Few Questions

[alex_l]

The past 5 years i've steadly built up my e-book collection, and tbh i'm not a keen reader (infact i almost hate it) but I just like to learn..but i've always found I could quite easily get stuck into one of my paper back books but whenever it came to my ebooks just made me feel phyiscally exhausted to read; i'm one of those people who start feeling like crap if I sit on the pc for over an hour or 2, im guessing cause the bright light and eye strain it causes. And it has really cramped my progress just really put me off reading.

So anyways, I finally discovered these ebook devices with E-Ink screens and decided it could be just the answear I need but I have very limited knowledge or understanding of the technology.. thats where you come in hopefully someone on here can answear my questions about the readers before I attempt to splash out alot of money to me on one.

I've been looking at the Iliad reader and in the uk it is around £400. but my main concerns is will this device or any device be able to handle pdf files with lots of graphics which could be anywhere from 40mb - 200mb ? and secondly can you actually read the text off a pdf on the screen because I know alot of different pdfs come in different sizes?

That's my only requirements to be able to handle medium -> largish files and to be legible i'm not really bothered about any other limitations like refresh rate. (just typed on my microsoft word programme and i'd be happy if it was the size of arial 8 or 7 on here or pushing it at 6, can i expect at least that?)

Also I heard which the Iliand you can write notes ? is this easy to use and save?.. I know it won't allow you to save the notes directly onto the file without transfering them seperate to a pc 1st but all im interested in is note taking that can be saved and re-read on pc without reference to the original pdf.

thanks alex

[Ervserver]

Hello alex_l, certainly someone with knowledge of this device will be along soon

[HarryT]

Alex,

The first thing to say is that PDF is the worse possible choice for an eBook format. It was not designed to be an eBook format, and it imposes numerous problem when it is (wrongly) employed as an eBook format. The trouble with it is that it has a fixed page layout - generally for an A4 or Letter size page, and can't be displayed at all well on devices with smaller screens.

The iLiad is the best choice of eInk reader if you really MUST read PDF files.

[wallcraft]

The iLiad is your only option today, but I am not sure about "40mb - 200mb" PDFs. I suggest you post a question in the main iLiad forum about PDFs this large. See also liad to buy or not buy (mainly for pdf) and my iLiad cannot read this pdf?.

For images from PDFs on the iLiad, see Photos from medical journals, but note that (a) the screenshots may be rescaled by your web browser (click to get full size) and (b) the iLiad's pixel density probably higher than your current screen (so the images will be bigger than on the device).

[WillAdams]

For a counterpoint, I've read a number of .pdfs on my Sony PRS-505 (ones which were reasonably sized for the small display, e.g., Mike Brotherton's Star Dragon, or Jose Menendez, of Elegant ebooks' autobiography of Geronimo) --- for larger .pdfs, I turn to my Fujitsu Stylistic, which affords a much larger (and colour) display and allows one to read them quite handily.

Used machines are reasonably affordable on ebay, but to my mind, even a new one is a good value and well worth it (though my next new machine will be an Axiotron Modbook or its successor) --- for my part, I haven't bought a computer w/ a keyboard since purchasing an NCR-3125 (I guess I'm dating myself, huh?) and simply can't abide a typical clam shell laptop and insist all my machines at least have a graphics tablet.

William