7.8" or 8.0" e-ink as pdf readers?

[MarjaE]

Tried a Galaxy Tab A7 last week.

I tried reducing screen brightness, and using software filters to further reduce effective brightness. I couldn't find a balance which was dim enough to avoid migraines from excess brightness, and readable enough to read.

So sticking to e-ink for the forseeable future.

[MarjaE]

Glowlight Plus is down to $150 from Barnes & Noble, but I don't think it's as flexible as the Boox and Boyue models.

Kobo Forma, $220 from Rakuten Kobo.

Nova Pro, $250 new from Amazon.

[james_]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

Glowlight Plus is down to $150 from Barnes & Noble, but I don't think it's as flexible as the Boox and Boyue models.

Kobo Forma, $220 from Rakuten Kobo.

Nova Pro, $250 new from Amazon.

Does it HAVE to be new?

Your best bet is to get a secondhand 10in Onyx Note Pro device and suffer the short term financial pain, which probably doesn't actually need to be that bad. If you're reading a lot of books, consider the time you're going to spend with this device. As you know from your Kindle DX, they can last a good long time if you look after them. So a raid of the piggybank is worth it when you get hours of enjoyment out of it.

Onyx Note Pro seem to go for around $250-$300 in the US based on the eBay completed search. I'd suggest a Pro rather than an earlier model because then you can use the frontlight, just enough to whiten the background to give you paper-like contrast for you in ordinary daylight, but not so much that it will give you migraines. ( Looking at it, it should look like the backlight isn't on unless you compare with an 'off' device.)

Most people do look after their eReaders, many just don't use them. You just need to set up a search on eBay to email you when one appears.. and then be patient. It's just not worth compromising in your situation with a smaller screen. I have a Forma and decent eyesight and I'd always read PDF on my Boox, even if the Forma is my go to eReader for text... good luck!

[MarjaE]

Well, the Nova Pro sold out by now.

P.S. Now that it's Saturday, ordered the used Likebook Mars. I'll see how it works out in a couple weeks.

[MarjaE]

Likebook Mars arrived today.

I had some trouble with Orion Viewer, managed to sort it out by turning "Application Theme" to "Light," default "Color Mode" to "Grayscale on Grayish Background" and contrast down to 25%. I still aven't figured out a way to set default zoom so that it shows quarter-pages, with a bit of an overlap just to be safe.

[helen19770707]

Boox official sold the used devices at a much lower price(20-30%off) and offers official warranty for those devices. You can check https://shop.boox.com/collections/used-device/products/used-devices for US & EU warehouse.

[Lectueur]

I'm not so sure about Boox, as they tend to provide updates only for their most recent devices: long term support seems to be poor.

IMO a 8 inch Kobo Forma can be great if you want to read good quality books and mostly literature. 10 inch is better is you're into scientific PDFs.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Lectueur

I'm not so sure about Boox, as they tend to provide updates only for their most recent devices: long term support seems to be poor.

That is not right.
Boox recently released OS3 for their Android 6 devices.

IMO a 8 inch Kobo Forma can be great if you want to read good quality books and mostly literature. 10 inch is better is you're into scientific PDFs.

I would use PDF from 10.3 inch screen size or bigger.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

That is not right.
I would use PDF from 10.3 inch screen size or bigger.

Yes, even 8" 300 dpi isn't good enough unless you have amazing eyes.

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes, even 8" 300 dpi isn't good enough unless you have amazing eyes.

In my case it usually depends on the pdf layout of the b/w A4 documents, because many A4 pdfs are easily legible on 8" 300 dpi reader if we don't mind using four screens per pdf page (two-column mode) or the reflow mode.

If A4 pdf is two-column document we can simply use two-column mode (since the portraite width of 8" reader is considerably wider than the column width of A4 two-column pdf), whereas for one-column documents we can either use the landscape (margins cropped) mode or the reflow mode if the letters are still too small after the cropping of the empty margins.

I can comfortably read about 2/3 (two-thirds) of my A4 pdf documents on 8" 300 dpi Kobo Aura One (using Koreader app), and about 1/3 are problematic for various reasons, e.g. there are many tables/graphs spreading across the whole page (instead of being contained within the single column), the letter size in the one-column pdf is still too small despite the margin cropping and I don't like using the reflow mode (it confuses the layout), there are many color graphs/diagrams and the simultaneous using of color tablet would be tiresome etc.

[hel]

I found that only small part of technical PDFs can’t be read comfortably on Kobo forma with Koreader. Some of them have coloured graphics, some of them are true A4, others are just huge and kind of “pictures” not recognized texts. For that even 10” tablet is not good enough, I read them on iPad 12.9”. But for 85% of books Forma is quite adequate.

I also have an old Kindle DXG with koreader and can compare them directly: on Forma everything looks better, because resolution is much better and reader works much faster. For me it has only one drawback - no handwritten notes, only highlighting.

[MarjaE]

Problem is most software either has trouble working with 2-column mode, or has trouble working with newer pdfs.

I bought my Likebook Mars so I could read newer pdfs w/o reprocessing first, but the default reader crashes out of most of them. Gorram pdfs.

I have better luck with Orion Viewer, but it won't let me specify high default zoom settings, for every pdf, so I have to re-specify high zoom settings for each document.

[hel]

Try Koreader, it is much better now than it was on Kindle DX.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

Problem is most software either has trouble working with 2-column mode, or has trouble working with newer pdfs.

I bought my Likebook Mars so I could read newer pdfs w/o reprocessing first, but the default reader crashes out of most of them. Gorram pdfs.

I have better luck with Orion Viewer, but it won't let me specify high default zoom settings, for every pdf, so I have to re-specify high zoom settings for each document.

As I said, Onyx neoreader is better at splitting up a pdf into various panel arrangements, and so making pdf more readable on a smaller than 10" screen.

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by hel

Try Koreader, it is much better now than it was on Kindle DX.

I tried KOReader for a bit. It seems to rely on swipes, and I really struggle with them.

I mostly like Orion, but get frustrated with the inability to set one standard zoom level, 400%, and then keep it as I open different pdfs.