8+ Readers in comparison

[rammbam]

Mgmueller,since u r the most experienced with e-readers here,plz answe these questions about KIndle DXG.


1: Does it remember where u stop last time u read a book,and when
u turn it on next time resume from the same place?And is that the case if u read more books?Would kindle resume all books from the place u stopped?

2:If i read a pdf book of 200 pages and want to go directly to the
page 140,can i do that or need to go page by page?

3:If a pdf book has bookmarks do they work on KDXG? And does it display
the content and has possibility to jump from one chapter to another?

4: How is the experience on KDXG while reading Vbulletin forums?Any
pictures would be helpful.

5: Does kindle have anti-radiation support?I've read for example on HANVON'S website that their readers have no radiation at all.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by rammbam

Mgmueller,since u r the most experienced with e-readers here,plz answe these questions about KIndle DXG.


1: Does it remember where u stop last time u read a book,and when
u turn it on next time resume from the same place?And is that the case if u read more books?Would kindle resume all books from the place u stopped?

2:If i read a pdf book of 200 pages and want to go directly to the
page 140,can i do that or need to go page by page?

3:If a pdf book has bookmarks do they work on KDXG? And does it display
the content and has possibility to jump from one chapter to another?

4: How is the experience on KDXG while reading Vbulletin forums?Any
pictures would be helpful.

5: Does kindle have anti-radiation support?I've read for example on HANVON'S website that their readers have no radiation at all.

Question 1:
All Kindles remember the last position read for every single book. They even sync wirelessly between the units in your account: You can start a book on iPhone, continue at exactly the same position on your PC and finish on Kindle. I use this between iPad (Kindle app) and Kindle itself. That's the main reason why I've replaced my DX Gen1 (US version) by DX Graphite = to have the international version = 3G in Germany.
When you enter standby while a book still is open, Kindle starts with the opened book at the last position.
In addition to the momentary reading position you manually can set bookmarks of course.
BTW: That's not unique for Kindles, most readers behave that way.

Question 2:
You can jump to any position you want by "Go to.." menu.

Question 3:
By "bookmarks" do you mean chapter markers of the table of content?
It's working with some workarounds, but in general I still wouldn't recommend Kindles for PDFs.

Question 4:
In general, all ePaper readers only have basic web features.
It's simply no fun to surf the web, when refresh of the page takes 0.5 to 1 second.
I mainly use 3G for shopping and downloading content. Rarely for Wikipedia or dictionaries.
It looks absolutely okay (b/w of course). But it's simply too slow.
If web capability is of importance for you, iPad may be the better choice.

Question 5:
Sorry, I have no idea. Would have to check the technical description on Amazon's website as well.
But my guess: Displays of all ePaper readers are the same. This should be the main/sole source for any radiation or similar issues. So all units should be the same.

[rammbam]

Mgmueller,thank u very much.Ur answers were quite sufficient,but in Question 3 u say
u wouldnt reccomend kindles for pdfs.So what other large device might be better?
I dont consider ipad at all,and i know u would reccomend Irex probably,but its too hard
for me to get one.

Btw...In web browsing im not looking for fun,just for being able to read text.And vbulletin
forums are very important for me.When u have time it ll be nice if u provide a picture.

And the last question about Kindle DXG is: Can i connect the kindle to my Pc and transfer any of my pdf books to it without any problem?

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by rammbam

Mgmueller,thank u very much.Ur answers were quite sufficient,but in Question 3 u say
u wouldnt reccomend kindles for pdfs.So what other large device might be better?
I dont consider ipad at all,and i know u would reccomend Irex probably,but its too hard
for me to get one.

Btw...In web browsing im not looking for fun,just for being able to read text.And vbulletin
forums are very important for me.When u have time it ll be nice if u provide a picture.

And the last question about Kindle DXG is: Can i connect the kindle to my Pc and transfer any of my pdf books to it without any problem?

I wouldn't recommend any Kindle for PDFs, as their capabilities simply are too limited.
Personally, I'm using the "free zoom" most of the time on PDFs. And yes, iRex would have been my recommendation.
But actually, personally I'd prefer any "flexible" 6" reader over Kindle DX for PDFs. For my usage pattern, touchscreen units are best (marking the area of interest, i. e. formula/graph/column/..., with stylus and exploding to full screen).
In addition to iRex, my best recommendation would be BeBook Neo/Onyx Boox. You can do a simulation on your PC, whether 6" is enough for you.

You can connect any Kindle to your PC via USB. Then you can drag and drop your files onto it without any problems.
Of course Kindles only have a limited range of file formats they accept natively: AZW (Amazon's modification of Mobipocket), PRC/MOBI (DRM-free Mobipocket respectively DRMed and modified Mobipocket), TPZ (Amazon's proprietary file format, kind of scanned images = about 5% to 10% of Amazon's library) and DRM-free PDFs. No EPUB though. So you're very much bound to the Amazon bookstore (which is okay to me, as their number of available titles is huge and their prices usually are lowest), few 3rd party bookstores and your own sources for DRM-free titles.
DRM-free titles easily can be converted, for example via "calibre", which has its own sub-forum on this site.

BTW: "DRM" = Digital Rights Management = copy protection, usually bound to the serial number of your reader. If you need to, you easily can use some scripts on your PC to strip the files from DRM and convert or modify them.

[meem]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

I wouldn't recommend any Kindle for PDFs, as their capabilities simply are too limited......

I recommended Kindle DX especially for PDFs.
Because there are no more choices with its big display and its price.
Most of compitirtors are not released yet, or dead like Skiff.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by meem

I recommended Kindle DX especially for PDFs.
Because there are no more choices with its big display and its price.
Most of compitirtors are not released yet, or dead like Skiff.

But what good is the big display, if you can't do even the most basic of manipulations?
You can't select columns in newspapers.
You can't select any areas and explode to full screen.
You can't reflow the text and intelligently manage it (cropping margins, justification, ...).
.....

Don't get me wrong: I love my Kindles. Else I wouldn't have bought DX Graphite (my 3rd Kindle within 1 year).
But that's only for Amazon's own format respectively for Mobipocket.
ePUBs can be converted for Kindle with very good results as well. But converting PDFs usually leads to way less convincing results...

[meem]

Ok, I'm not a Kindle DX fanatic, but as I said: there is no chioce for me with PDF files.
I speak about scanned books (like comics and magazines) you may speak about text PDF files.
If I want a small display I'll recommend iPod Touch 8GB for TEXT files.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by meem

Ok, I'm not a Kindle DX fanatic, but as I said: there is no chioce for me with PDF files.
I speak about scanned books (like comics and magazines) you may speak about text PDF files.

The iPad is a much better choice. Yes, it's more expensive than the Kindle DX, but what use is it to spend less money if what you buy won't do what you want it to?

[Ben Thornton]

Or a PC or Mac
They display PDFs very well, and have lots of storage etc.

[meem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The iPad is a much better choice. Yes, it's more expensive than the Kindle DX, but what use is it to spend less money if what you buy won't do what you want it to?

iPad is not a dedicated eBook Reader, it's a tablet computer for most thins you can do it by computer, and its display is LCD which has glare and light reflection and not good for long time reading because eye strain effects, and it's heavy as an eReader, and more expensive.

eReaders (Like Kindle, NOOK, SONY or iRex.. etc) with e-ink are more comfortable for eyes, doesn't has a glare and can offer an excellent reading in bright sunlight, it hasn't a cause of eye stress, more lighter for carrying (like a middle paper book), and not costly like tablets.

For more features of eReader you may read this article:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=928

[HarryT]

What you say is of course true, but the simple fact is that the iPad is a much better PDF reader than any currently-available eInk device. For some people (myself included), it's well worth paying the extra money for.

I also have a number of eInk devices, so I am well aware of the pros and cons of each.

[meem]

Ok, but if you compare iPad with Kindle or ather eRreaders I'll compare it with my big screen laptop :) .. it's a 15" TFT monitor with no glare or reflection, so it's better and cheaper than iPad.
I have also a big monitor with rotate option and remote control to read from remotely it's too much better than iPad, but noting of them like eReader.

[HarryT]

I thought we were talking about portable devices? In that context, the iPad is a perfectly viable contender. Desktop computers - or even laptops - are a totally different category of device. Do you really want to read a book on your laptop? I know that I don't.

[hdeters]

I just read the last 20+ postings of this famous thread and would like to give you my opinion.
First of all: I own an Irex ilad V2, and sony ereader 600 and and iPad. I was waiting for the QuePro, but when they delayed it I got me an iPad.
For me the iPad together with an app called iAnnotate is the nearly perpect solution for working with PDFs and when I say PDFs I talk oer textPDFs mainly, something like handbooks, working papers and these kind of stuff.
The iPad multitouch is impressing for sizing the PFS to what you want to see.

With iAnnotate (8 € on App store) you can
- full index (!) them (actually this is done automatially when you first open it),
- make annotations, highlightings, comments
- jump to pagenumber, search for a word and jump to next/prev. occurance
- and sent the annotated pdf or just your annotations by email.

For me this is what I was waiting for since years.

And .. there are a lot of thinks I don't like in my iPad but for me just this combination with iAnnotate is worth spending 500 bucks.
Thanks for reading
Cheers Hermann

[comma]

For epubs format alone, I have gone with Nook