Why are ebook readers so slow?

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by Brianrh

Right I reconverted the offending epub and it was 4kb bigger and 5 pages longer but it still took an age to open. I rather feel that the file is corrupt or has a problem.

The book is Why Didn't They Ask Evans by Agatha Christie and is only 140 pages long.

Where did you get it from?

[Chi Cygni]

I suspect epub formatting. What I do sometimes is to convert original disinfected epub to mobi, delete epub, convert mobi back to epub. It is amazing how much lighter it becomes and then opens like a charm. Yes, I know messy code but frankly my dear I don't give a damn...

try epub -> mobi -> epub?

[speakingtohe]

My PRS-T1 is slower than my PRS-350. Exact same books side loaded on each and WIFI turned off. No SD card.

I can turn 3 pages on the 650 for every one on the T1 and the T1 crashes often where the 350 has never crashed.

I like the screen size on the T1 but if it wasn't a gift from my roommates, I would gladly exchange it for a 650.

Overall it is okay, and I vastly prefer it to the kindle 3, but not as functional or as reliable as previous Sony ereaders.

Helen

[MickiTee]

Originally Posted by Brianrh

I have a cheap Android phone which has an ebook reader installed and it is quite good to use but obviously the screen is a bit to small. Loading a book or changing to a different book is relatively quick.

I have a Sony PRS300 and a Kobo Touch and to load or change books seems to take so long, especially on longer books. I have kept the number of books stored on the device down to about forty and keep them in the main memory. Books of over 1000 pages can take ages into minutes for the Sony.

Is this normal for ebook readers? I thought they had microprocessors as powerful as mobile phone ones so why should they be any slower?

I find these days I have several books on the go at the same time; or I need to switch between technical books when I am at work and I find this slowness frustrating.

Brianrh

Brianrh

I had the same problem with my 505 on more than one occasion and found a solution in Sony's reader forum! You need to clear the cache on the reader and then let it rebuild itself. Follow the instructions in the link: http://www.sony.co.uk/discussions/message/615812#615812. If you've got a lot of books then it can take a while. When this is finished shut the 505 down completely and re-start. It takes a while but is well worth the effort. I also found it helped to completely shut down my PC before disconnecting the 505.

I suggest you take a note of any bookmarks you've got as the last time I did this I lost all of mine.

Hope this helps.

MickiTee :

[ittiandro]

I am experiencing too an extremely slow reading on PDF books, practically on all the readers I have installed on my D2-912 pad. EPUB on the other hand is very fast. I use FBReader which has a very nice interface.
May be somebody can give me an idea if the following variables can affect the speed:
1. Keeping the books on the internal memory vs an SD Card?
2. My internal memory is about 1.3 GB and I have about 450 MB of books stored.
Can this relatively high volume slow down the reading?
3. Most of my PDF material are books with an ancient Greek text and an English transalation on the side. Does the Greek font somehow slow down the processing? EBookDroid, EzPDFreader , Mantano and Moon Reader + all read PDF , but they all seem to perform on the slow side with PDF.

4. Would a conversion from PDF to EPUB help?

Thanks

Ittiandro

[Billi]

It's not a bug it's a feature! Pdf files are bigger and more complex, they simply need more ram and a better processor.

Originally Posted by ittiandro

1. Keeping the books on the internal memory vs an SD Card?
2. My internal memory is about 1.3 GB and I have about 450 MB of books stored. Can this relatively high volume slow down the reading?

Just try it out. For other reasons (like transfering all your books to a new device in the future) it may be a good idea to have them all collected on the sd-card.

4. Would a conversion from PDF to EPUB help?

In terms of speed while reading it would help but normally you will need a lot of time to build a nice epub from the conversed file. It's very rare that you can use the results of a pdf conversation without any afterwork.

[shanghaichica]

The PRS-300 was excruciatingly slow. That was my first ebook reader. It could take up to 2 minutes to open a book or change the font size. Things have moved on a lot since then. I now have a Kindle paperwhite and that is pretty fast. I have a Kobo mini and I've owned a Kobo glo in the past. They aren't as fast as the kindles I've owned, but I don't think the are that slow. It only takes a few seconds to open a book, which is perfectly acceptable to me. Due to technology of eink they will never be as fast as LCD devices.

[markom]

Originally Posted by ittiandro

I am experiencing too an extremely slow reading on PDF books, practically on all the readers I have installed on my D2-912 pad. EPUB on the other hand is very fast. I use FBReader which has a very nice interface.
May be somebody can give me an idea if the following variables can affect the speed:
1. Keeping the books on the internal memory vs an SD Card?
2. My internal memory is about 1.3 GB and I have about 450 MB of books stored.
Can this relatively high volume slow down the reading?
3. Most of my PDF material are books with an ancient Greek text and an English transalation on the side. Does the Greek font somehow slow down the processing? EBookDroid, EzPDFreader , Mantano and Moon Reader + all read PDF , but they all seem to perform on the slow side with PDF.

4. Would a conversion from PDF to EPUB help?

Thanks

Ittiandro

You can try k2pdfopt app to adjust problematic pdfs for use on your e-reader/tablet beforehand.

http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/

Besides cropping and reflowing pdfs for 6" readers, I use it for djvu files or pdfs with complex compression which are sometimes slow on iPad or 6" e-ink or would not execute at all.

I only use free djvu readers on iPad though, so maybe those that cost a few bucks would be quicker.

It's interesting that at the same time I do not need to convert those problematic djvu files for Kindle DX because even my big and complex djvus with big pages and small letters are executed normally in kindlepdfviewer and are easily readable in landscape mode.

[danskmacabre]

I have over 300 books on my Kobo glo, any book (meaning an epub novel) I've loaded into memory just takes seconds.
If it takes minutes, then there's something wrong somewhere.

[Agama]

Originally Posted by danskmacabre

I have over 300 books on my Kobo glo, any book (meaning an epub novel) I've loaded into memory just takes seconds.

How is the Glo with larger books and multi-level TOCs such as those posted here?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=135231

[ottdmk]

I can't specifically speak to how the Glo is with larger books, but my Touch has done fairly well with them. As for multi-level TOCs, Kobo firmware flattens them. Full support for multi-level TOCs is a popular wish-list item on the Kobo forums.

[Barty]

Eink readers are slow because ereaders have weak processors compared to tablet or smart phones. They have weak processors because the eink screen is the bottle neck anyway. Since a major selling point of eink is low power usage, no point throwing in a power hungry CPU that requires bigger heavier battery.

That said, kindles are surprisingly fast at opening books. I've always wondered how they do it. Better software? Are mobi/Azw formats constructed so they can be opened and parsed faster? Since amazon controls their entire ecosystem you expect them to be able to design their ebooks and readers to work well together.

I know, for example, epubs need to be unzipped first so unless you cache the unzipped files you have to do it on every open. Caching the files would use up more storage, though.

[HarryT]

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