Any one handed readers out there?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by tompe

I just ordered an N810 and it will probably replace my Palm T5 and will be used as laptop replacement on trips. So it will be interesting to see how much of the PIM functionality I can get. Now on my T5 I really just use the address book and the calender but not so much.

It takes at least an 8G card so it will be the same amount of memory or more compared to your Zodiac. Also the resolution is 800x480.

Yes, you're right about the resolution.

I'm looking at the N800. I don't need the keyboard. I do need the dual SD slots.

For PIMs, you may be interested in this: http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/

Access bought Palmsource, the former OS division of Palm, Inc. They planned to make an OS for smartphones based on an embedded Linux kernel, using Palm OS Cobalt (the unreleased next generation of Palm OS) as the UI layer. What they wound up actually doing was implementing PalmOS Garnet as a Virtual Machine running on top of Linux.

They recently made a beta of the GVM that runs on the Nokia tablets available as a free download. Posts elsewhere indicates it works, with a few quirks. It includes "old style" PIM functionality included with Garnet, and can run a large number of extant Palm applications. The big issues thus far are screen size, uncertainty about hotsync, inability to run apps thatuse external libraries, and inability for apps running in the GVM to see expansion cards.

But if you just want PIM functions, it might be an appropriate solution.
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Dennis

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Yes, you're right about the resolution.

I'm looking at the N800. I don't need the keyboard. I do need the dual SD slots.

For PIMs, you may be interested in this: http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/

I think I will like the keyboard but what was more important was that the N810 was smaller than the N800 and also I like to have a GPS built in.

I will try the Garnet VM. If i can continue to use DateBK5 then this is definitely a plus.

[slayda]

I have a friend that uses his iphone for reading HTML. Not into phone reading myself so I don't know how good it is.

I use a Palm TX for "pocketabality" & a Sony PRS-500 otherwise. My ideal device would be all the advantages of the Palm (external size, color, other uses, instant on, back light), Sony (eInk, page size) & Cybook Gen3 (same as Sony but with better font selection & dictionary support).

[radius]

Originally Posted by slayda

I have a friend that uses his iphone for reading HTML. Not into phone reading myself so I don't know how good it is.

I use a Palm TX for "pocketabality" & a Sony PRS-500 otherwise. My ideal device would be all the advantages of the Palm (external size, color, other uses, instant on, back light), Sony (eInk, page size) & Cybook Gen3 (same as Sony but with better font selection & dictionary support).

If you find this machine, please let me know what it is!

[radius]

Originally Posted by mores

I have been reading on Symbian devices for a long time, initially with the SonyEricsson P900, now with the SE P1i, and I love it.

It's a solid phone, and a solid PDA in a form that is just a little bigger than your average candybar phone.

Install Mobipocket and you're set.

The p1i lets you dim the screen, so when you read at night, you won't strain your eyeballs.

I considered a Sony Ericsson M600i a while back and was quite impressed -- touchscreen, jog dial, alphanumeric keyboard, Mobipocket, editor for MS Word files built in to ROM -- but the weird icons and menu system drove me nuts and it felt kind of slow. Its really too bad because the price was very attractive after the P1 came out and all it misses is the camera...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by tompe

I will try the Garnet VM. If i can continue to use DateBK5 then this is definitely a plus.

There are some fairly extensive discussions of it on Brighthand.com, with some hands-on experience from posters who have the tablet with the GVM installed.

Start here: http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?p=1604565
______
Dennis

[mores]

Originally Posted by radius

I considered a Sony Ericsson M600i a while back and was quite impressed -- touchscreen, jog dial, alphanumeric keyboard, Mobipocket, editor for MS Word files built in to ROM -- but the weird icons and menu system drove me nuts and it felt kind of slow. Its really too bad because the price was very attractive after the P1 came out and all it misses is the camera...

It takes a while to get used to, agreed. But any OS can be learned pretty quickly. So if the rest appealed to you, you shouldn't have let yourself be deterred because it does not feel like a regular cellphone menu system. 2 hours after purchase you would be charging it while syncing with your computer, and downloading all kinds of apps onto it.
Then you'd spend another day or two scratching your head and screwing everythign up, then you hard reset and you start over again, properly

[DDHarriman]

For your need: pocketpc, or pocketpc phone edition.

A outstanding good screen and a bit bigger machine is the The HTC Advantage X7501, 5” who can read every format you want or need, and does a lot more things and being a eBook reader (it’s even a phone).
But… it’s not cheap.

[radius]

Originally Posted by DDHarriman

For your need: pocketpc, or pocketpc phone edition.

A outstanding good screen and a bit bigger machine is the The HTC Advantage X7501, 5” who can read every format you want or need, and does a lot more things and being a eBook reader (it’s even a phone).
But… it’s not cheap.

Hi Delos, have you been to the moon yet?

Well, as you might have guessed, the reason I am still using a Palm device is because Windows Mobile and Symbian don't appeal to me yet. I'm planning to pick up a GSM version of the Palm Centro when they become available in my country for use as a PDA and phone.

The hardware of some Windows Mobile machines is very nice, but I don't feel comfortable with the look and feel of the OS. The thing I do like about it is that its a fairly modern platform and easy to program for.

So between having an iPod Nano for music and some video, a Tungsten|T3 (and soon Centro) for PDA/PIM functions and video, and a MacBook for comics and the web, I might have room for a dedicated ebook reader, but a Windows Mobile device would seem to overlap too much with what I already have (ie: paying for what I don't need)

[radius]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But embedding fonts HORRIBLY slows down page turning.

The only eInk reader which allows you to load whatever fonts you wish is the CyBook Gen3.

I've been thinking about this some more, and it seems to me that if I burn new font to replace the existing, factory fonts instead of embedding them into the document, I can get close to what I want except that resizing is still rather limited. Its a shame that Sony decided to limit their on-device formatting so much.

I guess for me personally, instead of deciding how I want things to look up front at document conversion time, I'd like to defer until reading time as much formatting as possible (eg: paragraph first line indentation, size of margins, justification, hyphenation, kerning, font face, font size, line spacing, paragraph spacing, widow/orphan control etc.) so that I can find something comfortable to match the text and my surroundings, and the hell with what publishers want a book to look like

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by radius

I guess for me personally, instead of deciding how I want things to look up front at document conversion time, I'd like to defer until reading time as much formatting as possible (eg: paragraph first line indentation, size of margins, justification, hyphenation, kerning, font face, font size, line spacing, paragraph spacing, widow/orphan control etc.) so that I can find something comfortable to match the text and my surroundings, and the hell with what publishers want a book to look like

That's exactly the approach that MobiPocket Reader uses. Have relatively little "layout" information in the book and let the reader decide such things as font, justification, margin size, paragraph spacing, etc. Different versions of the Mobi Reader allow you different degrees of control; the Pocket PC and desktop versions are currently the most flexible; the iLiad the least flexible. The CyBook Gen3 is somewhere in the middle - it will currently allow you to set font face and size and justification, but not margin size or paragraph spacing. I'm sure it'll get better with future software updates.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's exactly the approach that MobiPocket Reader uses. Have relatively little "layout" information in the book and let the reader decide such things as font, justification, margin size, paragraph spacing, etc. Different versions of the Mobi Reader allow you different degrees of control; the Pocket PC and desktop versions are currently the most flexible; the iLiad the least flexible. The CyBook Gen3 is somewhere in the middle - it will currently allow you to set font face and size and justification, but not margin size or paragraph spacing. I'm sure it'll get better with future software updates.

You're referring to the Cybook firmware, and not the Mobi reader, I assume.

You're kind of at the mercy of the platform for some things. Palm OS, for example, has eight font slots: Standard, Bold, Large, Symbol, Symbol11, Symbol7, LED, and Large Bold. These are mapped to fonts in ROM, but third party utilities like Fonthack will let you map other fonts into those slots on an application by application basis. You don't have the sort of flexibility in font choices Windows offers. I'm currently using FonthackV to map a converted version of the Cambria True Type font in Mobi as the standard text font, and it works fairly well, but it would be nice if I didn't have to resort to that sort of work-around.
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Dennis