The Big List of Android eBook Reader Apps

[abenderx]

Hi all -
A couple things I thought I'd throw out here:
- On Kindle for Android: I downloaded and tested it last week, only to find that it ONLY allows for Amazon purchase/download/read. if you have a collection of PRC, MOBI, PDB or whatever, you CAN NOT import your books into this reader no matter what the format. HUGE BUMMER. I was very interested in this app because of the issue I bring up next.
- One (other) issue that is of some importance to me (I spent almost 5 years on several WinMo devices reading with MobiPocket) is simple text formatting - boldface and italics specifically. The fact is, NONE of the Android readers are capable of displaying anything other then basic text unless you go into the faux-browser mode that doesn't do paging or anything else properly. I've tried FBreader and iReader, AEPreader, you name it and I've tried it. None of them render bold or italics. I may have been spoiled by Mobi, and I curse the day Amazon bought them and halted all new platform development to push everyone into Kindles, but I very much miss the days of simply converting an ebook on the desktop and having it display as expected on the phone. Hopefully soon someone will get this 'feature.'
iReader is my choice after spending a lot of time with fbReader prior to switching again. I say this given its handling of PRC, PDB and even upcoming ePub. I also like the ability to utilize the volume toggle as page up/down. It's a great interface, my favorite honestly - the developer hasn't made an update in some time, but I keep hoping!

[Dopedangel]

My problem with most the epub readers in android so far is that they all ask me to import books and make their own library. So once I do that I can not open those book with another reader. What the hell if I wanted to be tied down to a reader I would have bought
a kindle.

[jschall]

There is a very nice new version of Laputa Reader available on the Android Market:
http://laputareader.com/ http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/...ta-Book-Reader
Its reading features are fairly basic. But one standout feature I love is the animated page flip. And it auto-scrolls!

Another nice feature is that it directly downloads epub books to your sd card from two built-in catalogues - Feedbooks and Blazer Books (http://www.blazerbook.com/ http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Blazer-Books).

It also can import non-DRM .epubs from your SD card.

A nice addition to reading on your Android device.

[bugeyed]

Still looking for a reader that will store the books in internal mem & not the SD card. I know most prefer the opposite, but with an Android tablet there is often enough internal mem to handle a collection. Aldiko would be fine if it didn't take over the SD card. The reader on the Pandigital Novel uses internal mem., but it doesn't have some features that Aldiko has.
Cheers,
kev

[abenderx]

Dopedangel - I can tell you for sure that neither fbReader or iReader create a library beyond the listing of their respective "home" directory on the sd card. For fbReader believe it was /sdcard/books and for iReader it's /sdcard/iReader. I shuffle books in and out of the respective directory and that's all there is to it.

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by abenderx

Dopedangel - I can tell you for sure that neither fbReader or iReader create a library beyond the listing of their respective "home" directory on the sd card. For fbReader believe it was /sdcard/books and for iReader it's /sdcard/iReader. I shuffle books in and out of the respective directory and that's all there is to it.

As far as I know ireader doesn't support epub
And I am using fbreader.
My gripe with fbreader is that it does not allow me to browse my ebook directory
it just populates the metadata from the books in its database so I am unable to find the sequence of a series.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by jschall

There is a very nice new version of Laputa Reader available on the Android Market:
http://laputareader.com/ http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/...ta-Book-Reader
Its reading features are fairly basic. But one standout feature I love is the animated page flip. And it auto-scrolls!

Another nice feature is that it directly downloads epub books to your sd card from two built-in catalogues - Feedbooks and Blazer Books (http://www.blazerbook.com/ http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Blazer-Books).

It also can import non-DRM .epubs from your SD card.

A nice addition to reading on your Android device.

I downloaded Laputa from the Market (again) and can't for the life of me figure out how to "import non-DRM .epubs". Perhaps I'm a little dense, but I can get the file to show up in the library but when I try to open it it says "The book you selected is not found on the SD Card".

Well it most certainly IS on the SD Card, in four different folders! And the Laputa help file offers no help.

Laputa; fails again!

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by abenderx

Hi all -
A couple things I thought I'd throw out here:
- On Kindle for Android: I downloaded and tested it last week, only to find that it ONLY allows for Amazon purchase/download/read. if you have a collection of PRC, MOBI, PDB or whatever, you CAN NOT import your books into this reader no matter what the format. HUGE BUMMER.

With the newest version you can just copy your mobi files into the Kindle folder and you're good to go. Works great.

[Halfchan]

I am using iReader (Free) on a HTC Desire..very good but crap in daylight...someone mentioned that it Autoscrolls...how do you enable this?

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by jschall

Another nice feature is that it directly downloads epub books to your sd card from two built-in catalogues - Feedbooks and Blazer Books

The Blazer Books site seems to contain large amounts of pirated material; I don't think you're supposed to link to things like that here.

Until recently, Laputa offered downloads of pirated material in the App Market. Then those downloads vanished, and now I gather the same or similar material is downloadable from within the app. Must be a story there....

[jschall]

Originally Posted by wodin

can't for the life of me figure out how to "import non-DRM .epubs"...it most certainly IS on the SD Card, in four different folders! And the Laputa help file offers no help.

Agreed, the import feature is not documented, yet. There is active discussion about importing on the Laputa Facebook page. The program is still under active development.

I have succeeded by copying the desired .epub file directly into the sdcard/laputabooks directory - and not into a sub-directory.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by jschall

Agreed, the import feature is not documented, yet. There is active discussion about importing on the Laputa Facebook page. The program is still under active development.

I have succeeded by copying the desired .epub file directly into the sdcard/laputabooks directory - and not into a sub-directory.

Did that, also made a folder in the laputabooks folder and copied it in there, also copied it into the import folder.

The best results were when I made the folder and put the file there, the library could see it, but when checked the put it on the bookshelf check block it showed up on the bookshelf. But whe I tried to open the book, it said the file wasn't found on the SD card.

This process is obviously not well thought out.

I have a file (Atlas Shrugged) that I bought from ??? someone affiliated with Laputa which downloaded and opens correctly, but I have an extensive library of non-DRM ePubs in Calibre that work fine in FBReader but not in Laputa.

[bugeyed]

Don't have it in front of me, but if I remember correctly, FBReader library does not list books by title. It offers Tag, Author & something else, but not Title????
kev

[lcalvin]

I paid the $1.99 after about 10 minutes. In the pay version, when you are in a book, go to the menu, choose settings and you can turn on and off autoscroll and control various elements.

[abenderx]

Originally Posted by bugeyed

Still looking for a reader that will store the books in internal mem & not the SD card. I know most prefer the opposite, but with an Android tablet there is often enough internal mem to handle a collection. Aldiko would be fine if it didn't take over the SD card. The reader on the Pandigital Novel uses internal mem., but it doesn't have some features that Aldiko has.
Cheers,
kev

fbReader should work for this Bug - you can manually set the folder in which it will look for eBooks, so that should allow for the location of your choice.
To get to the setting, you pull up the menu, choose "More" - then choose "Settings" - the top item under "Library" is "Directories to see for books" (bad grammer, but hey lol). You can specify the folder there.

I'm guessing that you'll need to have the folder already in place before you can point to it since there doesn't seem to be a "create new" option in the setting (lol) so I'd probably use Linda Manager or Astro, navigate up to the root, create your folder and then you can go into the above setting and specify the folder.