[jfontana]

Thanks a lot to everybody that responded!

Frabjous suggestions look interesting. If these programs work well, I might not need an expensive big screen e-reader to read the hundreds of PDFs I have accumulated. I wonder if DixieGal has tried them to render her PDFs for her 505. She says her pdf reading experience is not good with a 505.

Unfortunately I don't own a 505 myself to give it a try. I can get a hold of an old iLiad, though. So I'll see if transforming pdfs using these tools renders them readable on an iLiad and that might give me an idea of whether I can save some money buying a smaller screen ereader.

Using a netbook is not an option. I already have a pretty light laptop and I don't find the reading experience much better than with my desktop. My sight is pretty screwed up and I spend already way too much time in front of a computer screen. I have a 21 inch LCD screen on my desktop and that has made things better for me in comparison with my previous CRT screen. But I need something better for my eyes. Besides, my eyes are not my only problem. My back is also screwed up from sitting too many hours in front of a computer and I need to be able to lay down for a while and continue reading so an e-ink reader seems like the best choice for me. I've tried with a laptop and they are not designed as book readers: they are best used "on your lap". Besides, they are usually TERRIBLE to read outdoors. I can't see a thing. If someone knows of some good light laptop computer whose screen contents are visible outdoors, let me know because I would like to get a hold of one, too.

The suggestion from Daffy4u to wait and see what the deal is with the hoopla about Que from Plastic Logic is also a good one. I have been following the news about this product with great interest as it looks like the kind of ereader I am looking for. My fear is, though, that it will be yet another hugely expensive product that will fail precisely because of its price. There is already another ereader with big screen intended for the "professional" market, the iRex Digital Reader 1000S. At more than 600€, though, I don't think I'm going to go for it. Even if it hurts me, I will have to continue to print pdfs on (recycled) paper before spending this amount of money. If the price for the Plastic Logic product is considerably lower, I might consider it but, as I said, I don't have high hopes that they are going to be smart and have this product sold at a competitive price.

I hear that Sony is going to come up with with another large screen ereader. Maybe they will be smart and sell it at an affordable price.

For me the ideal situation would be to have a good ereader with a large screen and have a laptop with the same pdf loaded at the same time. This way you get the best of both worlds: doing most of the reading on the ereader and use the laptop when you have to search the pdf or ad some annotation or take some notes. In the future, a killer product would be one that has e-ink on one side and LCD on the other side. Something similar to the Nook but implemented differently. You could do most of the reading on the e-ink side and you could turn on the LCD side to navigate through the document faster, do searches, etc. I haven't patented the idea so I hope some company can pick it up and implement it :-)