be all that useful, but Wikipedia might be nice for added context.

Don't care:

Most of the innovation in readers seems to be around things I don't care about.

Lack of eink flashes. I'd prefer the page background to be as white as possible and the text to be as dark as possible over marginally faster page turns. From what I have seen in the store, I think you get some ghosting if you don't refresh the screen enough. You could convince me otherwise though.

I have been reading on eink long enough that my mind no longer even sees the page turn anyway.
Store. Between the library, Mobileread and Munsey's my reading list grows faster than I can keep up, so I buy very few books nowadays. The only seller I have given any significant amount of money to is Baen because of their no-DRM policy.
Dictionary, highlighting, annotations etc.
Web browsing and other internet integration like Evernote, Facebook, Pocket etc.
Audiobooks, mp3, speech to text
Additional book context like Kindle's XRay and Kobo's similar feature
3G or wifi (unless I get integration with Dropbox or other cloud storage)
synchronizing your page and book read across multiple devices and apps. I do this manually and don't find it to be any hardship.
Massive built in memory. I want lots of RAM because that seems to help with fast rendering, long chapters and complex graphics, but I don't care too much about book storage. I try to keep under twenty or thirty books on hand at any time so I am not paralyzed by choice when opening the next book.
Series, collection or tag support. Since I don't have too many books at once on the device these don't make a big difference to my navigation.

01-07-2014, 02:22 PM	#1
radius Lector minore Posts: 660 Karma: 1738720 Join Date: Jan 2008 Device: Aura One, Paperwhite Signature	Comfortable linear reading Apologies in advance for the long post. I am trying to decide if I should give up my trusty Sony PRS-505 for something modern. About me: An e-book reader since the first Palm Pilot in 1997. I almost exclusively read linear text with the occasional illustration such as novels and non-fiction bestsellers, ie: no textbooks, scientific papers or anything like that. I have settled on epub format (although I do have some legacy mobi and lit books). I care most about the in-book reading experience, with the speed and convenience of navigation coming close behind. By in-book reading experience, I mean things like: clear and high contrast screen. I understand most modern reader use the same Pearl screen, but while I haven't been able to do back-to-back comparisons, the Sony T3 looks much clearer to me than the Kobo Aura for example. I think this is partly due to the extra layers on the Kobo for the light guide and capacitive touch, but seems also partly due to the firmware of the Kobo good font rendering, justification, hyphenation, graphics and grey scale conversion (for eink devices), good handling of widows, orphans and rivers etc. I am guessing I will have no luck on this front as most companies will just use Adobe's software or something Webkit based? Good looking built-in fonts would be a plus. I think I like Sony's the most for clarity, but again, haven't been able to do back-to-back comparisons. display customisability. It would be nice to be able to use user-loaded fonts and to adjust margins, justification, line spacing, paragraph spacing and indentation on the fly. I have been doing this by hand editing epubs and using custom stylesheets and fonts for my Sony (this way I don't have the issue of all my books looking the same either). lightweight hardware. The lighter it is, the easier it is to hold one-handed or for long periods . Speed and convenience of navigation: easy one handed page turns. I read a lot while standing on the bus or in other situations where I am holding the ereader in only one hand. I don't want to have to do a swipe or anything like that to change the page clean UI. Will the UI stay out of my way and just be optimised on letting me find my book, open it, and start reading? I don't particularly want to waste screen space on ads, recommendations, achievements etc. Can I jump to the chapter I want quickly? How about hunting for a particular page if I left off reading on another device? good sorting options would be nice. Things like alphabetical and by authour of course, but also by page count, file size, time loaded, last read. fast. When I flip through my list of books, will this be as fast as the e-ink can update itself? Will the device make me wait while it re-scans it's storage space to find new books etc. I hate getting bogged down while my Sony tries to render a large or complicated book cover or other illustration. Nice to have: Support for other formats like RTF or PDF for when I am feeling lazy about converting. I don't particularly like Calibre's generated HTML so I do conversions by hand. Lots of sideloading options. Dropbox integration would be my ideal, but SD card and USB mass storage are OK too. Overdrive built in would be convenient for library books. Lighted display maybe? I try not to read in environments where it is too dark to read a printed book so I'm not sure how helpful this is apart from the occasional twilight/cloudy day. Wikipedia support maybe? I don't find included dictionaries to be all that useful, but Wikipedia might be nice for added context. Don't care: Most of the innovation in readers seems to be around things I don't care about. Lack of eink flashes. I'd prefer the page background to be as white as possible and the text to be as dark as possible over marginally faster page turns. From what I have seen in the store, I think you get some ghosting if you don't refresh the screen enough. You could convince me otherwise though. I have been reading on eink long enough that my mind no longer even sees the page turn anyway. Store. Between the library, Mobileread and Munsey's my reading list grows faster than I can keep up, so I buy very few books nowadays. The only seller I have given any significant amount of money to is Baen because of their no-DRM policy. Dictionary, highlighting, annotations etc. Web browsing and other internet integration like Evernote, Facebook, Pocket etc. Audiobooks, mp3, speech to text Additional book context like Kindle's XRay and Kobo's similar feature 3G or wifi (unless I get integration with Dropbox or other cloud storage) synchronizing your page and book read across multiple devices and apps. I do this manually and don't find it to be any hardship. Massive built in memory. I want lots of RAM because that seems to help with fast rendering, long chapters and complex graphics, but I don't care too much about book storage. I try to keep under twenty or thirty books on hand at any time so I am not paralyzed by choice when opening the next book. Series, collection or tag support. Since I don't have too many books at once on the device these don't make a big difference to my navigation. Last edited by radius; 01-07-2014 at 02:34 PM.