Request: An E-Book Reader for Academics/ Students/ Professionals

[Ddanndt]

I've just spent an hour looking for an ebook reader specially designed for reading scientific (math) documents and multiple file formats like pdf, djvu etc but from what I read from reviews and feedbacks, only the Ipad fits the bill.
The thing is I already have a laptop and buying an iPad would be surplus to my needs and quite expensive too, given I only need an ebook reader.
So I was just wondering if such an ebook reader exist and if not ,when are the Ereader companies going to realize that there is a market out there for academics/ students/ professionals ?

[Arrghus]

IMO, no such device you seek exists. E-ink simply can't compete with a physical textbook. With a book, you can quickly flick and skim through the many pages to find exactly what you need. As fast as the refresh on e-ink is becoming, it is still too slow to allow the user to effectively do this.

As for PDFs and the like, they are a much better read on a larger screen. They do not always reflow well on a smaller screen. And the bigger e-ink devices like the Kindle DX and Sony Daily Edition are so prohibitively expensive that the iPad (or similar tablets) you speak of are not far off their price range. And navigating a PDF document is a lot nicer on a tablet, as is annotating one. The current crop of e-ink devices are designed primarily to read dedicated ebook file formats.

Keep your eyes peeled. I'm sure if you still require such a device in a few years there WILL be one to fit your needs. Technology is moving fast.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Arrghus

IMO, no such device you seek exists. E-ink simply can't compete with a physical textbook. With a book, you can quickly flick and skim through the many pages to find exactly what you need. As fast as the refresh on e-ink is becoming, it is still too slow to allow the user to effectively do this.

That is what table of contents, glossaries, and search functions are for. I've never really just skimmed through willy nilly for things in books. I jump to a section that is within a few pages of what I need, and the fraction of a second refresh rate of eInk is suitable for the few page turns I need to do.

Originally Posted by Arrghus

As for PDFs and the like, they are a much better read on a larger screen. They do not always reflow well on a smaller screen. And the bigger e-ink devices like the Kindle DX and Sony Daily Edition are so prohibitively expensive that the iPad (or similar tablets) you speak of are not far off their price range. And navigating a PDF document is a lot nicer on a tablet, as is annotating one. The current crop of e-ink devices are designed primarily to read dedicated ebook file formats.

Keep your eyes peeled. I'm sure if you still require such a device in a few years there WILL be one to fit your needs. Technology is moving fast.

You are right there. Most PDFs are set up for A4 (or the US 8.5"x11") pages, with margins and such for that. If they're not setup for reflow (which many are not), when they're loaded on a the average reader (with a 5 or 6" display) the default fit to screen view makes things unreadable. Some people view in landscape mode, which makes things a bit better. Things are scaled down a tad, but you can read it, however it makes one normal page end up being two screenfuls. eInk makes screens that are big enough for use with PDFs, but not many are used in readers, since most people just want for fiction, and a 6" is the popular size for that.

Another issue you will run into is that many text books are in proprietary formats that are not supported by any reader. Blame the publishers at that point.

[exscentric]

The Entourage Edge was supposed to be for educational purposes. The big one would be good, I have the pocket one and pdfs are kind of small for my reading. You can look on youtube for videos to get an idea. The big one is 9 or 10 inch and the pocket 6 or 7.

It has an eink on one side and android 1.6 or 2.2 on the other.

Know the company is out of business but there is talk that someone may buy the technology. No warranty cept what you get from the seller.

There is a forum here at the top of the Other Android devices if you want more information.

Entourage left some basic service info and manuals on their site if that would help you.

pdf is covered but only one or two others unless you could find an android app for your other files - the android is a regular tablet backlite screen.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Ddanndt

So I was just wondering if such an ebook reader exist and if not ,when are the Ereader companies going to realize that there is a market out there for academics/ students/ professionals ?

There isn't one yet. Some of that is tech/physical limitations--e-ink is fairly new, and getting it fast enough to do the rapid changes that academic use requires is just now becoming possible. (Even without flipping pages, jumping back and forth between pages and TOC and other books needs good processor speeds.)

E-ink is fragile; a screen big enough to comfortably show letter-sized PDFs is prone to breaking unless it's loaded with extra mass to protect it.

Non-e-ink is possible for academic use, although the battery life is a problem, because academic use is one of the cases where people really do want 8-16 hours of serious use away from an extension cord. The best current options are tablet computers, none of which are actually designed for academic use of books--the note-taking is rudimentary; switching between multiple books is a hassle (and not always possible; they have to all be in a limited range of filetypes to use the same program); bookmarking is limited and may not be exportable.

Most ebook software is designed with the notion that the books are your permanent library of leisure reading material. There's no good support for changing categories on the fly or connecting books to each other, and navigation inside a book is often limited to whatever the publisher arranged as for the TOC. There is no "skip to next page with a picture/chart." There is no "tag chapter 7 in that other book with a link to this one." There is no "sort by publisher/journal name/university source."

We may get these, but if we do, it'll probably be some hacker-student's pet project; there's been no interest from the mainstream hardware producer's side. Those who are aware of an academic interest seem to all have come at it from the angle of "we will provide a social networking site! And you will buy your ebooks through it, and then you can share your notes with each other!" No support for sideloaded books, and no features designed to make research work for a solitary person.

[speakingtohe]

I think that there is a lot of inconsistency in formatting technical/textbook/reference ebooks which makes it hard to develope the perfect ereader for this field.

I think if schools and universities made textbooks part of the tuition it would be an incentive for more consistency in the electronic formats, as then the publisher would always get paid. Downside is no savings on buying/selling second hand textbooks andpublishers would probably not cut prices to reflect that.

Helen

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

There isn't one yet. Some of that is tech/physical limitations--e-ink is fairly new, and getting it fast enough to do the rapid changes that academic use requires is just now becoming possible. (Even without flipping pages, jumping back and forth between pages and TOC and other books needs good processor speeds.)

Most ebook software is designed with the notion that the books are your permanent library of leisure reading material. There's no good support for changing categories on the fly or connecting books to each other, and navigation inside a book is often limited to whatever the publisher arranged as for the TOC. There is no "skip to next page with a picture/chart." There is no "tag chapter 7 in that other book with a link to this one." There is no "sort by publisher/journal name/university source."

Most of this is simple to implement. While it will still be limited to what metadata the publishers put in, because you'd need something highly complex (more so than what is currently possible) to sort through the data and generate the proper tables automatically. Certain things for parsing though would be very easy to do, such as jumping to the next page that has a chart. Linking between books would still be difficult, due to the possibility that they may not have that other book. As it stands though, very few books (paper or otherwise) are sold dependent of others. And the sorting method you mention can also be done (ebooks currently have things setup for including metadata for sources, publishers, etc). The biggest thing is simply getting the publishers to come to some sort of standard, like the fiction industry has mostly done. For fiction, you have basically two major formats, that are really similar in most aspects (even construction). On text books, you can't even get the publishers to agree on if they want the ebooks accessable via a file or via a webpage, let alone the structure of a file format.

[paola]

Hi Ddanndt,
given the limitations of the current EPUB standard for math rendering, we aer stuck with pdf and djvu, and I agree with what has been said so far that the perfect academic ebook reader isn't there yet, but there are substitutes there, mainly I would say the Pocketbook 902/903 and the Onyx M90/91.

Both have issues (the pocketbook 903 mainly to do with free-hand annotation still very much less than perfect, the Onyx with serious teething problems, but it has just been launched), but I can definitely work with my PB, and I am quietly hopeful that in a couple more months it will get to do what I need it to do (i.e., free hand annotation on PDF and DJVU, not just epub). But it has buletooth keyboard, for instance (I do not need it, but other users have said it works fine), very reasonable text to speech (especially useful if you are reading texts in other languages), and accommodates many formats.

I am very comfortable reading pdf and djvu files in landscape, which accommodates half a page at a time - and for documents where I prefer to see the whole page at a time I just crop the margins with briss. Of course, what is comfortable for me might not be comfortable for you, and what is a reasonable screen for me (the non pearl vizplex) might not appeal to you. Apparently the new Onyx has a great screen.

Neither the Onyx nor the PB are cheap - but I woudn't consider an Ipad instead as I know from other users that you cannot really work on it, and for "just" reading I know I do want e-ink.
If you are not in a rush, I would lurk in the Pocketbook and Onyx forums to see what the developments are - if I were you I wouldn't decide to take (or not to take) the plunge with a new device after only one hour research on the subject

[Murre]

I know this thread is old, but better continue an old < starting new?

Anyways, I read mainly articles with pure text. They are often 2 columns.
Would a PRS-T1 suffice?

[Kumabjorn]

Nope, too small. It can be done, but it is a chore.

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by Murre

I know this thread is old, but better continue an old < starting new?

Anyways, I read mainly articles with pure text. They are often 2 columns.
Would a PRS-T1 suffice?

Depending on how sharp your eyes are, you might be able to make do with small print and a horizontal view. Goodness knows, I used to read ebooks on a tiny palm pilot window. However, making do and getting it right are far apart. So the answer depends on you, and on how many trade-offs you are willing to make in order to use an e-reader.

[Ken Maltby]

Check out the Ectaco jetBook Color threads in "More E-Book Readers" section.

Luck;
Ken

[Murre]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Check out the Ectaco jetBook Color threads in "More E-Book Readers" section.

Luck;
Ken

Thanks for advice.
Doesn't seem like it's sold here in Sweden, any advice on how to get a hold of one?

[Beryll Snyder]

Originally Posted by Murre

Thanks for advice.
Doesn't seem like it's sold here in Sweden, any advice on how to get a hold of one?

Ectaco ships to Europe. According to the info on their website they charge 35$
on top of the 499$.

[Murre]

Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder

Ectaco ships to Europe. According to the info on their website they charge 35$
on top of the 499$.

For that price I can get a really tablet :/.
I think I will just go with a PRS-T1 for casual reading and get a tablet for other stuff.