For Technical PDFs: Kindle DX now or PocketBook 901 in Septermber?

[exapted]

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.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by exapted

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).

If you're talking about automatically cropping the white space around the border of a pdf then no, the DX does not do that. You can use tools to trim the white space from a pdf yourself though (I use ImageMagick).

Originally Posted by exapted

(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.)

There is no link support for pdfs on the DX. You can jump to a page by typing the page number, you can add bookmarks, and the DX automatically bookmarks the last page you were reading and then auto loads that page when reopening the pdf. But there is no toc support or internal link support, which is a real pain when reading technical pdfs.

You should probably check out the Kindle forum and read up on DX pdf support. My experience has been hit or miss... sometimes the pdfs are rendered well, other times the text is displayed small, gray, and almost unreadable. I've had good luck with technical pdfs (I'm a software engineer, so I read tons of technical pdfs), but the lack of link support can be annoying. The latest update which is coming out soon will add zoom support for pdfs.

Originally Posted by exapted

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.

The Notion Ink Adam looks very interesting. It's the only other reader I would consider aside from the Kindle DX and iPad. We won't know how good of a reader it is until its release sometime this summer (I think they're still working on Flash support), but I would guess that its eye comfort will be great.

You may want to also consider an iPad. I know, it's an lcd, but reading on it is still comfortable (not as great as the Kindle) and it has full pdf features (buy Goodreader for $1, amazing pdf reader).

[exapted]

Originally Posted by lilman

If you're talking about automatically cropping the white space around the border of a pdf then no, the DX does not do that. You can use tools to trim the white space from a pdf yourself though (I use ImageMagick).

I guess cropping the PDFs myself won't be too bad.

Originally Posted by lilman

There is no link support for pdfs on the DX. You can jump to a page by typing the page number, you can add bookmarks, and the DX automatically bookmarks the last page you were reading and then auto loads that page when reopening the pdf. But there is no toc support or internal link support, which is a real pain when reading technical pdfs.

You should probably check out the Kindle forum and read up on DX pdf support. My experience has been hit or miss... sometimes the pdfs are rendered well, other times the text is displayed small, gray, and almost unreadable. I've had good luck with technical pdfs (I'm a software engineer, so I read tons of technical pdfs), but the lack of link support can be annoying. The latest update which is coming out soon will add zoom support for pdfs.

I will check out the Kindle forum, especially the DX pdf support. I am wondering, though, if I can create a bookmark at the beginning of each chapter, then jump to my bookmarks through a bookmark menu. I read a few threads mentioning pdf bookmarks, but I didn't notice anyone mention whether you can solve the pdf navigation problem using multiple bookmarks. I was thinking I could use my laptop to quickly scroll through a pdf, and note the page number for each chapter, then jump to those page numbers and set bookmarks.

Originally Posted by lilman

The Notion Ink Adam looks very interesting. It's the only other reader I would consider aside from the Kindle DX and iPad. We won't know how good of a reader it is until its release sometime this summer (I think they're still working on Flash support), but I would guess that its eye comfort will be great.

You may want to also consider an iPad. I know, it's an lcd, but reading on it is still comfortable (not as great as the Kindle) and it has full pdf features (buy Goodreader for $1, amazing pdf reader).

Thanks for all of the information. I'm working on a few Android apps, so I'm sort of biased in favor of Notion Ink Adam if I get a tablet, but the iPad does look fantastic and like you said we haven't seen the Adam yet.

[johndoesecond]

Originally Posted by lilman

If you're talking about automatically cropping the white space around the border of a pdf then no, the DX does not do that. You can use tools to trim the white space from a pdf yourself though (I use ImageMagick).
.

My answer would be the opposite: yes it does!

Indeed, Kindle DX crops all the white margins possible to make the PDF as big as possible on the screen. Of course, sometimes you may find some white space on the top-bottom OR left-right side of the page, but that is obviously due to the different aspect ratio of the "text bounding box" in comparison to DX's display.

[JimMcLaren]

I use a Pocketbook 302 and imagine the capabilities of the PB 901 would at least be equal to that. The PDF rendering of the PB 302 is exceptional. Prior to the PB 302 I used a Sony PRS 600 and had to crop my PDFs. I used soPDF or PdfCrop for that. The PB 302 will zoom to margins and if I rotate to landscape the reading experience is reasonable. Even for complex PDFs. It has outstanding table of content support.

If it were me I'd wait for the 901, but I have the 302 to fall back on.

[exapted]

Originally Posted by johndoesecond

My answer would be the opposite: yes it does!

Indeed, Kindle DX crops all the white margins possible to make the PDF as big as possible on the screen. Of course, sometimes you may find some white space on the top-bottom OR left-right side of the page, but that is obviously due to the different aspect ratio of the "text bounding box" in comparison to DX's display.

Interesting, that's what I originally thought.

One little question for you, about the DX: Can you set multiple bookmarks in a pdf document, and use that to jump to the beginnings of chapters? (I have been reading some Kindle DX threads about pdfs, but none that I have seen seem to really pin that issue down.)

[exapted]

Originally Posted by JimMcLaren

I use a Pocketbook 302 and imagine the capabilities of the PB 901 would at least be equal to that. The PDF rendering of the PB 302 is exceptional. Prior to the PB 302 I used a Sony PRS 600 and had to crop my PDFs. I used soPDF or PdfCrop for that. The PB 302 will zoom to margins and if I rotate to landscape the reading experience is reasonable. Even for complex PDFs. It has outstanding table of content support.

If it were me I'd wait for the 901, but I have the 302 to fall back on.

Nice. So I guess the PocketBook 901 would be ideal for academic/technical pdfs. That is, unless the Kindle gets much better pdf support. But it sounds like PocketBook has a proven track record in that regard.

Two questions for you:
(1) Can you use your PB 302 to view 1/3 to 1/2 a page at a time in landscape mode without using software to separate the document into smaller sized pages? This is not really important but I'm just sort of interested if you have a spare moment to answer.
(2) How is keyword / string searching in the 302? How do you enter text to search, and can it search through groups of or all of your documents at once?

(I am thinking that handwriting is useless, since I never write in my books anyway. I do like to write stuff down, but only on a blank sheet and I don't think the stylus input on any current ereader will be good enough to write down mathematical formulas, draw graphs and diagrams for cognitive aids, etc.)

[LonelyStar]

Hey,

A question from someone who does not know much about eBook readers:
Why are you not considering the enTourage eDGe?

[exapted]

Originally Posted by LonelyStar

Hey,

A question from someone who does not know much about eBook readers:
Why are you not considering the enTourage eDGe?

I think the e-ink display on that device only has 8 levels of grey vs. 16. I've tried some of my scanned pdfs in 8 level ebook readers and they didn't look quite as good. Secondly, the edge is a bit heavier and bulkier than I want. But, the price is really good and it runs Android (I develop Android apps), so actually I have considered it. For a student viewing pdfs that are of very high quality, it might be ideal. It is a cool device. I'm just pretty adamant about getting a 16 level e-ink screen, and if not, then I would just get a tablet with Pixel Qi (Notion Ink Adam).

I've been thinking, and I think the ideal device for me would be the PocketBook 902, with stylus input. It will be very light, like 350g, with a 9.7" 16-level screen. It will be slightly thicker than Kindle DX, but that might just make it easier to grip while reading. It will not have as much wasted space around the edges either. I'm probably going to hold out until September or October for that. It will have a non-glossy screen, won't be too expensive, and will be good for navigating pdfs. The only thing I think it might be missing is some sort of RSS reader or browser, but I'm not really sure about that.

[JimMcLaren]

Originally Posted by exapted

(1) Can you use your PB 302 to view 1/3 to 1/2 a page at a time in landscape mode without using software to separate the document into smaller sized pages? This is not really important but I'm just sort of interested if you have a spare moment to answer.

Unfortunately, no. I can view about 1/2 of the screen at a time. With smaller margins I might get closer to 1/3 of the screen visible. I then scroll the screen up with the touch screen, usually my finger, occasionally the stylus. This probably is better than an arbitrary division when I have a diagram on the page. I drag the diagram to the top of the screen.

Originally Posted by exapted

(2) How is keyword / string searching in the 302? How do you enter text to search, and can it search through groups of or all of your documents at once?

It's not too bad. It seems to be slower in PDFs than other ebooks but that may be because my PDFs are generally longer than my other ebooks. I'll try to attach some pictures. In the first screen you can see how the PDF looks in layout with the keyboard on the bottom half. The second has the results of the search for "anonymous". It took 30 seconds or more to search a 726 page document. But moving to the next page where it found it was nearly instantaneous.

As far as I know you can't search through your books, only from within a book.

One think that made me decide on the PB 302 instead of the Onyx Boox even though the Boox has better PDF rendering capabilities is that the 302 did not require a Wacom stylus. I know I'd loose that thing before too long. And I don't have to pull it out to use the reader.

[exapted]

Well folks, I broke down and ordered an iRex DR1000S for 600 USD. I have a lot of stuff I need to read and a long train ride every day. I also decided that it would be very useful to be able to write stuff down with a stylus occasionally. Also, the supposedly very good pdf handling and the higher dpi (158 dpi) attracted me. I would probably slightly prefer something else later on, but I'm pretty sure I'll be happy with this one for at least a few years, and happy with my purchase in the long-run as long as the device doesn't malfunction.

Thanks lilman, johndoesecond, JimMcLaren (thanks for those pics too).

I'll post a review (with video) of the iRex DR1000S after I use it for at least a few weeks.

[PhishStyx]

I have the iRex DR1000S and use it a lot. I personally love the thing.

[jgatkinsn]

You may want to wait until the Kindle DX gets its next firmware update. There's supposed to be some improved PDF support in version 2.5. It's supposed to release soon.

[Barlo]

It seems Notion Ink [I]were[I] looking at a July release date but after taking on new investors it is being pushed back to November now.
http://besttabletreview.com/notion-i...this-november/