Best $200 or less e-ink with epub + pdf + expansion please

[Jarulf]

As an as yet deviceless member of the forums, I have my eye on the iRiver Story HD which will (supposedly) be out in a few days here in Sweden. With the reportedly nice screen, Wifi, keyboard, decent support for file formats and mp3-support perhaps this is something for the OP as well?

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by Ditchleyportrait

i've read posts that said the sony screen was worse than the kindle due to maunfacturing problems or worse contrast or something or both. i could care less honestly either way as i rock the best possible screen with the most real estate #swag

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have a Sony and a Kindle. The Kindle has (to my eyes, at least) a nicer font, but the actual appearance of the screens on the two devices is identical.

Originally Posted by Ditchleyportrait

ah, i see. sorry for propagating misinformation.

Actually it should be delphin who is sorry! He started telling this BS and now one can see what happens. People who aren't even able to say something about it because they have never had those two devices side by side are repeating it...

The perceived difference lies in the different font of the Kindle, it has more contrast. There is a side-by-side photo somewhere here on the boards where there is the Kindle font on the Sony and demonstrates them being on par very nicely.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have a Sony and a Kindle. The Kindle has (to my eyes, at least) a nicer font, but the actual appearance of the screens on the two devices is identical.

You are right about the Sony's default font, it's pretty anemic.

Check out this EPUB that I created by embedding a custom font in one of feedbooks public domain titles.

Through the Looking Glass (NimbusMod1.2).epub

It's a well known fact, that with decent fonts, the Sony looks much better.

Not everybody wants to hack their reader, or has free access to the necessary fonts, so here is a test document that anyone can try out with no modifications to their Sony reader, to see just how much better the Sony looks when a decent typeface is used.

So that you can compare, the first section "About Carroll" (the first 3 pages) is in Sony's default font, and the remainder of the story from page 4 to the end are in a custom font.

To create this test document, I used one of feedbooks free public domain titles - Lewis Carroll's, Through the Looking Glass.

I altered a few lines of the CSS and embeded the font right into the EPUB, so folks can see what the Sony would have looked like if Sony had only taken the time to select a decent font.

The font I used, NimbusMod, is one I created by custom editing the freely available Nimbus Roman style font that is freely distributed with Linux.

Originally Nimbus was almost as anemic as the Sony default font, but after changing kerning, font weights, and a lot of hand editing character outlines to optimize it for eInk, I think it's looking pretty good.

The goal was to create a font with clear clean outlines, modeled after the semi-bold, slightly condensed, Times serif fonts used in printing paperback books.

Compared to the Sony font, NimbusMod has a heavier font weight optimized for eInk display to improve contrast, and is less dense (characters per page wise), for greater readability.

Amazing what a half-way decent font can do for the Sony, isn't it???

NimbusMod will retain readability down to ridiculously small font sizes. To check this out, jump to page 82 in the above EPUB and then set the Sony's font size to XS.

Feedbooks has used a custom CSS setting to typeset this "other-suggested-reading" section one font size smaller than normal - so XS which would be eXtra-Small anyway, now becomes almost microscopic.

I don't think you would want to read a whole book at that font size but it does show the readability range of the font I created.

The question you have to as yourself, is - If I can come up with something like this in a day or two - why hasn't Sony done a better job with basic typography and fonts AFTER SIX OR SEVEN YEARS?

Sad, really sad.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

People who aren't even able to say something about it because they have never had those two devices side by side are repeating it...

The perceived difference lies in the different font of the Kindle, it has more contrast. There is a side-by-side photo somewhere here on the boards where there is the Kindle font on the Sony and demonstrates them being on par very nicely.

I would post some Kindle/Sony side-by-side pictures, but trust me on this one Poppaea . . .

- IT WOULD JUST MAKE THINGS WORSE.

I have been trying to point out that this issue seems to have fixed itself, since the current eInk Pearl screens seem to have uniformly much higher quality.

I do think Sony should have maintained higher standards in the past though to insure a more consistent product.

Check out my previous post to see how much better your Sony's contrast would be, if Sony had simply bothered to supply a decent default font.

[Poppaea]

So much work, delphin and now it only confirms what I knew before: I happen to like the Sony default font. Its clean.

As for the substandard screens, I think it is a bit unbelieveable for a world class company to put this into their readers. I mean there is e-ink who should have their own quality control. So Sony would have had to buy B-standard screens on purpose...

Nah, I don't believe it.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

So much work, delphin and now it only confirms what I knew before: I happen to like the Sony default font. Its clean.

The Sony default font is just a little too dense characters-per-line wise.

Sure, sometimes this is useful, when you are trying to cram a lot of info on a page, but it is not nearly as comfortable to read for any length of time for most people, as a slightly more open typeface would be.

And it also does NOT make a good impression for the Sony, when it comes to screen contrast.

Since I obviously would not be considered a neutral observer, having created this font myself, I'll let others download the example EPUB above, and give their own opinion on which of the two font typefaces seems to have more contrast, and which of the two does a better job of giving a 'book like' impression (like you would see in a typeset book), vs. which one looks more like geeky eReader or computer generated text.

Again, folks should compare page 2 (Sony) with page 4 and later (custom), to see what I am talking about.

I think that most folks will probably agree that the custom font (from page 4 to the end) is quite a bit more comfortable to read at the 'S' size, and at pretty much every size setting, seems darker, and shows better contrast.

[musicman2523]

Take a look a Pocketbooks 602 and see if it meets all your requirements.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ditchleyportrait

ah, i see. sorry for propagating misinformation.

The font Amazon uses has been tweaked to be slightly darker then it would normally. This makes the Kindle's screen look better then the Sony when used with the default ADE font.

But you can embed fonts in ePub that are darker and thus, would easily match the Kindle in that regard. Charis SIL is a popular embedded font by a lot of publishers and it's much nicer then the default ADE font.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Yes, I was just at my local B&N to compare the screen of the Touch with that of my Kindle and 950. All of the talk about differences in clarity, background shade and quality is ridiculous. It's possible people are comparing demo units and one of these has seen massive amounts of abuse, but beyond that scenario I can't fathom any source for the rumor but imperfect recollection: weighing one's separate memories of the experience of using each reader as if the comparison were side-by-side. All of the devices I compared were in as-new condition and there was no appreciable difference in screen whiteness, font clarity, etc., etc.

The Touch, BTW, is the best thing B&N has done ergonomically; in terms of the UI and file organization, it's on par with the Nook Color.

The place where it shines (pre-rooting) is in font choices: There looked to be ten possibilities pre-installed and some were better than any I've seen offered by Amazon or Sony. Nothing compares to the feeling of touching the word font and getting a long pull-down menu of styles.

The form factor, which is even smaller than the 650's, and lack of a keyboard make the Touch a viable alternative to the 350 it isn't quite small enough to replace.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Yes, I was just at my local B&N . . .

Several months back, I saw a video review comparing the old original eInk Nook to a Sony and Kindle, and paradoxically, the Nooks screen was, if anything, a little whiter than the others (the reviewer even commented on it).

Seeing a supposedly standard Vizplex eInk screen that was as white or whiter than the newer Pearl screens, with blacks that were nearly the same, made me wonder about their consistency.

But the older Nook being BETTER then spec, is hardly something to complain about, right? . . .And sure enough, when I got a PRS-650 for my mom, it's screen looked pretty nice, so I stopped worrying about it.

Then, just before 650's became so scarce, I managed to find another one for myself, but was disappointed to see that side-by-side with my Mom's PRS-650, under identical lighting, showing the EXACT SAME BOOK, hers is noticeably whiter.

Whiter, whites; darker blacks; just flat out better contrast.

The whites on my PRS-650 are very slightly darker, and have the very slightly greenish gray tint of some older Vizplex screens, and the blacks are not quite as dark.

My stepdad just got a new Kindle a few days ago, and if anything, it is even better then my moms PRS-650 . . . So, though the difference between her Sony and mine is slight, and between the Kindle and her PRS-650 is slight, the jump between that new Kindle and my Sony is pretty noticeable.

Yes, I know about the font difference (a better font helps but there is still a difference)

Yes, I know about masking out the background, and matching lighting.

. . . any font, any lighting, any background, any time - you pick it, my PRS-650 is going to get the short end of the stick.

So the Vizplex screens have varied quality wise, both better, and worse (unfortunately).

That Nook that I saw in the video several months back was doing a damn fine job trying to keep up with some of the newer 'Pearl' screens (and succeeding).

. . . and, sadly, my Sony is trying pretty hard to look like a 3 year old 'Vizplex' Kindle (it's not quite that bad, but it's sure working on it)

This may be fixed now, with Sony getting screens that are every bit as good or better than any of the others, but it's still a little aggravating.

Getting back to your comments on the Nook . . .

- Ability to select the default font (and override book CSS settings if needed)

- Lots of fonts already loaded.

- Side page-turn buttons PLUS touch screen page turns
..(Kobo seems to have missplaced their page-turn buttons)

- Rootable Android OS

If they gave Acadamy awards for "Best performance by a new eReader"
the new Nook STR would be a shoe-in for the Oscar.

[Poppaea]

Maybe we need a disclaimer. Delphin will have to add a "I am the only one who sees it, it might be a thing of my vivid imagination, part of my conspiracy theories, fraud scheme invented only for me and noone else" everytime he says there is inconsistency in Sony screen quality.... It could be a text module to be quickly inserted so I won't be much of a hassle to put a disclaimer to those posts.