MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - For Technical PDFs: Kindle DX now or PocketBook 901 in Septermber?

exapted · 05-14-2010, 09:09 AM

I'm wondering whether I should buy a Kindle DX now or wait for a PocketBook 901, coming out in September.

BACKGROUND (skip if you want):
I have loads of computer science and math textbooks in PDF format, some with large margins and without table of contents. I've read in the E-book Reader Matrix that the PocketBook 901 might have manual PDF cropping, PDF zooming, and support PDF table of contents -based navigation. Cropping and zooming is perhaps not the most important thing, because I can run PDF Crop on my PDFs and the screens on both devices are big enough. Also, I have heard that the Kindle DX supports auto-crop (although sometimes some artifacts on the edges of the pages could mess that up).

I have three questions:

(1) How easy is it to navigate around a Kindle DX PDF using bookmarks and/or page numbers? (Often the page number of a PDF doesn't match with the page number in the table of contents, so I think I would prefer to set a bookmark for each chapter rather than memorize the page numbers for chapters.)

(2) If I waited for the PocketBook 901,

(a) do you think the table of contents support would reduce the number of button presses necessary to reach a page in a typical use case? If so, would it be worth going through all my PDFs and adding tables of contents with some kind of PDF editing software?

(b) do you think the manual cropping support would obviate the need to run PDF Crop?

Once I get an ebook reader, I'll report my experiences. I'm also thinking about the Notion Ink Adam, with Pixel Qi display, although I'm not convinced its transflective LCD will be as easy on the eyes as e-ink. My priorities, in order, are (1) readability, eye comfort, (2) speed of navigation, (3) cost, and (a distant last) (4) use as tablet computer possibly with bluetooth PAN / Wifi tethering from another device with 3G/4G. If I become convinced that a transflective LCD is good enough as far as readability and eye comfort goes, then I will probably go with a Notion Ink Adam. Battery life would not usually be a factor, and navigation would be faster too.

Thanks for reading, and great forum.

05-14-2010, 09:09 AM	#1
exapted Member Posts: 11 Karma: 12 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Hong Kong Device: iRex DR1000S	For Technical PDFs: Kindle DX now or PocketBook 901 in Septermber? I'm wondering whether I should buy a Kindle DX now or wait for a PocketBook 901, coming out in September. BACKGROUND (skip if you want): I have loads of computer science and math textbooks in PDF format, some with large margins and without table of contents. I've read in the E-book Reader Matrix that the PocketBook 901 might have manual PDF cropping, PDF zooming, and support PDF table of contents -based navigation. Cropping and zooming is perhaps not the most important thing, because I can run PDF Crop on my PDFs and the screens on both devices are big enough. Also, I have heard that the Kindle DX supports auto-crop (although sometimes some artifacts on the edges of the pages could mess that up). I have three questions: (1) How easy is it to navigate around a Kindle DX PDF using bookmarks and/or page numbers? (Often the page number of a PDF doesn't match with the page number in the table of contents, so I think I would prefer to set a bookmark for each chapter rather than memorize the page numbers for chapters.) (2) If I waited for the PocketBook 901, (a) do you think the table of contents support would reduce the number of button presses necessary to reach a page in a typical use case? If so, would it be worth going through all my PDFs and adding tables of contents with some kind of PDF editing software? (b) do you think the manual cropping support would obviate the need to run PDF Crop? Once I get an ebook reader, I'll report my experiences. I'm also thinking about the Notion Ink Adam, with Pixel Qi display, although I'm not convinced its transflective LCD will be as easy on the eyes as e-ink. My priorities, in order, are (1) readability, eye comfort, (2) speed of navigation, (3) cost, and (a distant last) (4) use as tablet computer possibly with bluetooth PAN / Wifi tethering from another device with 3G/4G. If I become convinced that a transflective LCD is good enough as far as readability and eye comfort goes, then I will probably go with a Notion Ink Adam. Battery life would not usually be a factor, and navigation would be faster too. Thanks for reading, and great forum.