Forum Posts Feed
Sightly OT: e-readers
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by dan7000
Jan 24, 2011 at 09:41 PM
I lost my Kindle last week. Left it on a plane :(
Of course, the upside is that I get to go shopping for new e-readers! I’m wondering if anyone here has experience and suggestions about whether I should consider an e-reader other than Kindle.
Here’s what I like about kindle:
- lightweight
- very thin
- battery lasts forever
- e-ink seems very easy to read
- purchasing books on the fly no matter where I am, every time I finish a novel.
Here’s what I don’t like:
- no PDF annotation
- terrible PDF rendering and no scrolling
- no ability to copy snippets of text out of a PDF into a bookmark file like you can with e-books.
I’d like a device that I could use both for reading novels *and* for reviewing and copying text out of PDFs for my work. When I got the kindle, I thought I could stop toting around big binders of paper that I read at night and on the weekend, and instead do that all on the kindle. because of the terrible PDF support, this turned out not to be the case.
Best of all worlds, of course, would be the ability to copy text from e-docs and PDFs and sync them to my Evernote account. If anybody knows of a device like that, I’m in.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 24, 2011 at 10:56 PM
dan7000 wrote:
I’m wondering if anyone here has experience and
>suggestions about whether I should consider an e-reader other than Kindle.
I recommend you take a look at the “iPad” and “Beyond the PDF” threads on this forum a few days ago, as there’s been a bit of discussion on there about e-readers and PDFs. I’m also shopping for an e-reader solution, specifically to be able to read and annotate PDFs. I’ve done a bit of research and I’ve concluded that none of the dedicated e-readers on the market are up to the task. So the next best thing seem to be to use a tablet PC with a PDF annotating software. Then the next question is which device and which operating system. What I’ve heard is that the current Android OS (2.1, 2.2) have been designed for phones not for tablets, so they’re not as smooth as iPad’s OS is. Also, I couldn’t find any Android software for reading and annotating PDF that could match the sophistication of GoodReader or PDF Expert on iPad (check out the reviews on Youtube for these). Then there are Windows 7 tablets. However, Win 7 was also not designed for tablets, so what I hear is that it is sluggish, takes up most of the memory, and is not so tablet-user-friendly. Though some of the higher end ones seem decent, but they’re twice the price of the cheapest iPad.
So far I’m drawn to iPad + PDF Expert combination. I suspect the price of iPad 1 will fall dramatically once the 80 or so different tablets that were announced for this year start gradually appearing the market (and once iPad 2 comes out in April).
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 24, 2011 at 11:05 PM
dan7000 wrote:
>Here’s
>what I like about kindle:
>- purchasing books on the fly no matter where I am, every time I
>finish a novel.
P.S. there is a Kindle app for iPad and Windows devices, so you shouldn’t need a Kindle for that. In a way it’s really silly that Amazon ignored PDF users’ needs, as the Kindle sounds like a perfect device for that. Kindle DX would be my first choice if it could properly handle PDFs.
Posted by quant
Jan 25, 2011 at 12:03 AM
For what it’s worth, I’m using viliv s5 at the moment (last half a year), it’s a PC in the pocket (new 340 pounds off ebay).
It doesn’t have multitouch bla bla bla, ... but I can have all the same soft that I have on my standard PC, that means for example, proper PDF annotation software (pdf-xchange), proper indexing software (archivarius) and my knowledge base (UR).
It’s kind of amusing to read some comments that Win 7 or XP is sluggish on tablets when in comparison sth like ipad only just recently discovered what multitasking is.
Anyway, ebook reading:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygsmU154P_o
Posted by quant
Jan 25, 2011 at 12:08 AM
one thing I forgot to mention, viliv s5 (and probably most of the tablets/ipad/...) is very hard to read on sunny day, that means I have to go for a seat that’s in shade in tube/train ;-)