ereader for scientific/technical pdf

[beppe]

Hello to the distinguished MR members.

A friend of mine saw my PRS600 yesterday and he was enthusiastic.
with USB? yes!
with Cards? yes!
long battery charge ? yes!
PDF? yes
Touch screen? yes.And I demonstrated him how easy it is to scribble a note.
Can I write a note on the text? Yes of course.

I want it. In a month I have to go to the States and I will buy it. Big smiles.

Watch out - I said - with PDF it is good and it handles well the figures, but with the formulas some times it makes a mess.

Ah, then it is no good.

I'll try to tell you if there is one that works.

And here I am asking you. Weight and cost are not a major issue, because it's a work instrument. Can somebody help me?

Thanks in advance

P.S. I forgot. My friend does not want a notebook or a net book. Definitively. And no net connection.

[WillAdams]

The best ereader for scientific / technical .pdfs, if one is willing to accept an LCD, is a Tablet PC, or an Axiotron ModBook.

If usage outside is desired, there're a number of Tablet PC models which are made w/ transflective indoor / outdoor displays (I just used one to display maps driving to / from Philadelphia yesterday).

William

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by beppe

And here I am asking you. Weight and cost are not a major issue, because it's a work instrument. Can somebody help me?

Thanks in advance

P.S. I forgot. My friend does not want a notebook or a net book. Definitively. And no net connection.

I would take a look as the iRex DR1000S and the Entorouge eDGe. Both allow for hand writing annotations. The Kindle DX is out there also, however, you have to use the keyboard for annotations.

BOb

[beppe]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

The best ereader for scientific / technical .pdfs, if one is willing to accept an LCD, is a Tablet PC, or an Axiotron ModBook.

If usage outside is desired, there're a number of Tablet PC models which are made w/ transflective indoor / outdoor displays (I just used one to display maps driving to / from Philadelphia yesterday).

William

Thanks.I' ll keep those in mind. I think e ink is the idea.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I would take a look as the iRex DR1000S and the Entorouge eDGe. Both allow for hand writing annotations. The Kindle DX is out there also, however, you have to use the keyboard for annotations.

BOb

Thank you. I looked iRex DR1000S and did not convince me, that is way I asked for help.

Entorouge eDGe I would like it also for myself. I will look into it.

I got that book. Should I write about it PM? Forget the book. It is just my wife that asked me: 40 pounds in what time since your friend HAD the book. Eh. We like them smart.

Beppe

[Ea]

I don't use my DR1000 as much as I would like to, partly because of the relatively poor battery life. The screen size is about the same as A5 and it's 'okay' for PDF tech books. I have some that includes graphics in colours, and the since the gray-scale dithering on the device is not all that great, the result of this is mediocre. It's best with black and white content. I can't comment on the annotation feature, as I haven't used it.

The DR1000 is an older product and IMHO a little too expensive to invest in now. I don't know how well the annotation feature works on PDFs in the Kindle DX, but I'm generally very satisfied with my Kindle 2, and if the functionality of the DX would be enough for your friend, it might a good alternative. But I've heard the keyboard isn't as easy to use as on the smaller Kindles. You could try asking this question in the specific device forum. There's also the Sony prs-900 to consider. From discussions here, it seems that there really isn't any truly great larger screen readers yet, and any choice would involve a compromise. I came across this recent discussion: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67986

It really does depend on what your friend plans to use it for and which books he has.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

It really does depend on what your friend plans to use it for and which books he has.

Thanks a lot, Ea. This has been very useful.

It is for reading scientific articles or reports that are printed in PDF and contain a lot of math, originally composed either in LaTeX or in Word by Math editor.

Color is not an issue. Battery yes.

[Ea]

With regards the battery, it does last up to 8 hours or so, but you have to close completely when you don't use it, because there's no standby mode, and it takes time (1 min. I think) to start up. It's just not as practical as it could be. I think you (or your friend ) should ask about this in the iRex devices forum, and perhaps looks in the older threads there. This and the functionality of the annotation feature has been discussed there. It's a quite common question.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by beppe

It is for reading scientific articles or reports that are printed in PDF and contain a lot of math, originally composed either in LaTeX or in Word by Math editor.

Color is not an issue. Battery yes.

I got enTourage eDGe to read academic journals and it works very well with documents with lots of math (either from LaTeX or scanned by JSTOR).

About battery life, without using WIFI and LCD side, it is stated to last 11 hours and 6 hours with both wifi and LCD screen. It is certainly not long as I would like but it is serviceable. One thing to note is that eDGe does not have hibernation mode, so users have to turn off the machine to save battery if not in use for a long time. It takes about 1 min 10 sec to boot up the machine

One major benefit of having two screen is the ability to 'capture' the screen of e-ink screen to LCD side. (Watch 1:56~2:21)

This allows me to check color illustrations on LCD side. Another use is to capture a figure/table/page on LCD side and read texts on e-ink side avoiding the need to flip back and forth between figure/table and text describing the figure/table.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by soilwork

I got enTourage eDGe to read academic journals and it works very well with documents with lots of math (either from LaTeX or scanned by JSTOR).

About battery life, without using WIFI and LCD side, it is stated to last 11 hours and 6 hours with both wifi and LCD screen. It is certainly not long as I would like but it is serviceable. One thing to note is that eDGe does not have hibernation mode, so users have to turn off the machine to save battery if not in use for a long time. It takes about 1 min 10 sec to boot up the machine

One major benefit of having two screen is the ability to 'capture' the screen of e-ink screen to LCD side. (Watch 1:56~2:21)

This allows me to check color illustrations on LCD side. Another use is to capture a figure/table/page on LCD side and read texts on e-ink side avoiding the need to flip back and forth between figure/table and text describing the figure/table.

This is very useful. Just a question.Is it easy to annotate with the pen over the text?

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by beppe

This is very useful. Just a question.Is it easy to annotate with the pen over the text?

Annotation is quite intuitive and the following video tutorial explains how to use annotation with documents.



One caveat is that page turn slows down if the documents have many hand-written annotation. So I tend not to use the feature but many people seemed to use it quite fine.

You may be able to get more information from their forum
http://www.entourageedge.com/forums/forum.php
and their youtube page
http://www.youtube.com/user/entourageedge#p/u
Especially, their youtube channel has a set of video tutorials of the machine so I would recommend you to look through them before you decide.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

With regards the battery, it does last up to 8 hours or so, but you have to close completely when you don't use it, because there's no standby mode, and it takes time (1 min. I think) to start up. It's just not as practical as it could be. I think you (or your friend ) should ask about this in the iRex devices forum, and perhaps looks in the older threads there. This and the functionality of the annotation feature has been discussed there. It's a quite common question.

Thank you Ea, very useful comments. I will go in the Irex devices forum with my quest. You confirm my impressions.

P.S. I want to keep my friend out of this forum, unless he finds it by himself. Privacy is precious. He will recognize me by my Avatar, my location, my name and then it will be the end of ... Something very pleasant.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by beppe

P.S. I want to keep my friend out of this forum, unless he finds it by himself. Privacy is precious. He will recognize me by my Avatar, my location, my name and then it will be the end of ... Something very pleasant.

Well if it is a true "friend" just tell him/her you want to maintain you anonymity... which I assume is what you mean by "something very pleasant".

BOb

[beppe]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Well if it is a true "friend" just tell him/her you want to maintain you anonymity... which I assume is what you mean by "something very pleasant".

BOb

What I find very pleasant is the frequenting of this forum, in the most spontaneous way. Having somebody (he is a him by the way, with no sentimental implications, like I vaguely detect in your comment) that knows me and has dealing with me outside of this context, this might spoil my fun. Or force me to say good bye all. Which would be a pity.

It is like the friends you make commuting on the train. They do not mix well with the outside life. Did you see falling in love?

[beppe]

Originally Posted by soilwork

Annotation is quite intuitive and the following video tutorial explains how to use annotation with documents.

thank you so much. I can now look into more advanced parameters, like cost for instance.