All in One Productivity, Samsung Papyrus?

[KindleKid]

Hi,

by the title of my username you can guess that at least one point I had a Kindle. Yes, I had Kindle 1.0 and sold it probably four months ago. The reason I sold it and the reason I have no ebook reader to replace is that so many of them don't quite have all I want. The Kindle has the ease of use, the search bar and other neat features but it doesn't have good PDf support, even the newer Kindle doesn't have as much support as I'd like. The Sony's are great too but what I've realized is that what's most useful to me is localizing all of my productive needs.

I'm looking for an ebook reader that can organize, add and edit contacts as well as manage my calendar. In addition to ebook reading.The Samsung Papyrus looks like it can do a lot of that. It's got a calendar, to do list, contacts and other productivity stuff in addition to being an ebook reader. I was using my itouch for that but it was a bit cumbersome to handle the touchscreen on such a small surface for me.

The Samsung one looks nice but it's going to be around $300 I heard. Is there an ebook reader that's been around longer that might be a bit cheaper? Did the first Sony PRS have these kind of features? Is there one in say the $200 range with these features? I don't mind losing stuff like web and search bar, I'm more interested in having an eorganizer that is also an ebook reader and not LCD.

[KindleKid]

From articles that I've read, I can see that very little is known about the Samsung ebook reader. But are there any ebook readers out there that have things like a calendar and contacts that you can manage? I mean one that is an e-ink device and not an itouch/phone.

[emellaich]

I don't want you to feel lonely, but as far as I know you aren't getting any responses because no one knows anything on this.

I don't know of any contact management stuff on e-ink. If I was looking for that stuff, your best bet today would be a win ce device. Probably by this time next year you could find something in the Pixel Qi line that fills the need. The first devices are supposed to launch late this year, but no one knows what they are. I expect next year to see more choices and a better chance of meeting a specific need.

Another distant possibility will be the techcrunch tablet, but 1) its LCD, 2) its not clear what its offline capabilities will be; and 3) battery life is unknown. However, it is a clear possibility that will be available in the fall.

[KindleKid]

My other alternative would be to create a flowing text task list and a flowing text contact list. With something like the Kindle, I could pull up dates and names easily or even note them. I guess that's the same with the PRS-700 right?

[KindleKid]

And the 700 has the better PDF support aside from the Kindle DX correct? What about this eslick I've heard about?

[junkyardwillie]

You'd be better off finding a good ebook device that is able to view pdfs and other documents that you want and then using an iPhone or some other phone for contact management. eInk devices havent yet, and I hope never will, went the route of an all in one device. I don't get the need for a browser and wifi in some of these things, I have 100s of ways to get on to the internet already I want something that reads books well. My Iliad and DR1000S solve all of my document reading needs between PDFs and ebooks, I personally rather use my Treo and Google Sync for contact management so I can easily access and manage my contacts, I tend to have my phone on me a lot more than I do my eBook reader so it works very well for me.

[emellaich]

I don't know what you need pdf support for, but most people are very dissatisfied with pdf on a six inch device (ie, Kindle1/2, eSlick, PRS700). The ones who are happy seem to be Kindle DX users (very basic support, but fine) and the Irex DR1000 users (expensive, but full featured including annotation).

[Marinerrr]

It seems to me that the request to have document editing, calendaring, to-do lists, etc into one device is much more than is within the scope of an e-book reader. I've recently got my first netbook and am very impressed with it. For $300, I can do all of the above and not have to recharge for 8 hours. However, if I'm reading a book, I intentionally don't want all of that functionality -- I want a high contrast, light weight, charge once-a-month, read-only engine -- hence, an e-book.

There is speculation that Apple will be releasing an iPhone/iTouch slate this fall. A 9" device that uses the iPhone OS and will compete with the Kindle DX as a book reader; with smart phones as a portable surfing engine (except with a 1024x600 display size) and PIM; and with traditional computers for data input and running specialize applications. I believe the initial market will be college students, since this device will supplant the need for text books, paper notebooks, and even a small laptop (as well as a stand alone MP3 and video player).

The drawbacks? It will be expensive, proprietary (iTunes App Store), and will have a limited battery life as compared to an e-ink based e-book reader.

I see the attraction of an all in one device, but the killer feature of the e-ink based devices is the high contrast screen combined with amazing battery life. In any type of combined use device, it will more than likely be an oLED powered display that will suck down enough juice that it will need to be charged at least once a day.

IMHO.