Eink device for reading PDFs

[enthdegree]

Yes, this is another of those threads, sorry. All the other threads about PDFs get derailed, so here is a defensive list of requirements:

• Need to be able to zoom easily.
• Search needs to be fully functional, not an afterthought. List of results needs to be complete and easy to navigate.
• The device needs to be stable and responsive even when viewing complex documents.
• I am buying this device SPECIFICALLY and ONLY to not need to look at an LCD screen or print things all the time. I don't want a tablet.
• I don't care about PDF reflow. No one I know ever uses this feature.
• I don't need any highlighting/drawing/annotation ability past simple bookmarks.

Devices that meet these criteria DO EXIST. In 2011 I used a Nook Simple Touch with a PDF reader from the play store. It met all the needs listed above, but it broke. It's biggest warts were that it was slow, had a small screen, and had sporadic random crashes and reboots near EOL. Now it is 2015. Has anything more modern been released?

Here are some examples documents:

• https://terrytao.files.wordpress.com...sure-book1.pdf
• http://www.ifp.illinois.edu/~pramodv..._broadcast.pdf
• (yes, legal) 50mb large scans of textbooks

Thanks

[eschwartz]

I would suggest taking a look at some of the recent E-ink tablets that have been released.

Like the Boox_T68 or Boyue_T61

[Rizla]

Onyx has a 6.8" open android device, so that should work better than the Nook for pdf. Onyx also do a 9.7" device. I think Hanvon do one too, but I don't think they make it outside China. Apparently the Boyue is nicer than the Onyx, but it might only be 6".

[Dr. Drib]

You might consider the Onyx Boox M96 (or M96C).

[HarryT]

The fundamental problem is that complex PDFs need fast CPUs and lots of RAM to render correctly, and at an acceptable speed. eInk devices generally prioritise long battery life over performance, and have slow CPUs and little RAM.

Eg, try this public domain PDF:

http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/paintings1.pdf

(It's a scanned book containing pictures of paintings from Egyptian tombs, and is about 140MB in size).

On my iPad, the rendering speed is slow, but acceptable (it takes about 5-10s to render each page with a painting on it). I would hazard a guess that on an eInk tablet such as the T68 the performance would be so slow as to be unusable. I'd be interested to know how it performs, if anyone would care to try it!

This may of course not be an issue for PDFs that contain only text.

[rkomar]

I tried that paintings PDF on my PocketBook Inkpad, and it _does_ take a long time to render the pages with the detailed images. Page 17 took about 30 seconds, while the others near the beginning took about 15 seconds each. That is too long for comfortable reading. I logged in while it was running, and saw that memory wasn't an issue. The device has 512MB of RAM, and the reading program (AdobeViewer) was only using about a third of that (about half if virtual memory is included). The CPU was at 100% while I was waiting for the page turns. The CPU is a 1 GHz ARM chip, which is pretty decent for an E-Ink device. I wonder if there is a lot of floating-point math being done, since that would have to be emulated on these devices?

[HarryT]

Thanks for trying it - that's very interesting to know, although it is of course a PDF you'd really want a colour screen for, with it being a book of colour pictures.

[markom]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I tried that paintings PDF on my PocketBook Inkpad, and it _does_ take a long time to render the pages with the detailed images. Page 17 took about 30 seconds, while the others near the beginning took about 15 seconds each. That is too long for comfortable reading. I logged in while it was running, and saw that memory wasn't an issue. The device has 512MB of RAM, and the reading program (AdobeViewer) was only using about a third of that (about half if virtual memory is included). The CPU was at 100% while I was waiting for the page turns. The CPU is a 1 GHz ARM chip, which is pretty decent for an E-Ink device. I wonder if there is a lot of floating-point math being done, since that would have to be emulated on these devices?

It takes ages and resets my Kindle DX and its native pdf reader doesn't even show any pictures(18x23 inch) but text only, luckily it's not a problem to quickly print it out at about A4 size (8x11 inch) using any virtual printer, or to use k2pdfopt.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=919

Attachement; ten extracted pages, printed for A4 size that can be quickly rendered and flipped through on e-ink.

[JimMcLaren]

I have to say I'm impressed with my Onyx Boox T68. It reads PDFs well. I'm one who uses reflow and the T68 does it best. But for my technical books with lots of diagrams I read them rotated 90 degrees and it does an admirable job. Page turns on the paintings PDF was pretty good. To open a page with a painting (e.g. p43) takes about 10 seconds. That was pretty consistent on all the pages I viewed.

The reader comes with four reading programs installed. Two of them you can get for any android tablet, alreader & fbreader. I rarely use either one of them. I use either the Onyx reader or Neo reader. They both have their strengths.

I too had a simple touch and this beats that hands down. The only reader better for PDFs I've used is my Pocketbook 912. It's just too heavy to carry around with me. I will say my PB 302 was a good PDF reader until the SD card reader failed on me. I imagine any of the other Pocketbooks are just as good now. I'll stop ramblin now.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JimMcLaren

I have to say I'm impressed with my Onyx Boox T68. It reads PDFs well. I'm one who uses reflow and the T68 does it best. But for my technical books with lots of diagrams I read them rotated 90 degrees and it does an admirable job. Page turns on the paintings PDF was pretty good. To open a page with a painting (e.g. p43) takes about 10 seconds. That was pretty consistent on all the pages I viewed.

That's very impressive! Thanks for testing it, Jim.

[rkomar]

I was interested that Jim's times were much shorter than the ones I saw on my Inkpad, so I tested on my PocketBook Touch Lux, as well. That device has an 800 MHz ARM CPU, and only 128 MB of RAM. Despite not having enough RAM, it was also much faster than the Inkpad. The screen is much bigger on the Inkpad (1600x1200 vs. 1024x768), so I suspect that the larger output images were taking longer to render. It's too bad that the better resolution impacts the render time so badly.

[sadegh]

I was also looking for a ereder with big screen and capacity of opening pdf easily. unfortunately the only model I found almost perfect cost alot more than my budget. it works really nice and fluent (search it in youtube)

http://www.amazon.com/SONY-Digital-P...y+ebook+reader

[rpv]

Yesterday I went to the SONY showroom here and tried the Sony DIGITAL paper. It is so lightweight for its size, it blew me away. It is a A4 sized digital ereader. First generation. I don't even know if there will be a second generation. It only reads PDF and can update/annotate also. It is touted as for professionals - lawyers/entertainment industry/school folks like you.

It is amazing and I was almost clsoe to buying it but a thousand dollars, i came back and still thinking. It has 4 GB built in and 32 GB micro SD card capability. I took a microSD card and the associate helped me put it on the device. I could read English and other languages. Was more interested in Sanskrit. Absolutely gorgeous, but for a lesser price will be a no brainer. Also If it could read epub I would not second thought.

I really wonder why Sony did not release this in Android or at least have a wider support for 3book formats.

Anyway ask me questions on this as I spend an hour playing with it at the Stanford Shopping SONY retail store.