Best device for reading PDF files?

[Barret]

Hi

I'm looking for something that i can use for reading my pdf files.

I don't know much about DRM support but i don't think i need it because my pdf files are not protected.

I'm looking for something that is for sale in Europe at this moment.

Any recommendations?

Thank you.

[Syaka]

Unfortunately, if you want something that's available right now and easy to buy, the only thing that does a great job of handling PDF's and is available is a laptop or tablet computer. The Iliad, which is not available to the public yet, should have pretty good PDF support, but won't be on sale at least for a couple more months.

[volwrath]

A VGA pocketpc does a decent job of displaying pdfs. Not great but decent

[Sischa]

The Nokia 770 would also be an Option. I am using it as an substitution for the Ilead while waiting for its public release and it is ok to read ebooks and PDF's.

At least it is nearly "instant ready to go" compared to a laptop and much better quality then my VGA PPC and better price then a tablet.

Display is great but of course no comparison to an e-ink device ...

But the best thing is in most parts of europe you can go out like me and have your Nokia gadget in under 2 hours bought of a shop near you

[Azania]

I am also more than impressed with my new Nokia 770. I will be getting an iLiad but the Nokia does extremely well. Especially with the beta 2006 OS everything, especially web browsing, is of quite a usable speed. It displays even very small text very well. Trouble is you are still staring directly into a light source - strong enough to totally light up the corridor of my house when going to bed - and that's what tires out my eyes!

[PostGrant]

How about a Pepper Pad? I heard it's a little clunky, but it might be worth checking out. It can read PDFs now thanks to xPDF.

[Gavin]

Originally Posted by Azania

I am also more than impressed with my new Nokia 770. I will be getting an iLiad but the Nokia does extremely well. Especially with the beta 2006 OS everything, especially web browsing, is of quite a usable speed. It displays even very small text very well. Trouble is you are still staring directly into a light source - strong enough to totally light up the corridor of my house when going to bed - and that's what tires out my eyes!

How well does the 770 handle PDFs ? Are they fast ? Will it die trying to load a large pdf? I've a number of books and papers in PDF and am hoping the 770 will make them a bit more accessible.

Cheers,
Gavin

[Liviu_5]

Hi,

With a standard Nokia, 2005 OS and Evince, (no extended memory using swap), it is still too slow for me to read pdf's. I have not tried small files (under 1 Mb), and I am waiting now for 2006 OS to maybe implement swap, so with the new OS and with swap it may be better.

To read pdf's/scans I use jpg's 480x800, embedded into blank html (Fbreader reads those files) and rendered at lower quality so I have about 20-50kb per image.

For all fiction books it works page to page, for technical books, sometimes 1-1, sometimes 1-2. It is unbelievable fast since you access an image at a time, but you cannot jump between pages. I guess that you can insert chapters inside the html, but I have not tried. I have books up to 2000 images (100MB) and it works nicely. I read about 6 full novels this way in the past 2 months including a 1000 page one.

The conversion is fast at about 20 minute per book, using some free windows programs (Xnview, rnmaster, ghostview) and the time is spent more to organize things since Xnview is very fast at batch converting images.

Liviu

Originally Posted by Gavin

How well does the 770 handle PDFs ? Are they fast ? Will it die trying to load a large pdf? I've a number of books and papers in PDF and am hoping the 770 will make them a bit more accessible.

Cheers,
Gavin

[Gavin]

Hey, that's great, thanks for the comprehensive response !

Gav