Which one...

[morpa]

I had an Kobo H20 for a while and was ok with it - quite sluggish, but otherwise good. It broke so I went looking today at an Aura One - however to my surprise it had two fails - no sd slot, and no faster at browsing pdfs than the older Kobo H20!!. This made me rethink.

I have these wishes for an reader with an e-ink-display:

* Should be able to browse pdfs quite fast
* Should handle many formats, pdf and epubs are most important, but cbz, cbr would be nice
* Should have external sd slot
* Great if waterproof

Does a reader like this exist? I guess not

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by morpa

I
I have these wishes for an reader with an e-ink-display:

* Should be able to browse pdfs quite fast
* Should handle many formats, pdf and epubs are most important, but cbz, cbr would be nice
* Should have external sd slot
* Great if waterproof

Does a reader like this exist? I guess not

No, such a reader does not exist. E-ink readers are optimized for long battery life, so they have relatively slow CPUs; also because the slow update speed of an E-ink screen (compared to LCD) limits the display speed far more than the CPU does, as handling normal ebook formats is a relatively lightweight activity.

Throw something CPU-intensive like a PDF (especially a complex one) at such a device, and everything goes pear-shaped pretty fast, as you found out.

E-ink readers aren't very good at PDFs; they aren't built for them. A good LCD tablet (either of the Android or iOS persuasion) will work much better, and will also handle any other format you'd like to throw at it, but at the cost of lower battery life, an LCD screen and (perhaps?) the waterproofing.

[khalleron]

The reader that fits your criteria the closest is the one you just had, the H2O.

[WolfBack]

Agreed!
With this criteria the only option is a [another] H2O...

[morpa]

Thanks for your input! Had there been a waterproof onyx I guess that would have fitted the criterias, but as of now, I just got an h20 again. Sadly, Kobo seems set to remove the sd-card option on their newer readers, otherwise I would have bought an Aura One.

[khalleron]

The Onyx Boox Kepler Pro is supposed to be waterproof, but it's been 'Coming Soon' since last May.

For a given value of 'soon', I guess.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by morpa

Thanks for your input! Had there been a waterproof onyx I guess that would have fitted the criterias, but as of now, I just got an h20 again. Sadly, Kobo seems set to remove the sd-card option on their newer tablets, otherwise I would have bought an Aura One.

It's not a tablet. It's a Reader.

[knc1]

Please, a bit of help here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...47&postcount=7

From anyone with some subjective experience with reading PDF on various devices.

( # 11, 7, 8, 9 )

[Timboli]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

No, such a reader does not exist. E-ink readers are optimized for long battery life, so they have relatively slow CPUs; also because the slow update speed of an E-ink screen (compared to LCD) limits the display speed far more than the CPU does, as handling normal ebook formats is a relatively lightweight activity.

Throw something CPU-intensive like a PDF (especially a complex one) at such a device, and everything goes pear-shaped pretty fast, as you found out.

E-ink readers aren't very good at PDFs; they aren't built for them. A good LCD tablet (either of the Android or iOS persuasion) will work much better, and will also handle any other format you'd like to throw at it, but at the cost of lower battery life, an LCD screen and (perhaps?) the waterproofing.

I echo this reply you got.

As is stated, it requires a powerful CPU to deal with many PDF's. You are not going to get that in an ereader, which just essentially reads books and does a couple of other low intensive things.

A tablet on the other hand, can have a powerful CPU, because it does many other things, including power intensive stuff like video. So really, unless e-ink readers start to have color screens and can then do other stuff, you are out of luck until they do.

Further to that, PDF's are not a prized format anyway, and the best ereaders are all about conserving battery life as far as possible, which means a less powerful PCU.

So in reality you have two types of ebook readers.
(1) E-ink, which is good for your eyes and has a long lasting battery.
(2) Tablet which is not the best for your eyes, but has color and support for intensive power requirements, but has a matching shorter battery life dependent on power usage.

So, get a Tablet for PDF's and an E-ink for normal ebooks ... or a tablet only if that is all you can afford.

The right tool for the job.